As the UC Day UK event draws closer, the tech enthusiasts here at UC Today are excited to learn more about the presentations that will be taking place at the conference, and the companies that will be sharing their insights with the world.
One of the major speakers at this year’s UC Day is Sonus, a company that delivers support and technology for businesses that are interested in migrating their unified communications to the cloud. I had the opportunity to sit down for a conversation with the EMEA technical director of Sonus, Matt Hurst, who was happy to tell me more about the company, and what he’ll be delivering as a keynote speaker at UC Day.
Tell Us a Little About Yourself, and Sonus
The first thing I wanted to do, is learn a little more about Sonus as a company, and the role that Matt Hurst plays as the technical director for EMEA. He told me that he “leads the solutions architects and engineers in EMEA that work with Sonus partners and customers” to determine how their products can facilitate migration into the cloud.
Matt then went on to explain Sonus to me in greater detail. “Sonus is a company that’s focused on delivering secure migration into the cloud for both UC Services and voice. We’ve been working with Microsoft and the Skype for Business community for some time now, helping customers move into a new UC infrastructure, and breaking down the boundaries between fixed telephony and data.”
Sonus and Microsoft have a very strong relationship, but Sonus solutions can be used with other UC providers too. Matt told me that Sonus is “providing a stepping stone for customers who aren’t ready to jump head-first into the cloud”. In other words, the company is allowing people to take a more “hybrid” approach to cloud. With the help of their partners, who provide ongoing services to end customers, Sonus is transforming the enterprise space. However, they also have larger products for carrier networks too.
“We sell to large tier one, two, and three carriers. Our Session Border Control products are there to give security and integration on a larger level, as service providers also find themselves moving into a more virtualised cloud world.”
How Are You Getting Involved with UC Day?
With a stronger insight into the potential of Sonus as a company, I was excited to hear about Sonus, and Matt’s, involvement with UC Day. Matt told me:
“UC Day is a very unique event, created by Microsoft MVPs that wanted to share and educate more about what Microsoft could do, in a format similar to Ignite. Basically, UC Day is about delivering technology education in the UK, and we’ve been involved in the event from the very start. For Sonus, UC Day is about bringing some of the best minds in the industry together, from the vendor space and integration partners that help customers start their journey towards UC and the cloud.”
Matt went on to tell me all about the different elements that are involved with UC Day, including the expert areas where people can learn about different vendors and solutions, and breakout sessions that introduce the latest industry trends.
“There are sessions for everyone, from deep-dive presentations to architecture demonstrations. Since things are constantly evolving in the Microsoft space, UC Day brings the community together to learn about what’s coming next.”
Do You Think the Dynamic of UC Day will Be Different Following the Teams Announcement?
Since Microsoft Ignite featured the announcement that “Skype for Business” would be migrating to Microsoft Teams, I was interested to learn whether Matt thought this new information would change the dynamic of the event. Matt told me that the conference has several technical tracks, with Skype and Teams being covered in detail.
“The dynamic may change a little because there’s going to be a lot of buzz around the Teams announcement. Just like at Ignite, the session on Teams was jam-packed, because people want to know more about how the announcement is going to affect them.”
“In our session, we’re going to be talking about the cloud and “Bring Your Own Telephony” technology. During our talk, we’re going to explain how customers can integrate their existing telephony assets into the Microsoft cloud through both Skype and Teams. I think that this is more relevant than ever now.”
Matt went on to say that many people in the enterprise world are considering cloud migration from a hybrid perspective these days. He believes that by bringing Skype into Teams, Microsoft is attempting to simplify business integration into the cloud.
“UC Day is going to be a very good place for tech education, where people can overcome some of the confusion that has recently been generated.”
What Will the Sonus Focus Be at UC Day?
Finally, I wanted to know what Sonus would be demonstrating at UC Day. Matt told me that aside from the presentation mentioned above, Sonus would be offering presentations and discussions on the enhancements to collaborative security that they can offer. Since security is a very hot topic in the world of UC, Sonus is responding to this issue with a new and improved solution:
“Security is one of our core focuses as a company. UC is an incredible opportunity, but it also delivers a range of complex security issues to the average business. As traditionally separate platforms come together to create a single network, it’s important to implement a security strategy that takes these different elements into account.”
“At Sonus, we’re focusing on sharing collaborative information across different security elements, to make sure that everything works together in a fully secured manner.”
For Sonus, it’s all about bringing security features together so that they can interact with each other to protect a business.
“If we detect dangerous behaviour on the voice side of a UC application, we can share that information with the firewall so it can stop the same traffic from getting through elsewhere.”
For companies that are interested in adopting UC without compromising on security, Sonus could be the perfect business to talk to at this year’s UC Day.
More on UC Day on UC Today:
UC & Cloud Day Set to Return to UK in October 2017
