Want to frustrate an employee? Give them a stack of work and a computer, but hamper their productivity with an out-of-date network connection.

We have all experienced the annoyance of a slow Internet connection. But as companies adopt more and more bandwidth-hungry applications, it might not be your connection to the outside world presenting a problem. Rather, you and your employees may be plagued by a slow Local Area Network (LAN).

In most offices, Ethernet switches connect computers and servers to the LAN. A common Fast Ethernet connection transfers data at about 100 megabits per second. So no matter how fast and effective your company’s servers and Internet connection may be, workers cannot receive data at speeds faster than their Ethernet connection will allow.

In the past, this was rarely a problem. Most employees – even those considered “information workers” – relied on the network primarily to retrieve email and pull files off of local servers. Now, however, many employees place much greater strains on the network in the course of doing their jobs effectively:

• CRM and other applications have shifted employees away from working on their PC’s hard drives. Instead, they are working on applications that are hosted or in the cloud. As a result, employees are continually bombarding the network with data transmissions.
• Commonly used applications are growing richer each year. A few years ago, PowerPoint presentations typically included some colorful backgrounds and text. Today, they may include many large photos, audio files, video files and more.
• Employees are being asked to watch videos for training and conduct video conferences from their cubicles.
• Workers also enjoy non-sanctioned applications that strain network bandwidth. Pandora isn’t a critical business application, but it can slow down network performance nonetheless.

To speed LAN performance, many companies are upgrading their standard Ethernet switches to gigabit Ethernet connections. A gigabit Ethernet switch transmits data at speeds of about 1 gigabit per second – 10 times greater than Fast Ethernet switches.

Fortunately, gigabit switches are growing more affordable for everyone. To get the full benefit of the switch, every component in the network, including computers, needs to be gigabit compliant. Also, keep in mind that upgrading to gigabit switches will not increase the speed of your outside Internet connection. It will only speed up the transmission of data on your LAN.

An example of a high-quality gigabit Ethernet switch is the NetVanta 1600 series by Adtran. This series offers 48 gigabit Ethernet ports, with or without Power over Ethernet (PoE), and two high-speed interface slots, which can accommodate up to four 10-gigabit Ethernet links. This means that users can benefit from up to 80 Gbps between interconnected NetVanta 1638 switches for the most bandwidth-intensive applications.

It seems like a more efficient use of everyone’s time. But document sharing technologies actually create a host of new challenges in the enterprise, both for users and the network.

The benefits of share-centric systems are clear. Workers can all access a document and make changes to it, ensuring version control and the preservation of changes by various authors. This improves efficiency and makes information ubiquitous throughout the team and the organization.

But at the same time, sharing information can overload a company’s bandwidth – especially at branch offices. In many cases, these satellite facilities are in far-flung locations that may not have access to the super-fast fiber connections that make watching video or downloading large PowerPoint presentations a snap. Rather, branch offices may be accessing their central office’s VPN via a T1 connection.

In recent years, most organizations have pulled back from the practice of maintaining significant IT infrastructure at satellite offices. It simply cost too much to build and maintain the servers at multiple locations. Instead, most companies are finding it more cost-effective and efficient to keep all IT resources in a single location at corporate headquarters. That results in high availability and easy access – as long as your WAN and local data connections can perform.

Just a few years ago, a T1 line provided decent speed for most branch offices. That’s because most of corporate America was relying on the Internet primarily for email. Things have changed dramatically in just the last 12 to 18 months, and as more time passes, bandwidth-intensive web applications will become the norm.

So how’s an organization to deal with this “new normal” of high-bandwidth apps at low-bandwidth satellite offices?

One of our vendors, SonicWALL, has developed a new line of products designed specifically to accelerate performance of the wide-area network, which greatly benefits users in distant geographic locations. The SonicWALL WAN Acceleration Appliance (WXA) solves several of the challenges that file sharing creates. In the simplest terms, SonicWALL dramatically reduces network traffic by transmitting only new or changed data – not entire files.

Imagine a satellite office in a rural location that relies on a T1 line to connect to corporate headquarters. What if five members of the sale team are trying to download a graphics-intensive PowerPoint presentation simultaneously? They could each waste much of the afternoon waiting for the file to complete its journey to their laptop.

That’s why the WAN acceleration appliance actually caches traffic that flows over the WAN. In the above example, the first time that the presentation file is downloaded, it’s cached by the WXA. Then, each subsequent user can quickly and easily retrieve the file – without reaching out over the WAN to the home office.

There are other companies that have created similar devices. The WXA, however, is designed with a couple of twists that make it more effective. First, the WXA sits to the side of the firewall, rather than being in line with the firewall. Why does this matter?

• When competitor products are in-line with the firewall, they are looking at data that has already been compressed and optimized. As a result, data is simply let through without being inspected.
• If there is a problem with a competitor’s in-line device, it slows down the entire WAN or even becomes the equivalent of a cut wire.
• Both of these problems defeat the entire purpose of an acceleration device, which is to optimize data going through the Internet connection and making it take less bandwidth.

The SonicWALL WXA sits off to the side of the firewall. There, it can inspect data before it is optimized. In addition, if it becomes overwhelmed or inoperable, the firewall knows that the WXA has become maxed out and send requests to the VPN without going through the WXA.

The result? Remote users enjoy faster WAN performance with safe, clean files free of security hazards. And that T1 line isn’t such a barrier to work anymore.

In a business, file sharing is supposed to improve efficiency. Rather than editing multiple electronic copies of a documents and later merging the various versions, work teams can share access to a single master document. This eliminates duplicate efforts and keeps everyone on the same page, even when working from remote offices. Many organizations have embraced file sharing, in part thanks to the massive push from Microsoft and other technology vendors who have made collaboration a central theme of their new software releases.

Yet file sharing has created some negative unintended consequences for many companies. Applications that tout collaboration capabilities, such as Microsoft SharePoint and Windows File Sharing, bombard the network by retransmitting entire files time and time again.

When a team member makes minor grammatical changes to a Word document or adds a graphic to a PowerPoint presentation, the entire file might be transmitted throughout the organization – rather than simply the incremental changes. This increased traffic on a wide-area network (WAN) can lead to expensive bandwidth and server upgrades, plus add more work for the IT department.

When SonicWALL recognized this problem, it developed a new technology designed specifically to cure the ills of a WAN bogged down by file sharing. The SonicWALL WAN Acceleration Appliance solves several of the challenges that file sharing creates. In the simplest terms, SonicWALL dramatically reduces network traffic by transmitting only new or changed data – not entire files. This creates several benefits:

• Reduced total cost of ownership, thanks to increased efficiency of the existing network, as well as avoidance of network and bandwidth upgrades.
• Improved performance and reduced latency, with data compression across the network.
• Improved response time with Windows File Sharing acceleration.
• Better security, as SonicWALL’s Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection technology scans all traffic and data for threats.
• LAN-like application performance over the WAN, with decreased latency and chattiness.
• Extended life for existing WAN links because of reduced bandwidth consumption, the result of byte caching and file caching.

Deployment of the SonicWALL appliance requires little change of the existing WAN. At an organization’s headquarters, as well as each branch office, a firewall appliance is installed. This enables VPN connectivity between all sites.

Then, the acceleration appliance is connected to the firewall at each location. There, it improves WAN performance by reducing the amount of data moving through the VPN. Additional tools help the IT team manage traffic even better. For example, the SonicWALL Appliance Intelligence and Control Service can further prioritize and control application traffic.

Every business wants to improve productivity.

It might take a big transformation of processes, people or technology to create a dramatic productivity gain. But for companies that want a quick, inexpensive boost to their bottom line, there are small, simple improvements you can make right now.

Many of these productivity gains are facilitated by a unified communications system, while others could also be realized with a combination of alternative technologies. No matter your technology choice, however, asking your workforce to adopt new habits could make your office a more productive – and pleasant – place to work.

1. Instant messaging. This wonderful technology has gotten a bad rap over the last several years. Instant messaging can be a time-waster if employees abuse it to conduct personal conversations with people outside – or inside – your company. On the flip side, instant messaging can save a great deal of time, while also improving customer service. For example, employees can ask and answer quick questions without taking the time to call or email. Team members on a client call can provide one another with information – without the customer hearing every detail. Want to limit IM to employees? Use a messaging  solution that is folded into your unified communications solution.
2. Presence information. If you’ve used IM, you’ve seen an example of presence information. A colored dot next to the person’s name indicates whether they are online or offline. For those online, it shows if they are available, away or busy. On some VoIP phone systems, such as ShoreTel, similar presence information is available for both office and mobile phones. See a colleague is on the phone? Avoid making that call and send a text or IM. Need to transfer a customer to talk to someone else? Check the phone directory and find someone who is available – right now.
3. A directory that works. Many companies still rely on paper phone lists that show employees’ extensions. Others have an online version. In both cases, information quickly becomes out of date. With a unified communications solution, directory information is automatically updated as phone extensions are added or deleted. With some systems, such as the ShoreTel IP 655 phone, users can type in the first few letters of the first or last name to quickly find in-house contacts. Again, time and money are saved, both in administration and use.
4. Integrated mobile devices. When smartphones and other mobile devices are integrated with a company’s unified communications solution, mobile users carry quick access with them. From their mobile handset, users can reach their colleagues by dialing an extension. They can make and receive calls from their company phone number. Plus, they can transfer calls and look up contacts in the company directory. A good example of this technology is ShoreTel Mobility’s RoamAnywhere Client, which extends unified communications applications to a wide range of mobile handsets including BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia.

Making the switch to a VoIP phone system is all about choosing more advanced, effective modern technologies. So when the day of your professional installation comes, you might expect technical problems with a server, wireless device or other new equipment.

Typically, however, the biggest stumbling block during an installation is something that’s been in your office for quite a while: cabling.

Most modern buildings have Category 5 (Cat 5) wiring already in the walls. Sometimes, that cable has become compromised. Maybe a nail was put through it. Perhaps it was pulled around a corner, causing damage. Maybe a pesky varmint decided it would make a good snack.

Whatever the case, integrators who use Adtran Layer 3 and Adtran Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches have a great tool for avoiding delays on VoIP installation day. In short, these switches are intelligent. They can run diagnostics on Ethernet switch ports to determine whether any wiring has been compromised. If these switches are put into place a week or two before the VoIP installation is scheduled, any cabling problems can be solved in advance – and the new phones will be up and running on time.

That isn’t the only advantage to using Adtran switches. Adtran products generally feature a lower price than the competition, as well as a lifetime warranty. For example, the company’s Layer 3 products provide:

• intelligent switching decisions based on the OSI Layer 3 source and destination addresses, similar to that of a router. A standard Layer 2 switch relies on MAC addresses to make switching decision.
• Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities to support mission-critical applications such as VoIP.

Finally, Adtran switches offer more advanced power management services than the competition. Adtran Gigabit switches can provide higher bandwidth for corporate and branch office LANs to support today’s most bandwidth-intensive applications.

One the flip side, Adtran’s 24- and 48-port Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches are optimized for a mix of devices including IP phones, wireless access points and IP surveillance cameras. IP phones have low energy requirements, while IP surveillance cameras might require a burst of power when panning or zooming. With Adtran PoE switches, companies can conserve power. Devices can be turned off when not in use, or scheduled to go offline after business hours.

Buying a unified communications (UC) system can be incredibly confusing. But what if you could simply plug some variables into a piece of software and suddenly be comparing apples to apples?

You can, with the ShoreTel Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) tool.

TCO calculations include costs that may not turn up in initial budgets or statements of work, but may still have a significant impact on future business operations. Because of this, the solution with the lowest up-front purchase price ultimately may not have the lowest TCO. In fact, according to ShoreTel, up-front costs represent only 25 percent of TCO.

Based on third-party data, the TCO tool computes a UC system’s costs based on your company’s specific configuration requirements. And yes, the tool is accurate. It has been validated by third-party, independent industry experts. Variables you can feed into the tool include:

• Hardware replacement
• Training
• Support
• Software upgrades
• Moves, adds and changes
• System management
• Energy consumption
• Network and long distance charges
• Up-front capital
• Implementation costs

Once the TCO tool has been configured for your specific circumstances, you can calculate and compare the TCO of multiple UC systems over several years. Comparisons can be made between ShoreTel, Mitel, Avaya, Microsoft, Cisco and TDM.

The tool creates cash flow projections for each solution, including assessments of key financial ratios such as payback period, return on investment, internal rate of return and net present value.

ShoreTel is betting that its unique architecture will help it come out on top of these calculations for most potential customers. With its simple approach to UC, ShoreTel typically offers lower costs for network upgrades, implementation, training, maintenance, system management, long distance charges and energy consumption.

For small customers with under 100 phones, the percentage difference may not be large. But once a company reaches 300 phones or more, the TCO for ShoreTel is clearly superior. Consider an analysis of a company with 1,500 users over 10 years. It shows that ShoreTel has a payback period of 16 months, compared to 46 months for Cisco. The net present value for ShoreTel was $13.378 million for ShoreTel, compared to just over $8 million for Mitel and about $7 million for Avaya.

Still skeptical? ShoreTel offers a guarantee that is unmatched in the industry. The company guarantees the lowest TCO, so you can be confident you are purchasing the right UC solution for your business. If the ShoreTel TCO Tool and/or additional independent data determine that ShoreTel’s TCO is higher than a competing solution, ShoreTel will lower its price to beat the competition.

Is your network access policy up to date?

At the vast majority of companies, the answer to this question is probably a resounding, “No!” But this shortcoming is not the result of inexperience, inattentiveness or ineptitude. In most cases, the paradigm of protecting the network simply has not kept up with the times.

Think back several years, to when the network was largely enclosed and encapsulated within the four walls of your business. Network security was focused on the physical network, including PCs and servers.

Next, with the advent of the Internet age, the firewall was born. Security efforts focused on preventing the wrong information from getting into – or out of – your network from the Web.

Lately, security seems focused largely on the air. Employees, vendors and customers want network access when they visit your offices. A wide range of wireless devices are pinging your servers, asking for a gateway to the Internet. At the same time, however, another level of security has been all but forgotten. Visitors and employees with laptops can plug into wired connections, which enable them to tap into the Internet – and perhaps much more.

Consider this example from a local school district. The school wanted to be able to authenticate machines hitting both wireless access points and wired ports. For example, a student in the classroom who used the school’s wireless access on his laptop would be provided only with access to the Internet. But if he saw a data jack in the wall, he could easily plug into it. Where would that take him? Would he be limited to seeing the school’s own web site, or would he have access to the entire network and its servers? And, if he had a virus on his laptop, could it take the school’s network down?

Today’s users alternate seamlessly between wired and wireless access, making it critical that companies move to a comprehensive access policy. This is one reason I am so excited about the latest offerings from Aruba Networks, which has products that offer world-class management of both wired and wireless connections from a central interface.

The AirWave Management Platform supports mobile users who connect via the wireless LAN, as well as wired Ethernet ports. With its easy-to-use interface and user-centric approach, AirWave Management Platform offers a simpler way to enforce policies and actionable information that lets you plan for the future. This saves time and money, improves service quality, and contributes to better decisions about network management and expansion.

If your network isn’t governed by a broad, consistent network access policy, take action today. The health of your network – and the ease of use for your employees, partners and visitors – is at stake.

The at-home executive and home-office salesperson are about to experience video conferencing quality – and simplicity – they never thought possible. Skype has qualified the LifeSize Passport HD video conference product to be the first room-based, business-class video conferencing solution to be plugged into Skype.

Currently, when a home-based executive jumps on a video conference, they are probably using Skype on a PC with a Logitech camera. The quality is serviceable, but it certainly doesn’t create a top-notch impression.

The new integration between LifeSize and Skype pushes the quality up several levels, with high-definition video, excellent compression capabilities and more – while still leveraging that free Skype account. LifeSize Passport connects directly to the monitor of the user’s PC. When the Skype account rings, the user can simply answer to have video immediately pop up.

The click-to-call features of Skype also make the technology easier to operate for outbound calls, since users dial a typical phone number rather than using an IP address to connect to a corporate LifeSize system. In addition, users can rely on the same LifeSize hardware to call someone across the country or overseas who has a Skype account, but doesn’t use LifeSize or other room-based systems.

“LifeSize is known for its HD telepresence-quality solutions in the enterprise. Now, LifeSize Passport users can easily connect using face-to-face video conferencing with other Skype users worldwide,” said David Gurle, vice president and general manager of Skype Enterprise.

At under $2,500, LifeSize Passport is the ideal solution for small meeting rooms, individual offices, teleworkers and small to medium-sized businesses to easily and cost-effectively implement video wherever they need to stay connected.

To enable Skype video calling from LifeSize Passport, a customer must first be a registered Skype user. Upon logging into LifeSize Passport using their Skype log in credentials, their Skype contacts are automatically populated into the LifeSize directory. To make a call, users simply click on a contact name in the directory. 

In addition to Skype video calling, the LifeSize Passport user is able to make calls to landlines and mobile phones through Skype.

“The qualification of LifeSize Passport to enable Skype video calling is an incredibly significant milestone in the video communications industry,” said Craig Malloy, chief executive officer of LifeSize and Logitech senior vice president. “We’ve been working closely with Skype over the last two years, helping us deliver on our shared vision to make video communication truly accessible to anyone, anywhere.”

First, companies were obsessed with protecting wired connections to their networks. Then, the focus shifted almost exclusively to wireless connections. And now, users are hammering the network with more diverse devices than ever, looking for a network connection.

What’s the solution? Aruba Networks has developed several new technologies to ensure that network access is easy for users, no matter their technology, while corporate infrastructure remains secure.

Recently, the company launched a new series of Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches designed to provide secure, role-based network access for users, no matter their location, device or application. The Aruba S3500 Mobility Access Switch is a wired access switch, which authenticates users and their devices the same way wireless access points already do in thousands of organizations. As a result, there is no need to manage and provision separate policies for wireless and wired access.

These wired access switches are especially useful for companies that need to manage the safety and security of every single connection, whether wired or wireless. These might include military offices, medical offices and brokerage houses. When a user plugs into a wired jack on site, they can be recognized as a guest and only allowed a connection to the Internet – and not inside the network.

In addition, Aruba is greatly enhancing the number of wireless gadgets it supports. When a user’s device reaches out to the network, Aruba can validate the device type, ask for user login information, and authenticate the user. It can even determine the user’s location.

All of this is accomplished with Aruba’s Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE) architecture. MOVE makes access privileges available based on user, device, application and location. All of these factors are examined to decide what kind of network access the user is entitled to have.

As a result, the entire mobile enterprise workforce has consistent, secure access to the appropriate network resources based on who they are – no matter where they are, what device they’re using or how they’re connected.

Aruba has embraced the handheld world, allowing for each authentication of iPhones, Blackberries, Droids, iPads and other mobile devices. This offers several benefits for devices whose knowledge workers rely on smartphones and tablets. For example, in a medical office, doctors with easy network access are more likely to perform medical coding on-the-fly during patient exams. The upside? Studies have shown that physicians do a dramatically better job than a clerk coding various medical procedures, which speeds the billing and collections process along with insurance companies.

Video conferencing isn’t just for big corporations any more.

Over the past several years, video conferencing technologies have grown much more affordable. Today, small businesses, schools and not-for-profits can at last afford to leap into video conferencing. Yet there is still a misconception among many that this technology is best left to large corporate boardrooms.

For smaller organizations, video conferencing can provide immediate benefits by lowering costs, improving communication and even driving revenue. Here are just a few examples:

• Training across multiple offices. Human resources personnel and sales managers often need to provide training programs to several locations. This can be the case at many types of organizations including schools, small and mid-sized businesses and more. Rather than spending the time and money to travel from office to office, the trainer can conduct a single session video video conference with all offices. Participants can ask and answer questions in real time. Best of all, the trainer can actually see his students and know whether they are engaged – or texting, typing and working on other projects.
• Flexible training and communication times. Sometimes, it’s impossible to get a team together at the same time. Salespeople are on the go, workers are booked into conference calls and meetings, and teachers are tied to the classroom. With video conferencing, a manager or trainer can record a session that is later viewed by anyone with Internet access. Simply walk into the room, look into the camera and hit record. If you make a mistake, start over. When you’re finished, send a link to the team. They can click and watch at their convenience, and everyone will receive the training or communication they need. This particular application is great for sales, healthcare, and any organization with a large team that needs to hear a message from the top.
• Everyone gets there on time, with ease. One of our clients is a school district that required its department heads to gather at one location for a weekly meeting. Unfortunately, the end-of-day rush combined with traffic gridlock ensured that many teachers were missing or significantly late each time. By video conferencing in real time, teachers can stay in their own building, be prompt, and avoid the hassles and rush of traffic. Then, if needed, they can head back to the classroom after the meeting to put in more work before the day is through. Productivity rises, and everyone can still interact as needed.

The possibilities are endless. With a small investment in video conferencing equipment, your business can find its own ways to make life easier, more productive, and more profitable.