Cloud Source

Enterprise Mobility: Choosing the Correct Methods

by

Not many businesses leaders will tell you that implementing an enterprise mobility solution is an easy process. From mobile application management to unified endpoint management and everything in between, the complexities are many.

Due to the complexities involved in the mobile ecosystem, enterprise mobility management solution capabilities have had to expand. One of the advantages you can immediately see with enterprise mobility management is the visibility factor, which occurs through remote monitoring and auditing users to ensure they remain compliant.

Through enterprise mobility management, you should be able to tend to devices and applications, as well as manage your remote tasks. If you’re working with the right partner, you could gain access to tools in enterprise mobile management that keep unauthorized users from accessing your sensitive data.

If you’re looking to focus on tools that tend solely to applications, you’re going to need to look into mobile application management tools, which ensure your apps are encrypted and have strong password protection.

Keeping the devices locked down is another important factor in enterprise mobility solutions. Your mobile device management solutions will configure Wi-Fi access and keep tabs on your mobile policies. It can also be used to disable native apps. Most IT teams not only utilize mobile device management to secure devices but also to enroll them and wipe enterprise data from them as needed.

Unified endpoint management is among the latest iterations of managing enterprise mobility. It’s getting a lot of attention at the moment, and it will likely remain that way into the future. It’s no secret that mobility teams have been tasked with more and more in recent years, and with unified endpoint management, they’re getting some reprieve.

Basically, the endpoint management solution does more than just manage mobile devices — it focuses on all new endpoints within an enterprise and this includes anything considered part of the Internet of Things.

If you’re looking for a single solution to manage and secure devices, the unified endpoint management route is going to look quite attractive. It also enhances security and productivity, but other benefits include lower operational costs and more visibility into device security.

To get connected to the right tools, it is easier to work with a professional who makes it their job to know what technology has become available, which is why many organizations choose to work with an agent.

Cloud Source is an agent capable of bringing your organization enterprise mobility that speaks to your needs. We know your business is only as good as its ability to communicate and effectively meet your clients’ expectations. Contact us and let’s talk about how our mobility solutions will push your objectives forward.

Establishing Parameters for a Network Management Strategy

by

If your enterprise is pursuing digital transformation, it’s likely that things are only getting more complicated for your network. A network management strategy can help you avoid adding a maze of network management tools that add further complexity.

One network management tool would generally be ideal, but it’s often challenging to get everything you need in a single solution. Here are the three considerations that generally lead to the adoption of a management tool:

Ease of Use: IT teams are more pressed for time than ever, so if a network management solution improves efficiency in setting up or modifying monitoring, that’s often a solid vote for implementation. Teams are also looking for solutions that proactively alert them when there’s unusual activity on the network and allow them to easily gather information.

Teams often adopt a new solution because they have an important use case that isn’t covered by the particular tool they’re using. And many teams are looking for solutions with an application programming interface (API) that makes it easy to monitor a new virtual machine or application.

Cost: This is always a consideration when debating using one tool or several in a network management strategy. In many cases, a single tool becomes impossible because the introduction of a flood of new monitoring entities falls outside of licensing structures. Open source tools generally provide good protection against these cost issues.

Functionality: In the cloud era, where threats change by the minute, the evolution of monitoring technology tends to happen slower than the growth of monitoring needs. New tools emerge quickly, and IT teams are excited to deploy them. The nature of monitoring a moving target means that even a tool that works today could be immediately obsolete.

In order to balance these needs with the practicality of avoiding an overly complex and layered monitoring stack, enterprises need a solid network management strategy. Three elements should be included in such a strategy:

  1. Clear Policy Guidelines: A new network management tool can only be added to improve ease of use, reduce costs, or enhance functionality. Personal preference is not a reason for deploying a new tool, nor is professional experience with a particular tool.
  2. Replace, Don’t Add: When deploying a new network management tool, make it a general policy that another tool must be removed. When possible, invest in unitaskers, which tend to address groups or types of technology, such as mobile devices or a certain type of traffic.
  3. Determine Whether You Might Invest in a Manager of Managers: If there are reasons that you need to maintain a more complex set of management tools, consider placing a network management tool over your other tools, working as a single dashboard to alert you to network changes. You can also manage your other tools through this single management tool.

To learn more about solutions available for creating a network management strategy, contact us at Cloud Source. We can help you evaluate your needs and choose a monitoring solution that fits your budget and your practical requirements.

How to Improve IoT Security

by

The Internet of Things (IoT) has a nondescript moniker for a reason. Consider how many “things” are connected to your network today — even light bulbs are part of the global connected web. They might seem insignificant, but the smallest of things with an IP address needs to be secured, which is why IoT security has to be a higher priority.

The reason for making IoT security a priority is that when your “things” have an IP address and are connected to your network, they might also connect to your core business processes. While many of the items that are considered an IoT device are appliances, some will offer up more than typical appliance data — they’ll store data that is personally identifiable. If these are hacked, it could spell big problems for you, not only in fines, but also in damage to your reputation — which leads to losing trust from your clients.

Yet despite the importance of cyber security measures today, IoT devices have slipped through the cracks of an otherwise well-balanced security detail. Often, there is no oversight, no analysis or monitoring of IoT devices.

Where IoT Security Should Focus

Perhaps one of the reasons IoT devices tend to fall outside of the purview of traditional penetration testing is that they’re not as resilient as servers and other network infrastructure systems. Regardless, they need to be part of the process, so each device needs to be tested separately and with an eye on resiliency, which means taking a more cautious approach should be considered.

Integrating IoT Security

You’ve got security standards and controls already in place for your traditional system, so getting your IoT security standards to fit alongside might be a challenge. For example, it could be that you’ll have minimum requirements for alerting, passwords and other areas that are a non-issue with traditional systems, yet they become a stumbling block for your IoT devices.

Realigning your security standards might be the most efficient way to proceed. In many cases, this will include taking a fresh approach to your business continuity and disaster recovery process.

If you haven’t integrated monitoring and alerting to your strategy, now is the time, as having insight into what’s going on in your system is more important now than ever, especially considering that many attacks are so subtle and discrete they go undetected for months without a proper monitoring system in place.

Looking for an agent that can assist you in connecting to all the tools and services needed to bring your IoT security strategies to a better place? At Cloud Source, we’re that agent. Contact us and let’s talk about your unique needs and how we can address them.

Five Enterprise Digital Transformation Challenges

by

Digital transformation is foundationally based on a moving target, with almost countless moving pieces, including people, technology, business processes and a host of objectives. While organizations generally understand the critical nature of improving processes for the purpose of improving the customer experience and boosting productivity, they often don’t anticipate enterprise digital transformation challenges that can throw the vision off course.

These challenges come in a variety of forms, and, depending on their severity, can cause digital transformation initiatives to grind to a halt. Consider these five common enterprise digital transformation challenges:

Starting Blind: Line-of-business managers, executives or even IT professionals might begin to champion digital transformation for the organization, excited to gain the benefits that come with shifting a legacy application to the cloud or introducing a cutting-edge customer interface. In many cases, the enthusiasm to begin digital transformation makes the enterprise vulnerable to a critical mistake: starting blind.

It’s important that business leaders and key stakeholders have a clear vision for what the enterprise is currently doing and what opportunities are presented through a digital transformation objective. Beginning with detailed information on business needs helps shape the decisions about which solutions will deliver the necessary improvements. Companies that skip this step often regret their attempted migration, or they lose sight of the reasons behind it when they encounter difficulties.

Short-Term Mindset: Digital transformations can span several years and involve many teams in the organization. Those leading the initiative must proactively anticipate project fatigue. When staff exhaustion, time exhaustion and budget exhaustion set in, the organization can risk losing a lot of effort that’s already been invested.

It’s important to balance this effect by planning for some quick wins with initial transformation goals. Continue to break the process into steps that can be achieved in a shorter time span, taking time to evaluate the success of that phase and celebrating when it goes well.

Culture Changes: One aspect of digital transformation opens up opportunities while forcing some unprecedented collaboration. Cloud solutions offer enhanced communication tools and other features that serve to soften the divisions between departments and encourage the evaluation of business processes in a disruptive fashion.

Particularly across enterprises with far-flung locations or heavy concentrations of remote workers, achieving a cohesive, collaborative culture can be challenging.

Business and IT Alignment: Many enterprise digital transformation challenges can be summed up in this way: IT professionals are increasingly in the role of driving business objectives through technology investments, offering a new perspective that must align well with other executives’ visions for the company. Enterprises have no choice but to embrace digital transformation, but it’s also necessary for chief information officers to take the step of becoming champions for the cause.

If you’re facing digital transformation challenges you never anticipated, contact usat Cloud Source. We can assist with insiders’ tips to help you move forward to the next phase of your transformation and proactively prevent challenges that may emerge in the future.

How to Resolve SIP Trunk Problems

by

Despite widespread use, it’s still common to encounter problems with a session initiation protocol (SIP) trunk, with both the equipment and the provider aspects of the technology. Resolving these issues begins with prevention, but in this article, you’ll also find ways to address issues with a current SIP trunk.

Prevention

Before implementation, it’s important that the parties involved are coordinated in the process. You’ll have at least three participants: your private branch exchange (PBX) or unified communications (UC) provider, the session border controller (SBC) provider, and the SIP trunk provider, and you may also have a reseller that’s handling the implementation.

Begin the process with a focus on configuration and management, because these are the most common areas where a problem with the SIP trunk occurs. The technology is mature; the issue generally resides with configuration errors.

Take time to test the configuration, the features you require and the number of simultaneous calls you expect. Don’t make assumptions about how the system will perform once you deploy it, because while functional tests add value, they don’t guarantee success when the system is operating with real traffic.

Use checklists from the providers that will help you validate the installation process, in addition to anticipating any potential problems. Look at surveys for SIP trunk performance to find out what issues are most likely to affect your enterprise, and address these in your preparation.

Resolution

Don’t tweak the SIP trunk: It’s a natural reaction to begin tweaking the configuration or the settings until you get the performance you want, but it’s easy to inadvertently turn off security features or other tools you need. You may produce a liability that reveals itself later.

If tweaking seems a necessary step, be careful to document each change so there is an audit trail. If problems occur in the future, you’ll know how to trace them. Otherwise, any future problems will cause the tweaking to resume and when there’s an outage or poor performance you won’t know where to start to resolve it.

There are several common places to evaluate when you experience a problem with the SIP trunk:

  • The configured timeouts are too short.
  • The provider’s IP connection, the SBC configuration settings and that the firewall is working properly and not blocking SIP signals.
  • Audio issues with compression before entering the network.

Bandwidth: Inadequate bandwidth can impact the voice quality and the number of calls or sessions that can be held simultaneously. You may have an issue of over-design, which demands more bandwidth, while under-design will block calls or negatively affect quality.

Licenses: You’ll need a SIP trunk license for each call or session for your IP PBX and SBC. A shortage of licenses will result in calls being blocked. You can generally install a range of between five and 50 licenses, and then add them in groups of five or ten. Check to find out what the limit is for licensing size on your particular IP PBX or your SBC to ensure you install a SIP trunk solution that is supported adequately for your call needs.

Whether you’re currently experiencing difficulties with a SIP trunk issue, or you’re considering applying this technology to your communications upgrade, contact usat Cloud Source. We can help you plan a deployment that is well coordinated and anticipates any challenges, reducing the need to tweak the system after implementation.

Contact

328 S. Jefferson St. Suite 603
Chicago, IL 60661
Ph: 312.753.7880
E: info@CloudSourceServices.com

Newsletter Signup

Stay up-to-date on Cloud Source's news.

↑ Top of Page