With the world in turmoil, changes in the way we work are happening at the speed of light. A solid communication strategy has always been important, but now it’s paramount in achieving and maintaining business continuity.
In the world of unified communications (UC), Cisco’s legacy will always be the stability and reliability of its UC offerings. Most large enterprises worldwide deploy Cisco hardware and/or software applications as part of their collaboration, security, and networking infrastructure.
Cisco and the big picture
Cisco’s powerful Webex suite of collaboration tools, for example, is one of the leading enterprise solutions for video and team communication. The Webex application is a secure cloud team collaboration platform that allows for continuous teamwork with video meetings, guest access, group messaging, file sharing, white boarding – even your own personal meeting room.
Cisco deployments can be found in multi-site global UC ecosystems, right down to smaller SMB environments. But regardless of the size of the organisation or the number of users, the focus is always on the big picture – user experience.
Business continuity challenges
In the new ‘elastic workplace’, normality is now defined by virtual meetings and conferences, the constant addition of new communication devices and applications, ongoing re-education and re-training. Cisco and other players have been rolling out new collaboration tools with one primary concern – connecting the world.
While this has kept many organisations afloat, the strain on IT teams has increased exponentially. They must deal with recurring technical problems like:
- Network bandwidth and performance issues
- Device sprawl
- VPN concerns
- Bad connections and dropped calls
- Lack of interoperability
These and other challenges compromise an already tentative working environment.
Vendor vs third-party monitoring tools
When your communication systems are underperforming, the negative impact is almost instantaneous. Teams managing a Cisco deployment, or any UC environment in the current climate need to be able to get to the root cause of issues fast. No matter what vendor you use, or how many endpoints you have, you still need to gain full visibility into your UC ecosystem, when it fails and why, how to fix it and prevent failures from happening in the future.
Performance management tools empower teams to gather contextual data and troubleshoot quickly. Monitoring and collecting data and analytics can actually predict the likelihood of recurring issues.
Without the right ‘insurance measures’ to optimise your UC investment, your entire communications infrastructure is in jeopardy. The right performance management tools ensure that organisations realise maximum ROI and provide a better user experience. This relieves the massive pressure on IT teams. Extensive research shows that efficient performance management tools save far more than they cost.
All vendors provide specific troubleshooting and monitoring tools for their own systems and equipment, but they monitor only the solutions of the supporting vendor. But what about multiple endpoints, and the variety of devices and applications in use with today’s challenging new working environment? An out-of-the-box monitoring solution simply won’t work. When it comes to third-party monitoring tools, you get much more. Third-party UC monitoring and troubleshooting tools generally have a multi-vendor capability and provide a wider view of the equipment and environment they monitor and manage.
Maintaining business continuity, maximising your ROI, and staying competitive are key drivers for every business. It’s imperative to stay informed and keep up to date. For more support in managing and optimising your Cisco UC environment, take a look at the ultimate guide for Getting the most out of your Cisco unified communications.
Guest Blog by IR CTO, Michael Tomkins
