Ultimate Guide To Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY

making your Business Brilliant

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning “Business Continuity” (BC) and “Disaster Recovery” (DR) are two phrases which historically have been thought of as largely mutually exclusive within the IT industry, and indeed businesses as a whole.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery planning

As technology progresses and potential threats to your business increase, BC/DR is increasingly and rightfully being treated as a single entity.

Business Continuity

Together there are a number of elements you need to consider to achieve a truly all-encompassing BC/DR plan. These levels are interdependent and act as foundations for one another.

Whilst it is important to have a contingency plan in place should anything go wrong, given the increasing interdependence of different departments, having plans in silo, isolated within each department is no longer an option.

Whether it stems from telephony, storage, backup, recovery, monitoring or mobile working, it is imperative that you have a framework in place to mitigate the impact of a disaster, that you are able to recover your information and are then able to continue operating your business as usual afterwards.

To help ensure you are able to build the foundations necessary for success in the face of disaster, we have created the 8BWFOFU Ultimate Guide To BC/DR as a reference manual for your business. In this document you will find tips and advice on how to build, monitor and restore a resilient IT and Telecoms infrastructure.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

Politics and Strategies

Business Continuity Plan

Risk Management Business Continuity Plans Validation and Testing Information Technology Recovery Process

Disaster Recovery Plan

Altenative Site Data Backup and Offsite Replication Servers | Storage | Network Infrastructure Layers

Management Layers

Policy Layers

2

Contents 01 BC/DR – WHERE TO EVEN BEGIN? A) What is BC/DR? B) The Importance of Planning

04 CONNECTIVITY A) B) C) D) E)

Broadband MPLS WAN SD-WAN Wireless Leased Line

02 VOICE " # $ % & ' (

Phone Numbers (NGNs) Inbound Routing Inbound Solutions Myriad SIP Hosted PBX 8SC and Unified Communications

03 DATA A) Storage B) Back Up C) Recovery

05 MONITORING " My8BWFOFU # 8BWFOFU Security Assessments

06 ADVICE A) How we do it B) Creating your own BC/DR Plan C) Scenarios

07 CONTACT DETAILS

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

3

01 BC/DR – Where to Even Begin?

A)

What is BC/DR?

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) in essence, is planning for the worst. It is having a plan-B that ensures your business will continue to run as normal in the event of a disaster.

The plan should ensure that all business-critical systems are protected, have resilient failovers and document the necessary steps to recover should disaster strike.

Business Continuity explores the policies and procedures a business adopts to prevent a disaster occurring, making sure the necessary measures are in place to keep things running smoothly at all times. This is a proactive, operational approach which ensures you have fail-safes and a framework in place to protect your businesses critical functions, allowing you to operate as usual with minimal impact or downtime.

Business Continuity represents the activities you need to perform on a regular basis in order to maintain service, consistency and recoverability during a disaster. This needs to be evaluated regularly to ensure that should a disaster strike you are in a position to carry on business as usual – once a disaster occurs it’s too late to implement a plan, so it’s of vital importance it’s in place already.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

4

BC/DR – Where to Even Begin?

A) What is BC/DR?

Disaster Recovery on the other hand, is of course more reactive in nature. The Disaster Recovery aspect of your BC/DR plan is the practical steps put in place following an event- the way you mitigate the disaster allowing you to return to business as usual as quickly as possible. Going back to normal operations in seconds, rather than minutes, hours or in some cases, even days could be a key difference to your business’ bottom line.

The events that trigger the need for a BC/DR plan can of course vary, ranging from a key member of staff being out of the business due to unforeseen circumstances, your team being unable to come in due to adverse weather conditions, the phone system going down, a malware attack occurring on your system, your server room burning down... and pretty much everything in between.

The BC aspect usually focuses on a company as a whole, looking at the interdependence between systems and the measures that can be taken to ensure everything remains unchanged. DR focuses on the technology and infrastructure in place that restores operations and therefore it is vital for you to see them as a combined plan, one that compliments each other and helps you have a system in place for any eventuality.

There are a number of issues that can affect your business at any given time and when something occurs that prevents your business from operating as usual you’ll need to enact plan B, your BC/DR plan.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

5

BC/DR – Where to Even Begin?

B)

B) The Importance of Planning

The Importance of Planning

Fail to plan, plan to fail. As cliché as this expression has become, it’s relevance to BC/DR should not be understated. Technology is an integral part of every business, no matter the size or industry, but technology is fallible. With this knowledge in mind, it is vital you have a “worst case scenario” plan in place.

Once a disaster occurs, regardless of whether it is minor or business crippling, being reactive and scrambling around at the last minute is going to result in downtime to your business, mistakes that could have been avoided and ultimately, a negative effect on your bottom line. If you are acting in the heat of the moment without any guidance, you aren’t going to resolve the issue effectively and efficiently.

Not only is it important you have a plan in place, an often-forgotten step is actually testing that plan. How can you know for sure whether the steps you have in place are going to work unless you test them? Trying, refining, and improving is as important as having a plan in the first place. At 8BWFOFU this is something we observe and have tested (see section 5) and something we can’t stress enough. You need to sit and devise a plan for any eventuality because the chances are, if you can think of it, it will probably occur at some point.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

If you come away with nothing else after reading this, MAKE SURE YOU PLAN and then MAKE SURE YOU TEST THE PLAN!

6

02 $ % & ' ( ) *

Voice

Phone Numbers (NGNs) Inbound Routing Inbound Solutions Myriad SIP Hosted PBX :SC and Unified Communications

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

7

02 A)

Voice

Phone Numbers (NGNs) i) What are NGNs?

Traditionally your business phone number is associated with your office location. When you move into a building you are given that number and whilst you can go through the process of changing it, you are pretty much stuck with it.

For companies with a single office location, who have been or intend to stay there for a significant amount of time, this is often not seen as an issue. But what if you can’t make it into the office or your office is inaccessible?

For modern businesses, who promote flexible working, who have intentions of growth, or who need to move offices as their business scales, having a fixed number can be a hinderance.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

88

02 Voice

A) Phone Numbers (NGNs) i) What are NGNs?

Introducing Non-Geographic Numbers

Types of non-geographic number include:

Non-Geographic Numbers (NGNs) are telephone numbers which are not assigned by geographic location, instead they are virtual numbers which you can control and take with you – no matter where you move in the UK.

0800: Freephone numbers that include no charge for the caller. (You pay the cost of the calls).

That means that as your business grows and scales and your customers become used to a number, they don’t have the hassle of learning a new one, nor will all of your marketing material become out of date. NGNs can be mapped to any existing phone number, including international ones, allowing you to conduct business in a way that suits you whilst keeping everything simple and efficient for your customers. In the UK, NGNs will usually begin with 08 or 03 and will act just like any other number, affording you services such as call routing, handling, and voicemail.

0845: Local call numbers that are charged at a local rate, regardless of where the caller is in the country. (Often used by public sector organisations and customer service departments).

0844: Numbers where the customer pays a fixed rate regardless of where they’re calling from. (You don’t pay to receive calls).

0870: Internationally accessible national UK rate number.

0871: Revenue-generating premium number where the tariff will include a margin for revenue sharing.

09: Premium rate numbers that are used for competitions, information lines, voting systems, and entertainment services.

03: Numbers that charge the same as calls made to geographic numbers. (No revenue sharing available).

Local Numbers: Numbers with a geographic area code that can be operated from any location. E.g. A London number for a Manchester based office, giving your business the appearance of larger, more geographically dispersed organisation.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

9

02 Voice

A)

Phone Numbers (NGNs) ii) How can NGNs help you achieve BC/DR?

So how would an NGN play a part in creating your BC/DR plan? First of all, the flexibility an NGN affords removes the headache of moving offices and trying to transfer the number with you. If you have to change your number and effectively start again, this can be laborious, can lead to outages in service when transitioning, and creates confusion for everyone involved.

Furthermore, you will likely have to change all of your marketing materials, which should be quick across your digital platforms (although there is always the potential for missing instances of your number) but all of your printed material will automatically become void and useless. This can be a costly and confusing effort, which can be avoided by adopting NGNs. To help with your Business Continuity, keeping the same number throughout your business’ journey avoids any confusion and means no matter what happens, your business is ready to go. Instead of changing your number, all you need to do is change the number that your NGN points to via a web portal. It’s as simple as that.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

A) Phone Numbers (NGNs) ii) How can NGNs help you achieve BC/DR?

Now, as your business scales and you have multiple offices, you can give the appearance of a single, connected entity and provide your customers confidence as well as a single point of contact regardless of where your offices are located.

Calls that you take via NGNs can then be manipulated to suit the needs of your business, whether this means distributing them amongst any of the departments or to specific agents across various sites (including home workers). You can point your NGNs to various other telephone numbers including, NGNS or mobiles meaning you can be responsive to your customers – no matter where you are.

By no longer being bound by the geographic location of your number, should disaster strike you can quickly divert your number to another one. This means that business can carry on as usual externally, whilst you resolve the issue internally. If one office goes down, it need not affect how you conduct business.

Finally, with a non-geographic number, you can divert your NGN to a new voicemail service or number if the existing in-house system or landline develops a fault. That way you’re never likely to miss a call, and you’re always in control of your calls.

Click here to get in touch!

10

02 Voice

B)

Inbound Routing i) What is Inbound Routing?

With the proliferation of the internet, the way in which we conduct business has changed.

Businesses are increasingly innovating the ways in which they engage with customers with tools such as chatbots, as well as placing more importance on their website and digital means of communicating with customers.

In some instances, a quick message about a non-pressing issue will suffice, however in many cases you simply cannot replace the traditional phone call, particularly for urgent or complex enquires.

B) Inbound Routing i) What is Inbound Routing?

This improves efficiency internally, minimises call loss and ultimately reduces potential frustration for customers and prospects when they call in to your business. Inbound Call Routing also allows you to create queues where you can monitor wait times to ensure teams are dealing with them in a timely manner, allowing you to benchmark and improve your service.

By investing in a Call Routing System you can revolutionise your business by providing a streamlined and seamless service for customers, whilst simultaneously balancing workloads internally which leads to greater efficiency, resilience, flexibility, and customer service.

In fact, a survey conducted by Fast Company (see full report) found that 46% of us check our phones as soon as we wake up, which rises to 66% in millennials. As such, ignoring phone calls, or not effectively dealing with them can serious harm your business.

Inbound Call Routing is the vehicle which allows you to control and manage your incoming calls, allowing you to balance the workload between the right teams and ensure that calls go to the right people as they come in.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

11

02 Voice

B)

Inbound Routing ii) How can Inbound Routing help you achieve BC/DR?

Without an inbound call solution in place, there are a number of ways you can take calls. You may have an IVR that directs calls automatically, a receptionist who directs them manually, you may drop a caller directly into call queues/ring groups and in some cases, it may just be first come first served.

B) Inbound Routing ii) How can Inbound Routing help you achieve BC/DR?

During times where the system is down, calls can be re-routed automatically without the need to rely on network operators which minimises the downtime of your system, keeping everything in house. Furthermore, to achieve Business Continuity, call plans can be remotely activated using an online portal and app, once again minimising downtime.

During major outages, in the interim you can put a failsafe on your system which automatically updates customers on the progress of the situation when they ring your business, mitigating frustration whilst you rectify the situation.

Anything you can do to remove the human element out of the equation is already a great step towards ensuring effective Business Continuity. By taking the risk out of relying on personnel to direct calls by using an inbound call management service you can automate the process and direct the calls to the right person in the first instance and guarantee that your business runs effectively, no matter the situation. A centralised control system can be used for daily call management, as well as in times of disruption, ensuring that you are able to keep stability in your business.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

12

02 Voice

C)

Inbound Solutions i) What are Inbound Solutions?

Inbound provides solutions to everyday business problems and helps you maintain the highest levels of customer service, regardless of what may be impacting the business.

Inbound sales and service calls are central to most business operations and any interruption to receiving them can have a huge impact on customer experience, satisfaction, and lost revenue. Downtime can lead to poor customer experience, lack of consumer confidence and potentially high financial losses.

C) Inbound Solutions i) What are Inbound Solutions?

Email: Ability to send email messages including Missed Call Alerts, Call Recording and Voicemail files, Faxes.

Fax to Email: Received faxes can be delivered via email.

IVR: Ability to create single key multi-level Interactive Voice Response menu systems, deliver options to destinations, choose from a variety of call distribution options, deliver calls to voicemail, and configure time, day and date settings.

Mid Call Divert: Mid Call Divert allows the party receiving the call (A-party) to forward the caller (B-party) onto a third party (C-party).

Types of Inbound call solutions include:

Queue: Network based call queuing, calls can be delivered to destinations based on Round Robin, Random, Bounce, Percentage or First Last Exit distribution.

Call Recording: Call recordings delivered via email in MP3, WMA, or WAV format.

Voicemail: Choose to receive the voicemail message in MP3, WMA or WAV format via email or collected via telephone services (or both).

Call Whisper: The receiving party is presented with custom audio when they answer the phone, they can then answer the call appropriately based on what they hear (e.g. for agents answering multiple calls for different organisations).

CLI Routing: Route a call based on a caller’s CLI (telephone number) or telephone keypad Input.

Conference: Create a conference service without the need for rooms and PINs. Distribution: Call flow can be controlled based on Round Robin, Random, Bounce or Percentage distribution.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

DCA: Dynamic Call Agent (DCA) is a simple solution to manage inbound calls quickly and effectively by creating agents and skillsets.

The agents simply sign-in/out to manage calls, which are distributed to the skillsets allowing enhanced distribution and call management with minimal effort.

Time of day: Set call routing patterns based on day or time of day.

13

02 Voice

C)

C) Inbound Solutions ii) How can Inbound Solutions help you achieve BC/DR?

Inbound Solutions ii) How can Inbound Solutions help you achieve BC/DR?

Diverts to alternative offices, or agents can be activated and call plans and voicemail announcements changed in real time, from any location, using a web interface.

This allows you to keep in touch with your customers during a crisis. Additional features such as recorded voice messages being sent to email ensures you won’t miss any important calls.

The telephone is the lifeline of a lot of businesses, so it pays to have a plan in place for when there are disruptions. It’s not just the loss of productivity or sales, many companies struggle to recover from the damage to their reputation after such incidents.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

14

02 Voice

D)

Myriad i) What is it?

Myriad is a feature-rich Inbound Call Management service which gives you complete control of your inbound services and the ability to truly deliver on your customer service promises.

The platform boasts a wealth of call features including; routing, which allows users to create individual plans per inbound number; route according to priority, with profit-making calls going directly to your key agents, and alternative call handling rules for specific times/dates. For more complex needs, help is on hand to help you create the right routing path. Of course, the Blacklisting/Whitelisting feature means some of these needs can be bypassed as you are able to divert or block specified numbers from your key routing plans. Likewise, should you wish to fast-track high priority calls, you can Whitelist them to side-step your default settings.

D) Myriad i) What is it?

For those companies handling large volumes of important calls, Myriad includes a ‘Hunt group’ feature which means that if customers are routed to an agent handling another call, the customer can be sent to the next available agent in a defined group until the call is answered. There’s also a Multi-level IVR option (Interactive Voice Response), giving your callers the ability to self-serve; letting them leave a message or route to your next available agent, according to the nature and urgency of their call.

You are able to deploy a queueing function, so that you can make sure every call is answered, while comfort messages ensure realistic expectations are set and your customers feel valued. Not only can calls be queued, they can be recorded as well. This allows for easy quality checks and analysis of your current and historic service levels, with up to six months Cloud storage capacity as standard.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

15

02 Voice

D)

Myriad ii) How can Myriad help with BC/DR?

Myriad’s carrier-class, network-based platform, Inbound Call Management, bolsters your business’ BC/DR plan by having no single point of failure.

Operating from two different and highly secure data centres, the platform is bolstered by an array of redundancies, both physical and software-based.

Furthermore, users can enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing that their inbound call handling is backed up by 99.99% availability and resilient SLAs for core inbound services.

D) Myriad ii) How can Myriad help with BC/DR?

For example, if there’s a power outage at your main office, you can instantly redirect calls to another DDI at another location to maintain Business Continuity. Or is call agents can’t get to their fixed location, you can enable them to access the system from anywhere, on any device. In the event that you find yourselves struggling to handle a sudden increase in call volumes, queuing and routing calls makes sure every customer call gets through to your PBX, helping to protect revenue and making sure nobody feels unvalued.

Keeping customer contact points operational at all times is vital for the vast majority of businesses. This is particularly true for those businesses who experience seasonal peaks.

When contact points go down, the customer experience is badly damaged. In serious cases, confidence in your brand can dip to irretrievable levels which has a direct impact on the bottom line. Through the Myriad platform, you are afforded the ability to create multiple BC/DR plans so if disaster strikes, customer satisfaction can remain resolutely intact.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

16

02

E) SIP

Voice

SIP i) What is SIP?

In order to take calls you of course need telephone lines. Businesses wanting to take multiple concurrent calls, for a long time, have traditionally been reliant on ISDN. ISDN allows for more data to be transferred and in a digital form. ISDN lines, typically made up of 2 lines, transfers data digitally and converts it into sound, allowing you to hear the call and operate your business.

The time to migrate to an alternative is more and more pressing.

Want to know more? Click here VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

Session initiated Protocol (or SIP) is delivered over data lines.

Instead of being purely telephony lines, they also incorporate the internet as well, allowing data and voice to be merged into a single channel. In doing this, you are able to better conduct video and audio multicast meetings, instant messaging conferences, VoIP calls, and of course traditional calls. Essentially you improve quality, speed, and efficiency by changing from ISDN. Furthermore, many businesses will find significant cost savings by making the switch.

PRI

PSTN Public switched telephone network

Data centre

Your office

Your office

On-site ISDN box

On-site router

Your phone system (PBX)

Handsets

Your phone system (PBX)

Handsets

SIP trunking

However, as we increasingly need to transfer more data, requirements have become more complex than ever before and the need for speed and quality is growing. In such a fast paced and ever evolving technology landscape, ISDN’s time is limited.

In fact, BT have announced their plans to migrate all customers to an IP network by 2025, switching off the company’s ISDN network. As the leading business communications provider, this change will affect millions of businesses across the UK.

In steps SIP...

ISDN channels

E)

i) What is SIP?

17

02 Voice

E) SIP i) What is SIP?

Another great advantage that SIP offers your business that ISDN doesn’t, is that it allows you to have a non-geographic telephony number. That means that instead of having to forward calls and rent NGN numbers, with SIP the NGN is your number. You keep your number and take it with you, affording you flexibility as your business grows.

SIP trunking gives you flexibility and scalability that legacy phone systems simply can’t compete with. It offers similar benefits to Cloud computing; the ability to scale quickly without over-purchasing; handle multiple calls, and you can add or remove trunks as needed.

The advantages of SIP significantly outweigh ISDN. The switch instantly creates a better experience for your staff and customers whilst potentially saving you money. We are fast moving into a world where connecting calls via the internet will become the norm and SIP provides a strong option due to its flexibility and the way in which it can be customised to your business.

Click here to get in touch!

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

18

02 Voice

E)

SIP ii) How can SIP help you achieve BC/DR?

Whilst many will see the instant failsafe that back up or storage can bring their business in the event of a disaster, a reliable and resilient telecoms platform is also just as important to incorporate – particularly if calls make up the lifeblood of your business.

ISDNs have very limited flexibility and scalability meaning they only have a single point of failure; if they go down, so do your phone lines, so does your business. Moving to SIP moves away from the reliance on a single instance, giving you more options should something go wrong.

E) SIP ii) How can SIP help you achieve BC/DR?

Many SIP trunking providers will go one step further in protecting your business by offering some built in Disaster Recovery services.

For example, some providers, like 8BWFOFU, will offer active standby, where an additional SIP trunk is provisioned to an alternative office so that if disaster strikes, telecoms traffic can automatically be re-routed through the second trunk, maintaining your service.

Clearly then, the best way to protect the calls and communications to your company is SIP. If you want to be truly prepared for a disaster, having a flexible system, which has a backup line and the ability to monitor and change at a moment’s notice, SIP is an excellent solution. Furthermore, with ISDN being switched off in the next few years anyway, the time is now to start reaping the benefits by incorporating SIP into your BC/DR plan.

By incorporating the internet as part of your telephony monitoring is far easier than traditional analogue or ISDN lines. You can control the bandwidth, route calls as required and track performance. This helps with your Business Continuity by giving you complete control of your calls.

In the event that a disaster happens, by having full control of flexible lines you can re-route your inbound calls to mobiles, or a different office instantly, meaning that there is unlikely to be much downtime on inbound calls, and customers won’t even notice. Once the issue is resolved, you can just revert back to usual so no matter what, you will be able to speak to customers without interruption.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

19

02 Voice

F)

F) Hosted PBX i) What is Hosted PBX?

Hosted PBX i) What is Hosted PBX?

Cloud technology is revolutionising the way we do business. Gone are the days where every business needs to have a noisy server sat in a cupboard gathering dust.

Instead, many are already confidently using applications such as DropBox and OneDrive to store information vital to their businesses. For many, Cloud simply means storage.

Whilst this is certainly an important use of the technology, there are many more uses that businesses are starting to utilise.

View Video

In telecoms, Cloud technology has been utilised to develop what is known as Hosted PBX – which can also be referred to as Cloud PBX, Hosted Telephony, Virtual PBX, VoIP...the list is long, but the core product is the same.

Hosted PBX is a way for businesses to manage their telephony in the Cloud, giving them a solution which is versatile, resilient, cost effective and rich in features.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

20

02 Voice

F)

Hosted PBX ii) How does Hosted PBX help with BC/DR?

Business Continuity is a critical means of ensuring that you can maintain operations when factors conspire that could bring your business to a standstill.

It is commonplace now for companies to employ Business Continuity solutions for their data and network systems, but phone system Business Continuity is often not afforded the same importance. If your customers, suppliers, and employees can’t reach you, how long can you remain in business? Hosted PBX eliminates any type of loss associated with being out of contact with key stakeholders as it instantly implements an exact clone of an existing phone system the moment a failure occurs.

F) Hosted PBX ii) How does Hosted PBX help with BC/DR?

Some complications however, are more serious than simple hardware crashes. Fires, floods, vandalism, and natural disasters do more than just destroy equipment, they make your business premises inaccessible. Recovering from such events can also take weeks or even months. A Disaster Recovery phone system allows you to stay in business during even this scale of interruption. It is able to do this because advanced continuity systems like Hosted PBX are on constant standby in the Cloud, configured to take on any feature or customisation your business needs. Employees can be up and running on their Disaster Recovery system and talking to clients in real time, not just responding to messages.

Hosted PBX failover happens within seconds and requires no human intervention. Should everything else grind to a halt, if your phone system remains active, your employees can keep your business running from mobile phones or any other line from an alternate and safe location. No matter what happens to your business’ main office location, as long as your employees are safe and can relocate, Hosted PBX ensures that inbound callers likely won’t even know there has been a complication.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

21

02 Voice

*

G) Wavenet Seamless Connect and Cloud Unified Communications

:DYHQHW Seamless Connect and Cloud Unified Communications L What is :DYHQHW Seamless Connect and Unified Communications?

The way we communicate has developed significantly in the last few years. We are using more and more platforms and; channels than ever before, we are expected to respond quicker, at all times of the day and no matter where we are, or on what device.

With this increasing pressure to do more with less, coupled with customers’ ability to contact through a plethora of channels, having access to information is critical to your success in a highly competitive world. If you use a range of channels, independently from one another, then a Unified Communications solution will revolutionize how you do business.

The ways you can communicate with your customers, prospects and indeed internal teams are vast, ranging from real time methods such as phone calls, video conferences, VoIP (to name a few), as well as asynchronously through channels such as email, social media, SMS (and many more).

Unified Communications (UC) is the catalyst to blurring the lines between these channels. The key objective of UC is to unite the various channels of

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

i) What is Wavenet Seamless Connect and Unified Communications?

communication and streamline them into a single offering giving you mobility and flexibility unlike ever before. It enhance your businesses communication, collaboration and productivity capabilities allowing your team to work more efficiently, better serve your customers, and demonstrably benefit your bottom line.

The options available to communicate have increased and improved, why shouldn’t the way you access them change and improve too? If you get a call on your desk phone, but you are away from your desk, get that call mirrored on your mobile. If you can’t pick up because you’re busy, push the call to voicemail and either access it on your phone later or get it through your email, notifying you of it either audibly or in written format. If it is an important call, forward the email to your CRM and create a support ticket which notifies a colleague that the call needs following up and win that business by collaborating seamlessly and effectively with minimal effort.

Having all of your communications in a single solution is a great way of streamlining internally, gaining competitive advantage over rivals who don’t utilise a UC platform, or compete more effectively with those who do. If however, you want to truly excel your business, adopting a Cloud solution and bringing your systems, your data, and your communications together into a single, streamlined platform is the next step change for success.

Want to know more? Click here 22

02 Voice

G) Wavenet Seamless Connect and Cloud Unified Communications

By migrating to the Cloud you can mobilise your business, scale as you grow, control your expenditure, and work anytime and anywhere. Cloud is the future and it is no longer a case of if businesses will move, but when. The benefits of moving to Cloud speak for themselves, however for some, the prospect of migrating their entire business, let alone core functionality can be a daunting prospect – particularly as communication is the lifeblood of most organisations.

i) What is Wavenet Seamless Connect and Unified Communications?

With most businesses already operating on Office 365 licences as standard, it means that the initial investment is small because the infrastructure is already there within your business. 8SC is the future of communication because it is your bridge to the Cloud, packaged in a simple, affordable offering.

Moving to the Cloud is definitely something all business should be considering, but if you aren’t ready to make the full switch there are other options available to you.

8BWFOFU have created the perfect bridge for those looking to move at a pace that suits them and within a framework that is instantly recognisable – introducing 8BWFOFU Seamless Connect.

8BWFOFU Seamless Connect (8SC) is our own in-house solution that allows you to cherry pick the best bits of your existing systems and functionality and combine them with the best bits of Cloud. This allows you to create a flexible solution that works for your business. Better still, the product has been designed with Skype for Business as the user interface, which almost everyone has used before in the past making the employee adoption rate high in those who choose to migrate.

View Video

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

23

02 Voice

*

G) Wavenet Seamless Connect and Cloud Unified Communications

:DYHQHW Seamless Connect and Cloud Unified Communications LL How can Unified Communications help you with your BC/DR plans?

Communication is the lifeblood of any business, no matter the industry. Whether that’s talking to prospects, customers, suppliers – and of course internally – if your communication breaks down it can have severe effects on your ability to conduct business.

This can lead to damaged reputation, inability to serve customers, and ultimately loss of earnings. Integrating a Cloud Unified Communications solution into your business is one of the best ways you can achieve a robust BC/DR plan. By its very nature, UC gives you flexibility and mobility unlike a traditional on-premise solution. Should a disaster happen on site, loss of hardware doesn’t mean loss of business.

ii) How can Unified Communications help you with your BC/DR plans?

Having a Cloud UC platform integrated into your business means that if your on-premise systems go down for whatever reason, because your communications and office are virtualised in the Cloud, they’ll still be available as long as you can connect to the internet. This can be vital, particularly if a contact centre plays a key role in your business. With UC you won’t miss any calls and can continue to give your customers the level of service they have come to expect.

By having all of your communication linked allows you can monitor presence of staff members, checking whether they are online and available so there is never any doubt over who you can and can’t get in touch with when disaster strikes.

If a disaster does occur, the ability to contact anyone in your organisation, no matter where they are and what device they have access to, means you can relay messages quickly and efficiently. In such an event, being able to talk to your colleagues goes a long way to mitigating initial impact.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

24

03

Data

A) Storage B) Back Up C) Recovery

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

25

03 A)

Storage i) Pure

Data

As a business grows, so does its inventory of data. Data in the form of documents, e-mails, presentations, graphics, databases, video and audio files and spreadsheets is the oxygen most companies need to survive.

This information, coupled with the applications that protect your infrastructure, require a lot of disk space. Ensuring this data and these applications can be comfortably and securely stored and operated quickly becomes a priority.

Traditionally, off-site storage would be housed on large racks, stacked high in sprawling data centres. Today, the move is towards hardware which, though physically smaller, boasts enhanced storage capacity along with a range of extra features. These ‘blades’ as they are commonly known, allow businesses to access next-generation storage solutions serving the demands of even the most data-hungry organisations.

8BWFOFU offer our customers access to Pure Storage which provides fast and seamless deployment and multi-workload consolidation whilst fully maintaining performance and efficiency. The Pure FlashArray delivers speed and reduces the overall data footprint in a future-proof platform, whilst the FlashBlade expands the all-flash solution with a scale-out system that enables all organisations to leverage big data more powerfully.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

26

03 Data

A)

Storage ii) How can Pure help with your BC/DR?

Some businesses still keep their data and applications stored on on-site devices and servers, justifying their decision by claiming that they prefer to have their infrastructure where they can see it. There are inherent problems with this from a BC/DR perspective.

Firstly, by having all company data and applications stored on an on-site server, in the event the server becomes compromised, either because of malicious attack or physical disaster, there is no back-up. As the server ceases to operate, so does the business.

Secondly, post-GDPR, businesses must be able to demonstrate that customers’ data is secure. By opting for Cloud storage, not only can they be safe in the knowledge that their data is protected by next-generation defences, the burden of maintaining GDPR-compliant levels of security is alleviated as much of this is overseen by the data centre itself. Solutions such as Pure Storage are fortified by multiple levels of protection, both physical and digital so if either your offices, or the data centre itself are compromised, your data and applications remain safe.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

A) Storage ii) How can Pure help with your BC/DR?

Pure Storage helps with BC/DR by accelerating business transformation in ways previously unimagined. The software-driven storage technology combines with a customer-friendly model which drives business via dramatic increases in performance and efficiency at lower costs.

Pure Storage FlashArray is amongst the simplest, fastest, and most elegant technology in the data centre. The solution is ideal for the move toward big data and for performance-intensive workloads such as Cloud computing, database systems, desktop and server virtualisation, real-time analytics, and resilient storage capability. With Pure’s industry leading Satmetrix-certified NPS score of 79, Pure customers are some of the happiest in the world and include large and mid-size organisations across a range of industries: Cloud-based software and service providers, consumer web, education, energy, financial services, governments, healthcare, manufacturing, media, retail, and telecommunications.

27

03 Data

B)

Back Up i) Rubrik

The volume of data that has been created in recent years already dwarfs that which has been produced since mankind first started carving images into the walls of caves.

Not only are we producing far more data than we used to but we’re storing more of it than ever before. This presents unique challenges in ensuring that this data can be securely backed up.

Up until fairly recently, tape backup was the primary form of backup within data centres. These data storage devices read and write data on a magnetic strip and although they have their merits, they’re giving way to disk. Though mobile and cost-effective, tape backup has disadvantages which are impossible to ignore as disk-based solutions continue to evolve and improve.

B) Back Up i) Rubrik

Then there are the issues around access speed, as tape drives can take several minutes to load, mount and position before a single byte can be read. Moreover, the move away from tape to diskbased backup has been compounded by worries over the security risks of manual tape handling. In the US, there have been several high-profile legal cases connected to the loss of backup tapes storing personal data.

8BWFOFU can supply our customers with the highly sophisticated disk-based Rubrik Data Management software which simplifies backup and recovery for both physical and virtual environments. It eliminates the need for cumbersome legacy tape-based backup software by integrating data orchestration, catalogue management, and de-duplicated storage into a simple plug-and-play appliance that is effortlessly scalable. It allows for an expansion of your enterprise infrastructure to the Cloud with an on-demand, scale-out software fabric.

When comparing tape and disk with regards to backup, the first hurdle tape falls at is reliability. Tape drives have many complex moving parts which are susceptible to breakage and are vulnerable to dust particles within the data centre environment which damage the magnetic strip, and so too the data stored on it. Tape drives also regularly start and stop as data streams from the backup server come and go. These issues conspire to cause wear and tear in a standard tape-based backup environment and goes some way to explaining why reliability levels often drop in busy environments after only a few years.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

28

03 Data

B)

B) Back Up ii) How can Rubrik support your BC/DR strategy?

Back Up ii) How can Rubrik support your BC/DR strategy?

Businesses waste too much time manually managing backup procedures, unaware that this labour-intensive task can be fully automated.

With Rubrik, important files can be searched for as easily as one might search for a page on the web and is designed to work across modern on-premise, data centre, and Cloud applications and technologies.

Within one software fabric, Rubrik’s Cloud Data Management delivers backup, replication and DR, search, archive, analytics, and copy data management for your on-premise, hybrid-Cloud and Cloud-native servers, services, and applications. With just a click, your users can instantly recover Virtual Machines (VMs) or SQL databases by booting the virtual machine disk file or SQL file directly on the Rubrik system. No additional storage provisioning is required.

View Video

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

29

03 Data

C)

C) Recovery i) RaaS

Recovery i) RaaS

:DYHQHW’s primary focus is to offer your business a portfolio of best-of-breed solutions and services that will enable you to deliver upon a ‘Cloud First’ strategy.

We also endeavour to provide these services in a way that is financially manageable. In keeping with these commitments, we have developed Rubrik as a Service (RaaS).

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

30

03 Data

C)

C) Recovery ii) How can RaaS help with your BC/DR approach?

Recovery ii) How can RaaS help with your BC/DR approach?

When the unthinkable happens and disaster strikes, the first concern most businesses have is whether critical data has been permanently compromised.

On learning that it hasn’t (hopefully!), they then want to know how quickly their infrastructure and core data and applications can be made available again.

In a BC/DR context, RaaS ensures that disaster striking doesn’t necessarily mean an agonising wait for core systems to be usable again. Indeed, RaaS boasts outstanding speed of recovery with data able to be retrieved not in hours, or even minutes, but in seconds. The software is also accessible via an elegant, user-friendly interface so retrieval of core data can be managed in-house.

It is common now for businesses to prefer to consume services via simple, predictable, and cost-effective monthly subscriptions. In order to meet the data protection needs and consumption preference of our customers, the 8BWFOFU Rubrik-as-a-Service offering delivers all the benefits of the Rubrik solution, but without the significant CapEx investment. It is available to customers ranging from 5TB to multiple petabytes and can be delivered across any number of sites.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

31

04 Connectivity A) Broadband B) MPLS C) WAN D) SD-WAN E) Wireless Leased Line

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

32

04 Connectivity One of the most critical aspects of BC/DR is ensuring uninterrupted internet connectivity.

Downtime is inevitable when it comes to wired solutions, which means at some unknown point, your business is going to experience an unplanned outage.

It could be a weather-related event or human error, but it is going to occur. Your BC/DR plan should include a solid backup plan for this possibility, one that will reduce recovery time and keep your business up and running even in the direst of circumstances.

Downtime leads to lost sales, decreased productivity and other related costs and expenses. In terms of threats to your business, loss of connectivity is one of the most serious.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

33

04

Connectivity

A)

A) Broadband i) What is broadband?

Broadband i) What is Broadband?

Substituting the unreliable, slow, and noisy dial-up as the standard means of connecting to the internet, broadband is a form of high-speed internet connection which is prevalent in homes and offices the world over.

It is available in all kinds of different packages from ADSL, to ethernet, to 3G and 4G mobile alternatives.

Much like a telephone line, a broadband connection is always on and can be accessed at any time of day or night. However, unlike its predecessor dial-up, broadband can be used even if the phone line is in use. Frequencies are split into channels so users can be operating the phone lines on one channel, whilst others access broadband on another. One function needn’t give way to the other.

The most common form of broadband is ADSL where the connection is delivered along phone lines. Also widely used though fibre-optic alternatives which boast significantly faster upload and download speeds. Then there’s 3G, 4G, and soon 5G mobile broadband connections which possess speed and reliability and deliver both wirelessly.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

34

04

Connectivity

A)

A) Broadband ii) How can Broadband support your BC/DR strategy?

Broadband ii) How can Broadband support your BC/DR strategy?

A high-speed connection is essential for efficient day-to-day operations such as using Cloud based tools, IP telephony, applications, and file transfers.

With a dependable, super-fast broadband connection a business can take full advantage of Cloud-based tools to boost productivity, improve service quality and increase growth.

Fibre optic broadband, for example, ensures sufficient bandwidth for a large number of employees without compromising speed during busy times, facilitating an uninterrupted flow of communication and quality of service to your customers.

Although initial costs can be higher than standard internet lines, it’s only when you are without a connection for 2-3 days that you realise the cost of poor quality internet - be that through missed sales or unhappy customers.

Offering access to the business networks and Cloud platforms, powered by broadband, improves flexibility - meaning multiple users can share a secure workspace and collaborate on projects from any location. With useful applications, you can quickly back-up your data remotely, ensuring peace of mind and secure, easy retrieval of documents.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

35

04

Connectivity

B)

MPLS i) What is an MPLS?

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), which is arguably entering its twilight years with the advent of SD-WAN, is a method of speeding up connectivity bypassing information and data across a network based on short path labels.

This method allows for packet information to be forwarded at Layer 3 (the routing level). It is here that it is then labelled in the service provider’s network. All the subsequent routing switches perform packet forwarding based on those labels, rather than actually examining the packets themselves, which means data is passed faster and more effectively on your network. The labels predetermine the paths that the packets will follow. The paths themselves are called label-switched paths (LSPs) and allow service providers to decide the most effective way for traffic to flow in a private or public network.

B) MPLS i) What is an MPLS?

With service providers owning the connectivity and predetermining paths, quality of service can be improved by allowing you to better understand your network so SLAs can be created based on traffic latency, jitter, packet loss, and downtime.

Whilst SD-WAN offers more control, performance insights and better cost reductions, the biggest advantage that MPLS brings is that it is a completely private network owned by you as a business. All of the devices connected are part of their own, self-contained ecosystem which cannot be accessed from the outside. This gives you complete control of your network and means you can utilise it effectively in your business in a way that is unique and suits how you work.

Want to know more? Click here VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

36

04

Connectivity

B)

B) MPLS ii) How can MPLS help you achieve BC/DR readiness?

MPLS ii) How can MPLS help you achieve BC/DR readiness?

Whilst the market trends suggest SD-WAN adoption is inevitable, there are still a number of businesses that it is not suitable for yet. For those businesses, MPLS still offers a robust solution which still offers a great foundation for their BC/DR plans.

The key reason MPLS can help you achieve a solid BC/DR plan is because of the fact it is a secure, private network accessible only by your business. This means the opportunity for outside interference is slim to none. Hackers won’t be able to access your information because your network is not reliant on a public internet connection.

From the outset your business is far more secure and limited to your business.

With your MPLS being unique to your business, you will have greater control and flexibility in terms of re-routing traffic. If a sever goes down or there is a bottle neck in traffic, the operator can divert the traffic to help mitigate its impact on your business.

The fact that an MPLS is a private network is a double edge sword in many respects. Whilst the fact that outside interference is minimal - so from a BC/DR perspective, hacking opportunities are limited, should anything major go wrong, your entire business could be completely wiped out until the issue is resolved. If you take a Cloud or IP solution, you will be able to isolate the issue quickly and rely on remote support.

MPLS could require significantly more development time and this could have severely detrimental effects on your business.

That being said, if you adopt a Cloud or IP based solution, these can be monitored, maintained, and upgraded regularly. For MPLS which already can be a costly exercise in the first place – costs remain uncapped as the requirements are unique to your business and are hard to benchmark, particularly as specialist, on site knowledge is required.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

37

04

Connectivity

C)

C) WAN i) What is a WAN?

WAN i) What is a WAN?

Before we look at Wide Area Networks (WANs) it would probably best to start with Local Area Networks (LAN) because they are intrinsically linked.

A LAN is a group of computers which all run off the same communication line or all access the same server via a wireless link. The most common manifestation of a LAN is of course an office or school, but essentially any cluster of computers which share the same connection (and usually the same peripherals, such as printers) will create a LAN. The number of users accessing a LAN can range from just two, up to several hundred but it is essential a self-contained ecosystem with mutual dependency.

Wide Area Networks (WANs) are then the mechanism which connects a number of LANs together across a geographically disperse area, expanding that ecosystem beyond a single building.

The extent of a WAN can vary whether this be across multiple offices in the same region, in different parts of the country or even internationally. It is through a WAN that you can localise your connectivity into a single network, creating an internal private system which means communication within your organisation becomes easier, faster, and cheaper. Furthermore, WANs will help improve efficiency and speed within your business because they give you significantly more control around connectivity. No longer will you need

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

to rely on external networks which are unsecure. Instead you have complete visibility meaning you can achieve reliability and monitor the performance of your network over time. If you know the strength and reliability of your network you will be able to provide customers with accurate SLAs and you will be able to ensure you don’t set unrealistic expectations with your customers.

By incorporating a WAN into your business, you eliminate the need to treat each office as a siloed entity. You will be able to benefit from your own ecosystem whereby you no longer need to install the same application server, firewall or other resource across multiple locations. Instead, your machines will all interact and communicate with each other making information sharing much more efficient.

38

04

Connectivity

C)

WAN ii) How can you utilise Wide Area Networks to help with BC/DR?

WAN infiltration is high across almost all verticals and therefore the maintenance and protection of the network is of vital importance, if this goes down it can have severely detrimental effects to your business, inhibiting your ability to conduct business both internally and externally.

C) WAN ii) How can you utilise Wide Area Networks to help with BC/DR?

Whilst there are a number of options available to help make your WAN more resilient, one of the key questions you should ask yourself before you begin is ‘what is the likelihood of an outage and what sort of impact would it have on my business?’ For the vast majority, the effect would be severe but for others who run multiple points of connectivity, there need not be such a vast investment into a whole resiliency package.

In particular, many business-critical systems and operations are conducted through connectivity via the WAN, therefore if this drops your business will likely come to a grinding halt until these are resolved. For example, if we take email, which acts as a critical form of communication for pretty much every business, there is a 75% chance that over the course of 12 months there will be an unplanned outage to service (see full document). In this survey respondents reported that outages lasted from 2 minutes all the way to 120 hours, with the average being 32 hours. That is a significant period of time to lose a business-critical method of communication. Whilst internet providers are continuously making improvements to resilience and connectivity to deliver consistent service, if a disaster occurs that effects your business there is very little they can do to support. For this reason you need to take your own steps towards creating an effective BC/DR plan.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

39

04

Connectivity

C) WAN ii) How can you utilise Wide Area Networks to help with BC/DR?

Whilst there is little you can do to control the continuity of service from a single ISP over a WAN link, the easiest solution to deal with WAN reliability and resiliency - which is also cost effective - is utilising a specialist WAN Optimization Controller (WOC). A WOC acts as a link load balancer, as well as a failover, creating a back-up connection whilst simultaneously giving you more visibility of performance at all times. By diversifying the links provisioned over varied physical and logical paths you can greatly reduce downtime should an issue arise, giving you consistency and peace of mind. A WAN link controller can immediately detect WAN link failures and you can automatically set it to switch to the available channel, which of course minimises downtime.

Furthermore, you can use it to utilise all available bandwidth which means you get the most for your money from the outset, improving your business performance.

Beyond a WOC, 3G and 4G data services provide a cost-effective Disaster Recovery backup but can suffer from congestion as a shared medium. This is why 8BWFOFU are advocates of WAN optimisation, it ensures that applications consume as little bandwidth as possible and can operate effectively with the little bandwidth on offer from 3G and 4G. SD-WAN is the option you should look to if you want to truly optimise the efficiency of your WAN. SD-WAN offers benefits ranging from performance, to visibility, to cost reductions making it the future of connectivity and certainly something worth investigating for your business.

Click here to get in touch!

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

40

04

Connectivity

D)

SD-WAN i) What is an SD-WAN?

In the previous section we explored Wide Area Networks (WANs), which most SMB and Enterprise organisations are familiar with, particularly those that are multisite.

For many businesses, they are finding that their WANs are not able to meet their needs, stifling development rather than facilitating it because of their inability to perform at the levels that are required as their business grows. A Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is the latest development in WAN Optimisation, which is revolutionising businesses through unprecedented visibility and control over the entire network.

SD-WAN virtualises the WAN, bringing connectivity into the Cloud. Instead of it remaining static, it continually and automatically reconfigures the network paths to account for changes in traffic, brownouts, and blackouts; utilising the full capacity of the bandwidth. Additionally, with SD-WAN being virtualised in the Cloud, you aren’t reliant upon fixed circuits and hardware, saving on upkeep costs, freeing you from scalability constraints, and allowing sites to go-live instantly as businesses grow.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

D) SD-WAN i) What is an SD-WAN?

This agile solution will immediately adapt to the changing needs of your business ensuring you are performing optimally, handling your business’s voice and data needs with efficiency. Furthermore, SD-WAN centralises your network in a single platform, bringing routing and switching tables together intelligently into dynamic software paths using policy-based routing. SD-WAN gives you visibility and control over your network, allowing you to delve into performance and draw reports around your connectivity, affording you complete transparency of your network.

41

04

Connectivity

D) SD-WAN i) What is an SD-WAN?

There are a number of benefits that SD-WAN can bring your business which include: • Substantial cost reductions • Increased performances • Faster provisioning • Increased simplicity of your network It’s easy to see why many businesses are already utilising this solution and it seems like this trend will continue. In fact Gartner estimates that by 2020 more than 50% of WAN infrastructure refresh initiatives will be based on SD-WAN (View here).

Click here to download!

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

42

04

Connectivity

D)

SD-WAN ii) How does SD-WAN help with your BC/DR plans?

SD-WAN solutions give you more control over your business’ network, centralising everything into a single view, giving you the flexibility and agility to adjust as the needs of your business demands.

By consolidating your connectivity and data centres into a single solution, should something go wrong you can go to a single view to understand what it is. This makes any trouble-shooting far more efficient and less time consuming so you have more time to fix the problem, rather than spend a vast amount of time in trying to isolate the problem initially.

Building on this, one key functionality that SD-WAN gives you is the ability to automate your connectivity to utilise all available bandwidth in your WAN. Your business will be able to utilise wireless, cable broadband and a private IP to create a reliable network for your business that can deal with pretty much any type of outage. This not only increases performance on your network, ensuring that you are working effectively and efficiently at all times, but it also means during an outage, your connection will automatically divert away from

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

D) SD-WAN ii) How does SD-WAN help with your BC/DR plans?

the line that has gone down and to any an alternative line.

This will always be done faster than a person could, minimising downtime. With SD-WAN, network failure doesn’t necessarily mean downtime to your business as you now have a failover.

Furthermore, should a line go down, you can predetermine policy rules which ensure your business-critical functions are prioritised so you can always keep the core elements of your business operating as usual. With the network being software defined, changes are swift, easy and will minimise the impact on your business. You will have control over your network, therefore you can make it work for and meet the needs of your business, instead of a rigid, predetermined, one size fits all solution.

An indirect benefit to your BC/DR plan that SD-WAN can bring is additional cost savings. Some companies have experienced cost savings of up to 80%, which is why for 35% of businesses this is the leading driver for adoption (Silverpeak 2017 survey in the eBook). In freeing up a significant percentage of your budget, you have more money to use on other aspects of your IT functionality, improving resiliency elsewhere.

43

04

Connectivity

E)

Wireless Leased Line i) What is a Wireless Leased Line?

A leased line is a dedicated, physical, fixed bandwidth connection that links offices within a business or an office to a data centre. These leased lines create a secure connection for the internet, link PC and servers in different corporate offices, or carry phone calls.

E) Wireless Leased Line i) What is a Wireless Leased Line?

or Open Reach about connectivity, or worry about disruption to your business. Indeed, all you need is access to your roof and you are set! This solution is far more scalable than a fixed line and much easier to maintain should something go wrong.

This is a more cost-effective solution which can grow and develop with your business, giving you the peace of mind that you have complete flexibility.

This guarantees bandwidth for network traffic. Leased lines are symmetric which means they can upload data at the same speed they download it; making the transfer of files, backing up or hosting websites on your own server easy to do. It is important to understand that whilst a leased line can connect your business to the internet, this is not its sole purpose. In fact, the internet is just part of the data it can transfer – phone calls, VPN traffic etc can all be transferred too. Fixed leased lines are one of the fastest, most secure, and reliable connectivity methods for a business, which is why many businesses opt for them. However, as with all physical methods of connectivity there are often very high costs associated with installation, maintenance, and upgrades, not to mention the high propensity of failure that can come with physical solutions. There is not a lot you can do if builders drill through your line by mistake!

Wireless leased lines on the other hand deliver all of the benefits of a traditional leased line, without any of the installation hassles.

You don’t need to speak to the council about building work,

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

44

04

Connectivity

E)

Wireless Leased Line ii) How does a Wireless Leased Line help with BC/DR?

As mentioned before, a leased line gives you the benefit of having your own, dedicated line which is secure and unique to your business. This gives you control and visibility over your network and means the likelihood of hackers getting on to your network is slim.

E) Wireless Leased Line ii) How does a Wireless Leased Line help with BC/DR?

mitigate a lot of risk for failure. In terms of BC/DR, this is a great alternative for bolstering your connectivity, To get a truly resilient solution, running both a wired and wireless leased line gives you the opportunity to have a failover should one of them go down. This is one of the best ways you can plan for the worst, by always have a backup connection in place. Should an outage occur, you will still be able to connect to customers and continue whilst the outage is being fixed. Being always on makes a big difference to your bottom line.

You can enjoy high speeds, faster uploads and fantastic reliability making it a great solution for businesses that need to transfer large amounts of data, or who want to own their whole estate.

With all wired solutions, there is always going to be downtime – it is pretty much inevitable. Whether this be a fault in the cables or outside interference which effects the wires preventing you from connecting, there is always the possibility when there is physical hardware. If a line goes down or is tampered with, this obviously will inhibit your ability to conduct business. It could lead to significant downtime and loss of earnings from not only being offline, but also the costs associated with making the fix.

Wireless leased lines do not have any of these risks.

Wireless leased lines are still owned by you, still deliver incredibly fast speeds and are still resilient in many respects. However, by eliminating the physical hardware from the equation, you

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

45

05

Monitoring

A) MyWavenet B) Wavenet Security Assessments

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

46

05 $

Monitoring

0\:DYHQHW L What is 0\:DYHQHW?

A key value we hold at :DYHQHW Communications is “Lead the Way”.

We try and incorporate this in everything we do for our customers, whether this be bringing cutting edge technologies into our portfolio to support your business, offering on site demos and training, or having nationally accredited support. We think it is of vital importance that we empower our customers to understand their technology, understand how it works for them so that they can become experts themselves, and truly drive value into their business.

A key step we have taken towards facilitating that for our customers is the introduction of our customer portal, .Z8BWFOFU.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

47

05

Monitoring

A) MyWavenet i) What is MyWavenet?

My8BWFOFU is our customer portal which gives you the opportunity to understand your account better, giving you greater transparency whilst simultaneously granting you the power to make the most from the technology you take with us.

We want to give you the opportunity to better ingratiate yourself with our products and services which will allow you to enhance efficiency, productivity and ultimately, growth – truly maximising your return on investment.

From within the .Z8BWFOFU portal you will be able to self-service your account, giving you the opportunity to purchase products such as handsets or licences, view and change information around users and billing, and view details about your account. You are also able to log, monitor and manage any support tickets so you know the exact status of your enquiry and its resolution.

Furthermore, if you need immediate support, .Z8BWFOFU allows you to set up an instant video call with either your account manager or our technical experts on the support desk who will assist you there and then. If your issue is less pressing, you can also request a call back at a time that suits you and a member of the team will get in touch.

Perhaps the most striking feature .Z8BWFOFU boasts is the fact that this is a FREE service that all of our customers are entitled to.

All you have to do is get set up and request your log in details and you are able to instantly start reaping the benefits of the platform!

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

Click here to register for My:DYHQHW 48

05

Monitoring

$

0\:DYHQHW LL How can 0\:DYHQHW help you with your BC/DR plan?

A key reason that people often panic during times of technological crisis, even if the issue is easily resolvable, is a lack of understanding.

Technology has become the foundation for many businesses, but it can be complicated. It is vital therefore, that employees acquire a complete understanding of your technology, your services, and your account to minimise downtime.

A) MyWavenet ii) How can 0\:DYHQHW help you with your BC/DR plan?

The platform provides a single view of your 8BWFOFU account with all the tools you need at your fingertips including; a Self-Service Log, the ability to monitor and manage support incidents, simplified asset management, clear visibility of your hardware and software inventory, and the facility to manage accounts and users.

In addition to this, from within .Z8BWFOFU you can set up an instant video call with your account manager or our technical experts on our support desk. Alternatively, if you’d prefer us to call you, you can request a call back at a time and date that suits you.

Investment in the right technology is critical. Being able to maximize its return is what enhances efficiency, productivity, and growth. This is why we’ve designed .Z8BWFOFU, our new ground-breaking support system to help you manage all aspects of your 8BWFOFU estate. .Z8BWFOFU aids your Business Continuity by addressing those issues by giving you the ability to delve into your account, understand key elements of it, and make changes which mitigate the risk of an issue spreading. By having the ability to regularly monitor your account services you will be able to see trends and patterns emerging, as well as having a central touch point for all your support enquiries.

Over time you will be able to understand what is normal and potentially draw resolutions to issues internally by making the most of the knowledge base from previously raised tickets.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

49

05

Monitoring

%

:DYHQHW Security Assessments L What is a Security Assessment?

Through even just a cursory following of current affairs, you will have noticed the number of ransomware attacks has sharply risen over the last 18 months, and this trend is unlikely to plateau any time soon.

In fact, it is predicted that damage costs from cyber-attacks are likely to hit $6Trillion annually by 2020 (View Blog). This is because the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, it’s data. For this reason ransomware should be at the forefront of your mind. You should be looking at how to best equip yourself against the very real threat it poses, or risk your business falling foul of one of the most destructive contemporary cyber-attacks.

B) Wavenet Security Assessments i) What is a Security Assessment?

8BWFOFU security assessments provides a suite of different network monitoring and tests which are designed to give you a health check of your current technology, in a non-intrusive manner. ‘Non-intrusive’ means that there are no onsite agents, probes, or software to permanently install on your network; all we require is that one of our agents remotely gains temporary admin rights so we can upload a file to begin the scan. This scan typically takes less than an hour to do after which we remove the file leaving us with a security risk report as well as a user behaviour report. All of this information is generated without compromising any of your information/data.

With there being so many threats out there, coupled with the fact more areas of your business rely on connectivity (which creates more access points for hackers to target), the first step you must take is to invest in technology which aids understanding of your estate. Unless you take the time to understand your system and the potential threats it could be exposed to, you will have no idea if the areas you are investing in are the ones most in need of it.

This is where Security Assessments come in.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

50

05

Monitoring

%

:DYHQHW Security Assessments LL How can :DYHQHW Security Assessments help achieve BC/DR?

If your BC/DR plan doesn’t incorporate an element around security then you may have to revaluate your BC/DR completely. Security breaches are a common cause for businesses being unable to operate.

Therefore it is highly advisable that you account for them in your plan. Some businesses can have complete confidence in their system, but these are usually the enterprise level businesses who can invest substantially into their security suite. For the vast majority of businesses however, it is far better to pay for what you need and target your spending as effectively as you can. This highlights one key benefit of our assessment tools from the outset. It is a cost-effective solution which will give you visibility of your entire network and highlight the current areas of weakness to help you more effectively use your budget. This is one way you can improve your BC/DR strategy, spending your money in a more cost-effective way and fortifying specific areas of weakness rather than thinly spreading it across the business and hoping for the best.

The most obvious benefit 8BWFOFU Assessment Tools can bring to your business to help with BC/DR is giving you the ability to monitor and understand your network regularly. Knowledge is one of the most important tools in the

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

B) Wavenet Security Assessments ii) How can :DYHQHW Security Assessments help achieve BC/DR?

battle against hackers who are continuously adapting and developing, so taking the time to understand your network could be invaluable and integral for protecting your business. By understanding your current estate you will be able to see patterns and trends as they emerge which could cut down resolution time in the event that someone does try and breach your system.

By regularly assessing your network and investing in reinforcing your systems, there is no better way to prepare for security threats. Whilst 8BWFOFU Assessment Tools doesn’t offer this protection itself, it is an important step in achieving a solid and holistic BC/DR plan.

Free security assessment click here 51

06

Advice

A) How we do it B) Creating your own BC/DR Plan C) Scenarios

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

52

06 A)

Advice

How we do it

Here at :DYHQHW, we operate our critical business no differently to how we advise our customers to undertake their business operations.

We rely on and trust in Cloud Architecture and Infrastructure. To prove our confidence in the technology and give customers assurance in the solutions we provide, we too must regularly assess our BC/DR plan.

Back in January 2018, we had our annual company kick-off event in Stratford-Upon-Avon which saw the whole company, including our contact centre, descend on the town, which was the perfect time to test our BC/DR plan.

View Video VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

53

06 Advice

As mentioned, having a plan in place for BC/DR is crucial.

However, it is also of vital importance that you regularly test your plan to ensure that it actually works! Refining and improving your plan is just as important as having one in the first place.

8BWFOFU were able to test ours by “lifting and shifting” our entire operation down to Stafford meaning we were working in a remote location scenario for 2 days. This was the first time we moved our entire company and it was hugely successful.

By having our entire business on the Cloud, it means that no matter where we are, we can access our files, contacts, and systems – all we need is a solid internet connection and we are good to go. The hotel had internet, however we also brought two 3/4G Wireless Routers, on differing networks with us too as a further precaution. These also offered diverse Wide Area Network (WAN) coverage allowing us to access the data we had in the Cloud. Alongside this main contingency, we further fortified our connection by having all of our agents bring their work mobile phones, all with 4G connections which we could tether laptops too as a final, tertiary precaution. Whilst this may seem like overkill to some, having a multi-layered approach meant we were able to have primary, secondary and tertiary WAN connectivity.

No matter the eventuality, we had a plan in place to get on to our systems – the key to a successful BC/DR plan.

We were able to operate a full UC platform with our Mitel PBX, Contact Centre, Call recorders, CRM platform and all of our additional support platforms with ease and without any disruption to service – the goal of any BC/DR plan.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

A) How we do it

Simply put, by making the investment into Cloud and the supporting systems we now have the ability to operate our business from anywhere. To deliver our Cloud solutions we work with some of the best partners in the world, in particular Mitel for the main infrastructure. This is coupled with the capabilities provided with our trusted partners Rubrik and Datto, who allow us to utilise restoration technology rather than the traditional backup. This means incremental backups of all our systems are taken every 5 minutes, followed by the replication of this data to our backup Data Centre.

Every morning these backups are tested, with the status recorded in our CRM. With all these measures in place we are able to deploy full system restoration into our Disaster Recovery Cloud platform in under a minute.

Should anything happen, major or minor to our core systems, we have a plan in place so that within minutes we can be back to normal.

With business becoming increasingly demanding, the ability to do this is integral for success, having major outages simply isn’t acceptable anymore and could cost your business on many levels.

Communication is our speciality and we can shout about it all day, but going through the process of moving our business, utilising the technology that we sell, goes to show we believe in practicing what we preach.

Click here to get in touch!

54

06 Advice

B)

B) Creating your own BC/DR Plan

Creating your own BC/DR Plan

It is important to realise that every business is unique, and whilst there are of course best practices you should adhere to, there are no hard and fast rules that apply to all businesses, in all instances.

We have created a few handy tips for you to help you get started when you decide to start thinking about BC/DR: 1) Plan – This can’t be emphasized enough. You need to make sure all key members of staff are ready and a plan is in place if/when something goes wrong. As Murphy’s Law states, ‘what can go wrong, will go wrong’ and if you have no plan, what do you do when it all goes wrong?

2) Prepare – The easiest way to ensure a successful BC/DR plan is with a Cloud solution, ideally full Cloud, but at the very least a hybrid Cloud solution. By moving some of your business-critical systems into the Cloud, creating a backup and moving them physically off your site, you are preparing for the worst and ensuring you have the things you need away from your core premises.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

55

06 Advice

B) Creating your own BC/DR Plan

3) Document – You absolutely must have your BC/DR plan in a secondary location to your computer. Ideally you would have a version saved in the Cloud, but at the very least you need a paper copy that you can get your hands on in case of an emergency - it is of no use stored on your server! The whole point of having an emergency plan is that if your systems are down, unreachable, or have failed, you know what you are doing. If you have a single copy, stored electronically on premises, the chances are you won’t be able to reach it meaning failure has already occurred.

4) Rehearse – This is a vital step that many businesses fail to adhere to. It is all very well having a plan in place, however if you don’t test it regularly then how do you know if it actually works? You need to make sure that when it comes to it, your plan actually performs.

Remember theory and reality are often very different.

5) Lessons Identified – This step is even more frequently ignored than the previous, but it is still just as vital. Once you complete your rehearsal and testing of your BC/DR plan, you need to identify lessons and areas for improvement, involving key stakeholders across different departments. No plan is watertight from the outset, therefore correct and reissue the plan where possible.

As we say, these are just tips you should observe. For more practical advice you need to tailor your approach to your individual business requirements. If you want to speak to a member of the team about how to create your own BC/DR plan, including the various technologies covered in the guide, please get in touch using the details in the following section.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

56

06 Advice

C) Scenarios This document has served to illustrate the portfolio of technologies :DYHQHW is able to offer our customers. We have briefly defined what these technologies are, how they work, and the benefits they can bring to business.

In order to add more colour to the picture, we will now examine some potential scenarios where our solutions could be the difference between your business continuing to operate or collapsing within days.

Fire – As you come to the end of your morning commute and approach your offices, you notice smoke billowing from the approximate location of your premises. On pulling up, you are greeted by the sight of firefighters hosing down your Head Quarters. The inferno is eventually brought under control and though the damage isn’t as bad as expected, the phone lines have been completely destroyed.

A nightmare situation. Thankfully, not for you. It is a more of a minor inconvenience because several months before you switched your phones to a Hosted PBX. Though the physical phone lines have been incinerated, the backup lines sitting in the Cloud are unaffected. You send an email to all employees telling them to work from home until further notice and configure the Cloud lines to route incoming calls to employees work mobiles.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

C) Scenarios

It’s going to be frustrating waiting for the office to become usable again, but customers are still getting serviced by the workforce unaware there’s been an incident, and – crucially – your business keeps running.

Vandalism – Upon reaching the front door to your offices one morning, you notice that the lock on the door is broken. Pushing open the damaged door you are confronted with an office-floor that has been ransacked and all the computer screens have been smashed.

Your office has become a crime scene, so you’re going to have to contact the workforce to tell them to stay at home whilst the Police carry out their investigation. For many businesses, this would mean partial or even complete downtime whilst the investigation and clean-up is underway. Not for you. Recently, you migrated your infrastructure to the Pure Storage solution. This means that your staff can gain access to all company data via their home computers.

The desktop virtualisation feature also means that everything they would have had on their work desktop is presented as an exact replica on their home computer. The situation is far from ideal, but there’s no reason productivity should suffer during this time.

57

06 Advice

Cyber-attack – Whilst completing a routine task on your computer one afternoon, you receive an email from a friend at a neighbouring business. They’ve been victim to a cyber attack which has leaked all their customer information including banking details. Before you’ve even finished reading the email, the phone rings. The company in the office floor above have been attacked as well and they’re asking if you have too. It soon becomes apparent that businesses in the local area, of all types, are being targeted.

Time is of the essence here. Unlike neighbouring businesses who are little more than sitting ducks, waiting to see if they’ll be attacked, you have access to 8BWFOFU’s Security Assessment Tools. You boot the software and begin monitoring your whole estate, looking for potential weaknesses. The software highlights two possible weak points in the estate. Immediately, you contact 8BWFOFU who provide you with a cyber security solution which fortifies these weak points. The cyber-attack campaign comes to an end, and you have successfully avoided a breach.

VOICE | DATA | CONNECTIVITY | MONITORING | ADVICE

C) Scenarios

Power outage – Suddenly, during a normal working day, every device in the office loses internet connection. A car has crashed into the local exchange and some the lines inside have been badly damaged. You and your competitors are now faced with an agonising wait for repairs to made during which time, you are all off-line.

Fortunately, you now boast an SD-WAN meaning that your business utilises wireless, cable broadband and a private IP as part of your network. Your connection automatically diverts away from the line that has gone down and to an alternative line. This is done within an hour, meaning downtime is negligible. Furthermore, you are also able to predetermine policy rules ensuring your business-critical functions are prioritised so the core elements of your business continue to operate as usual.

Whilst your competitors sit around unable to perform properly until their connection is back, you are back to full speed after the equivalent of a lunchbreak.

58

0333 234 0011 www.wavenetuk.com info@wavenetuk.com

making your Business Brilliant