Toll Free is still popular, but using a mobile provides new challenges
Toll-free numbers aren’t going away any time soon. Companies still use them to connect customers to their contact centers. What’s different from a few years ago is that most contact center calls now come from mobile devices. And while companies are confident that they’re providing a good mobile experience, their customers don’t often feel the same.
One problem contact centers face is having to pay for each call going through a toll-free line, whether it originates from a smartphone or a landline. This significantly adds to a company’s operating expenses. The Avaya Mobile Experience (AME), launched in 2018, addresses this problem by lowering toll-free and agent costs. The cloud-based service can send incoming calls directly to a contact center without passing it to a fixed network.
AME identifies when a call is coming from a mobile phone, transfers contextual information on the caller to a contact center, and deflects calls to the mobile web for a richer customer service experience. If a caller chooses that option, the toll-free call ends and they receive a link for personalized access to a website. Customers can then use self-service tools like chatbots or a combination of voice, video, and co-browsing.
SD-WAN provides better visibility
With the proliferation of smartphones, consumers have come to expect a seamless digital experience. When dialing a toll-free number, they want agents to know who they are and have additional context that could speed up the call. AME was designed with those needs in mind. It collects customer information to assist contact center agents, so they can handle a call more efficiently if a customer prefers to interact via voice.
Greater multichannel engagement equips companies with valuable insight about customer behavior. But to pull it off, companies need a reliable network that prioritizes voice over IP (VoIP), video, and other real-time traffic without dropping sessions. By deploying a software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), companies can have better visibility into their network. An SD-WAN performs over any type of transport—including MPLS, broadband, cellular, and satellite—and selects an optimal path for each data packet.
A SD-WAN infrastructure needs reliable internet connectivity with sufficient bandwidth. SD-WANs provide operational flexibility, but also create complexities that stem from implementing WAN load balancing for internal, internet-facing, and mobile workloads. Thus, they require monitoring and tuning internet throughput for performance. A SD-WAN infrastructure must also include secure access to mobile devices as traffic is transported outside the firewall.
FatPipe and Avaya Mobile Experience (AME) helps improve overall customer experience
FatPipe, a provider of intra-corporate WAN solutions, has developed a secure multi-path VPN (MPVPN) to be implemented for hybrid WAN. It supports bidirectional quality of service (QoS), which monitors the sending and receiving of calls/sessions. An advanced routing architecture that utilizes MPVPN can correct up to 15 percent packet loss on diverse circuits simultaneously, while maintaining toll-quality calls and seamless failover.
Contact centers with mobile customers looking to migrate away from high cost MPLS circuits, now have the option of deploying FatPipe’s dual-path SD-WAN for AME. FatPipe and Avaya came up with a combined solution that equips contact centers with a hybrid WAN mobile infrastructure, which can reduce toll call expenses by up 40 percent annually, per FatPipe.
The vendors formed a global alliance to help contact centers achieve those cost savings through joint product verification, pre-integration, and certified solutions. Beyond cost savings, the vendors see companies bridging an existing technology gap.
Companies that implement FatPipe’s SD-WAN with AME can control, monitor, and maintain multiple WAN connections, eliminating the need for Internet Service Provider (ISP) management. As a result, smartphone users get more self-service options on a hybrid network that’s flexible and can accommodate new cloud-based applications.
Contact FatPipe Networks at 801-683-5656 x 1224 for more information. www.fatpipeinc.com.
It’s remarkable how fast software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) has gained momentum. Many people ask why. The answer is: SD-WAN is expanding the functionality of automating and management access to cloud applications.
The primary trigger for the growth and interest in SD-WAN is the shift, over the past decade, of a massive amount of applications to the cloud (both private and public). Networks in the client-server era were built to access applications that were housed either at an enterprise site or, more rarely, in a private data center. But the cloud shifted the game — creating the need for fast access to applications wherever they reside, including the cloud when accessed across the Internet.
Cloud Connection Challenges
From the CIO or CTO’s perspective, cloud has many benefits but also presents many challenges from the network and security point of view. Cloud applications can speed the velocity and agility of IT, enabling your workforce to connect and build on new applications on demand.
But the challenge is that you need to build a new infrastructure to support these cloud applications. There are several challenges to connecting your workforce to this new world of agile cloud applications. Here are a few:
Application Performance: Cloud means there are many routes for workers to connect – and generally they do so using the network, not always under control of the corporate network. They could be using Internet broadband to connect to a cloud application or they might be on a corporate WAN. SD-WAN technology can add network intelligence to the corporate WAN to recognize which applications are being accessed and connect them in the most efficient, cost effective way. It can provide Internet breakout to make sure that general Internet traffic is not routed through expensive private data-center connections (such as MPLS). And furthermore, SD-WAN technology can be used to connect directly to recognize the most common cloud applications (Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce), and connect to application-specific gateways that speed up applications access.
Security: With the increased use of the Internet and cloud technologies, it’s harder for IT staff to assure security when employees are using the network to connect to the cloud. SD-WAN can enable additional network visibility and security functions that assure that cloud applications are being accessed in a secure way. More importantly, by enabling network branches and endpoints with SD-WAN, IT staff can gain more insight into how the networks are being used and implement security policies.
Agility and Automation: In the hardware-based WAN world, networks were connected with complicated hardware configurations and leased lines, making changes to the network topology and architecture difficult. In order to connect to the cloud, a more responsive network is needed to gain control and visibility over cloud connections. With SD-WAN, networks can be more quickly orchestrated and changed using software, increasing the speed with which IT and networking staff can respond to changing business demand. In addition, SD-WAN deployments can often be set up using software-based automation tools such as templates.
End-User Attraction: Making Life Easier
What’s most powerful about SD-WAN is that it has the potential to solve several of these challenges at once, by providing an integrated, software-driven platform for automating network policy and applications.
Cloud applications mean that traffic flows within the network have drastically changed and become inefficient. The technology to handle these new traffic flows is embedded in many SD-WAN platforms.
SD-WAN emerged with a few use cases anchored to the need for fast cloud access, but those use cases are now expanding, according to Futuriom research. That is because the WAN is a key enabler — and also possibly stumbling block — for cloud applications.
So how exactly does SD-WAN do that? The MEF, a global industry alliance comprised of more than 150 networking technology and service-provider organizations, is working to reduce the confusion surrounding SD-WAN technologies and solutions. As part of their work the MEF has identified the following as being fundamental capabilities of SD-WAN managed services:
Secure, IP-based virtual overlay network
Transport-independence of underlay network
Service assurance of each SD-WAN tunnel
Application-driven packet forwarding
High availability through multiple WAN links
Policy-based packet forwarding
Service automation via centralized management, control and orchestration
The MEF also identified some value-added services that are beyond the fundamental SD-WAN service offering. This includes WAN optimization and advanced security services.
These expanding capabilities of SD-WAN show why it’s growing so fast – it’s become the Swiss army knife of WAN automation and management. This is why IT and network managers have taken a liking to the approach is that streamlines the management of many of challenges posed to given users a better experience in connecting to the cloud.
FatPipe Networks has been developing and delivering traffic management solutions for over 17 years and was “SD-WAN before SD-WAN was cool”- Gartner. With 12 seminal patents and a comprehensive suite that addresses any SD-WAN need, FatPipe Networks is a must for any WAN administrator considering or updating their WAN traffic management needs
SD-WANs can jump start digital transformation initiatives
ZK Research data shows that 94% of companies have at least one digital transformation initiative underway. The research firm also found that a shocking 75% of CxOs admittedly do not know what their industry will look like or who their competitors will be in five years. This means that success in the digital era isn’t based on the company that has the lowest prices, best products, or even the top people.
Sustaining a market leading position is predicated being agile and having the ability to quickly adapt the business to seize new opportunities faster than the competition. The digital era is Darwinism at its finest – it’s the most adaptable that survives and the rest are fodder for the winners. This is why the transition to digital is at the top of every CxOs priority list.
While the concept of becoming digital makes sense, executing a plan to transform can be quite intimidating for most organizations, particularly well established businesses that haven’t relied on technology in the past, as there’s a perception that digital transformation requires big moonshot-like initiatives and investments. Retailers believe they need to Amazon over night while taxi and car service companies want to Uber up. The fact is, while there is urgency, there’s no need to try and make that hard pivot overnight. In fact, moonshots often fail and business and technology leaders need to understand that digital transformation is more about executing manageable chip shots rather than complex moonshots.
The chip shot reference should make it clear that I’m an avid golfer and I’ll extend the analogy further by pointing out digital transformation should be done one shot at a time and SD-WANs can facilitate that. For example, a bank might put a futuristic plan together for “digital banking” that involves a number of new technologies, such as virtual reality, digital signs, Internet of Things, digital mirrors and other advanced technology. One might look at the end game and find the journey so daunting that it paralyzes them.
A better way to approach this type of digital plan is through a series of smaller initiatives where the deployments can be controlled and managed the ROI easily calculated. For example, the bank may choose to put video terminals in an office at all branch locations, allowing customers to talk directly to product experts, even if that branch has no local personnel with that knowledge base. This is a small, manageable change that’s easy to implement with a measurable ROI. Without video, experts travel from branch to branch limiting the number of appointments per day to just a few. With video, product experts can be available all day long giving the bank the ability to sell more products to more people.
What does SD-WAN have to do with this? The answer is everything! We live in a customer experience driven world where a good customer experience leads to loyalty and a higher share of wallet. A bad experience will drive customers away, perhaps never to return. One interesting factoid that supports this, comes from ZK Research, which found that two-thirds of millennials changed loyalties to a brand in 2018 because of a single bad experience.
Here is where a little SD-WAN will pay big dividends as video requires a high quality, low latency and jitter free network. Imagine being in a bank, sitting a high end customer down in front of a terminal only to experience a horrible video experience. That customer may never try and service again. Instead of fueling customer acquisition might be chasing them away. Also, the bank may be less likely to recommend it, giving the impression the project was a waste.
The key takeaway here is that success with digital transformation is dependent on network modernization, particularly the WAN where bandwidth isn’t a bountiful commodity. Businesses require an agile, secure and dynamic network capable of supporting whatever applications are deployed. Legacy WANs cannot support digital businesses, but SD-WANs are built from the ground up with agility and flexibility in mind. With the banking example, the video service requires flawless connectivity and SD-WANs can automate the process of prioritizing traffic or reserving bandwidth to ensure the quality remains high. When the call is over, the reservation on bandwidth needs to be removed to not impact other applications. These processes on a legacy network, using manual processes are slow, time consuming and error prone and will likely lead to application problems. SD-WANs make this touch free.
The digital era has arrived and IT leaders need to be prepared. This requires agility and dynamism at the network layer as it’s the resource that connects everything. SD-WANs create a foundation that enables businesses to accelerate their digital efforts.
FatPipe Networks have been developing and innovating SD-WAN solutions for 18 years. For the best of breed SD-WAN solutions, call FatPipe today at 801-683-5656. FatPipe Networks www.fatpipeinc.com
Software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) technology combines many desired enterprise networking features – including security, bandwidth optimization, and application acceleration – and delivers them with a cloud-managed networking architecture.
One of the primary benefits of SD-WAN technology is that it implements new network services and features in software, without requiring hardware upgrades. Enterprise and service-provider buyers are interested in the multiple benefits of SD-WAN, including improving and managing broadband Internet, reducing network costs for both connectivity and operating expense (opex), and improved management and automation. Service providers are aware of this trend and are scrambling to put together managed services offerings, as their MPLS offerings will clearly be replaced by SD-WAN services in the long term.
The Network’s Cloud Evolution
One of the big trends with information technology is the move to the cloud. Enterprises now expect to buy IT services, on-demand, from the cloud. The network is moving to the cloud as well. Enterprise network managers seek the agility and flexibility of managing their network from the cloud, while at the same time getting locked into proprietary equipment on expensive private lines. Gains in Internet availability and bandwidth optimization technology, such as WAN optimization, de-duplication, load-balancing, and link balancing, have become more sophisticated, enabling enterprises to leverage Internet broadband for business applications. This is driving the rapid expansion of the SD-WAN market, which provides all of this functionality in a cloud-delivered model
The Network’s Cloud Evolution
Futuriom’s ongoing interviews with enterprise end users as well as service providers delivering SD-WAN reveals the following goals in connecting the WAN in these new cloud environments:
Optimize and accelerate WAN traffic to the cloud
Improve overall network security
Reduce costs related to WAN bandwidth
Leverage multiple access technologies such as fiber, DSL, and wireless
Increased flexibility in CPE so that management can be outsourced or updated with software-only upgrades
Improve capability to purchase, provision, and manage network services via the cloud, using software
Customers can solve all of these problems with a single SD-WAN offering that addresses these challenges with specific features. Take a look at the features that can now be typically included in an SD-WAN package:
Let’s highlight why all of these SD-WAN features are important.
Router replacement and Open CPE: Managing proprietary hardware and customer premises equipment (CPE), including branch-office routers, can be expensive and time consuming. SD-WAN can be used to simplify the deployment and management of CPE – especially if you are a retail company that has to manage hundreds or thousands of branches. SD-WAN functionality can be delivered on open, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and managed from the cloud, helping to streamline and automate management.
Enhanced Security and Cloud VPN: One of the allures of SD-WAN technology is that it can be used to deploy a virtual private network (VPN) as a software overlay using end-to-end encryption. This helps meet security requirements for businesses that may want to connect branch offices or retail outlets but also have high security requirements. But SD-WAN platforms can also be used to deliver value-added security services such as stronger encryption, malware detection, and intrusion detection services (IDS). Security is becoming an important checklist item for SD-WAN.
WAN Optimization: SD-WAN can be used to improve the performance of applications on the network. WAN optimization, once a discrete function delivered with a hardware or software appliances, is being integrated into SD-WAN functionality. Many SD-WAN technologies include WAN optimization functionality and we expect this to be a checklist item in SD-WAN deployments.
Application Performance Enhancement: Cloud WAN solutions can be built that optimize access to cloud applications by monitoring traffic and routing higher-priority business applications ahead of leisure services such as Netflix and YouTube. Additionally, many WAN services can peer directly with cloud services to offer a “fast lane” to the business applications. These techniques can be used to “offload” enterprise WAN backhaul, routing cloud traffic directly to the source using a combination of broadband technologies. This will also have the effect of challenging the traditional ADC model of providing these services as part of a discrete hardware device. In addition, some SD-WAN vendors are working with cloud vendors to set up specialized cloud gateways and POPs in cloud datacenters to provide more direct access to cloud applications.
Cloud Management: As we have outlined, SD-WAN functionality can be deployed using COTS hardware and then managed from the cloud. This means that new network features, functionality, and updates can be managed with software over the network, rather than forklift upgrades, yielding a network-as-a-service model.
The SD-WAN market is now rapidly moving to customer deployments and accelerating because it delivers a more flexible, agile, and feature-rich platform to manage the enterprise WAN. Futuriom believes that in 2019 the market will continue to accelerate and drive into the billions of dollars, as it replaces some legacy technologies for VPN, ADC, edge routers, and firewalls. The market is consolidating around software-delivered and adaptive WAN services that can connect either through thin customer clients or industry-standard CPE.
FatPipe Networks have been selling software defined networking solutions for over 20 years and have specialized in providing customers with best of breed security, (one of the only SD-WAN providers with FIPS 140-2 government certification) reliability, flexibility (can support up to 15 interfaces in one device) and is easy to manage, providing a single pane interface view of the entire network.
Most WANs of today still use routers and technology that, at
the time, served a purpose and provided a mechanism to expand the network to
remote branches and locations across the world using MPLS or similar protocols.
But times have changed.
Traffic on WANs has increased by almost 10 fold in the last 15
years. T1 was “revolutionary” many years
ago, providing speeds of a blistering 1.5Mb/s. Today, this throughput is not going to make
the grade in 99% of WANs. Fiber, or
optical networks can reach speeds of over 100Gbps. It is like buying a new car every 5
years. You see the features and you
want them, as do network administrators.
So what is the “Intelligent Edge?”
First, what really is “the edge”? A definition from Wikipedia is “an edge
device provides an entry point into enterprise or service provider core
networks. It can be thought of as a
router that provides authenticated access to faster more efficient backbone and
core networks.” Essentially, “the
edge” of any network is thought of to be a place where you generate, collect,
and analyze data on the edge of the network where the data is generated rather
than in centralized servers and systems.
Computation is largely or completely performed on a distributed device
node known as smart device or edge device.
OK – so now we understand “what” the edge is, so what is the
“intelligent edge? As Wide Area
Networks grew and became more complicated with more and more devices being
attached, both hard wired, wireless and remote, the need for bandwidth
increased, dramatically.
Today – there are almost 24 Billion devices connected to the
internet with the expectation of 50 billion by 2020. Think of the “intelligent Edge” as a place
where computing occurs. It is
“intelligent” because there is technology there that has ability to control,
analyze and compute. This can be a
manufacturing floor, a farm crop field, a city, your home, power plant, sports
arena, your car, in the air, or under the sea.
These interrelated computing devices or objects are referred to as the
Internet of Things (IoT) and these devices are driving how and why the “intelligent
edge” is becoming a key focus for network managers. This
intelligent edge connects these devices, performs analytics, computes, and can
control actions that were formerly confined to the central or cloud based data
centers.
The usage and access demand is what is driving “edge”
technologies and solutions. It is much
better to access the information and data as close to the connection point as
possible.
On average, users have 5 different devices to attach to the
network. Of course they expect to
attach to a network and access the applications and data they need,
instantly. But this requires a network
with agility, flexibility and “intelligence” to understand where the requests
are coming from, how to manage the requests in the most efficient and effective
manner possible and to provide reliable connectivity which, after all, is why
sensors and monitors are being installed in machines such as wind turbines, to monitor
vibration, wear and operating effectiveness, and help prevent brownouts or
blackouts. However, without constant
and reliable connectivity, the data provided by these sensors would be “lost”.
The un-intelligent router in all its forms is struggling to
find relevance in this scenario. The availability of ethernet handoff is
killing the router business. They are trying hard to find relevance in this
scenario.
So where next for the “intelligent edge”?
As stated earlier, more and more devices are being connected
and more and more data being collected on a multitude of things to help
streamline decision making to prevent downtime or in the worst cases,
failure.
Networks of the future are going to be driven by the need
for instant information, instant decisions, and instant remediation. All of which is why the “intelligent edge”
will become a mainstream “product” in the design and implementation of ANY
network. Having said that, what does
this mean for networks of today, and what should the administrators plan for to
embrace these changes?
Let’s look at the current most important issues faced by
network administrators and how embracing intelligent edge devices will affect
how these issues might be dealt with.
Firstly – Security:
Many recent surveys suggest the number one issue faced by
network administrators worldwide is, security.
Security of data, whether in transmission or stored somewhere is
critical. We just have to look at the problems faced
with social media company data breaches, credit card company breaches and
others to know that data security is by far and away the number one issue. Can the “intelligent edge” help? Yes and no.
It is not the “edge’ that can prevent hacking, it is the underlying
software that transmits the data that is key.
The transmission of data across the network, from edge device or user to
data center to other devices, needs to be secure. Administrators need to deploy software
solutions that provide highly secure data transmission, and that includes data
from the edge. The intelligent edge,
does however, compute locally and provides a more local management issue, rather
than a broad network security issue.
Second:- Ease of
Management:
Believe it or not, the costs of recruiting, training,
certifying and managing skilled IT staff is becoming a major issue for any
business. The days of paying for
continuing education and propriety certification are waning. Today, administrators are looking for
solutions that are easy to manage, especially when devices and or offices are
remote. The Intelligent Edge should be
simple, easy to install and manage remotely, and for the most part, this is
true once the devices are installed.
Third: –
Compatibility with existing networks:
Organizations are reluctant to rip and replace their
networks. If a solution can augment
existing installations, administrators will look favorably at these
recommendations. So, does the
intelligent edge help with these decisions?
Certainly, as they can use existing infrastructure provided there is an
underlying software that can manage data transmission and device access
securely and reliably.
Fourth: – Network
performance:
Latency, bandwidth, reliability, duplication and overall
cost of the network are all top of mind.
Intelligent edge devices cannot perform or provide the benefits they
claim to bring to a business if the underlying network is slow, unreliable or
using legacy systems that are slow and difficult to manage or update. The Intelligent Edge is only going to be as
good as the network infrastructure it is connected to. The bottom line here is to make sure the
network is configured to take advantage of intelligent edge device data.
So now what?
The Intelligent Edge is certainly something that can help network
administrators predict the future more accurately. The more data these devices provide, the
better the decision will be on how to use this information, and with the advent
of AI, this information can be acted on immediately, providing “instant”
remediation or feedback that helps businesses learn what we like, when
equipment may malfunction, where to route data to avoid a line failure, how to
prepare for the best solution, and even where we might choose to travel to
next.
So just install intelligent edge devices and move
on? Stop! Read this first!
Earlier in this article, we mentioned the need for the
underlying network infrastructure to be “intelligent edge” ready. Remember, you can have all the sensors and
monitoring services available, but if the data they produce is not getting to
the right places at the right time, you are back to square one. Adding more devices or “edge services” does
not make network administration easier unless you have the right network
solution to take advantage of these benefits.
Without installing software solutions to monitor and manage
your edge devices, the “intelligent edge” becomes another user on the
network. In order to take advantage of
the many benefits the “intelligent edge” provides, you need to make sure your
network is ready.
It must be ready to:
Transmit data from all devices, including the
intelligent edge devices, securely and effectively, without user intervention.
Proactively route data on the best available
link in times of congestion
Automatically failover in a sub second if a
connection should fail
Use all and available bandwidth proactively and
intelligently, without having to reconfigure the network
Automatically detect and remediate attempts to
breach the security of the network
Be managed easily and simply from a single
point, with zero touch provisioning for remote branches.
FatPipe Networks has been providing network solutions for
over 15 years and is the only company with a patented security module that is
FIPS 140-2 certified, providing military grade security for traffic across the
WAN or across broadband networks.
FatPipe solutions give administrators the comfort of the highest SD-WAN
security available.
Fatpipe patented technologies have eliminated the need for
BGP routing, and with it all the delays in inefficiencies of route propagation.
Fatpipe brought intelligence to the edge.
Using FatPipe’s single pane GUI management tools,
administrators can not only see exactly what their network looks like, but with
FatPipe’s QoS, they can prioritize application access no matter where the
application resides, in the cloud or locally.
In addition, FatPipe’s solutions allow for load balancing over multiple
links, including Cable, DSL, MPLS, DIA, 3G, 4G, 5G LTE and satellite. FatPipe’s management tools are easy to use,
requiring basic IT skills saving companies’ significant time and IT staff
educational costs.
FatPipe has always been a company serving network administrators. FatPipe was providing WAN SD-WAN solutions long before SD-WAN became a buzz word. The solutions are built to work with existing LAN and WAN infrastructures and protocols. In fact, FatPipe is the only SD-WAN vendor to support up to 40Gbps bandwidth and up to 15 interfaces.
