Posts Tagged ‘cloud’

2010 Year In Review

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

What a difference a year makes! I know it seems a bit trite to post about the year in review, but I think it’s an important exercise for everyone to run through. In addition to remembering what we did, it also helps put the year into perspective and get a nice picture of the goals that were accomplished. For me, this means a great deal since I started a new role at CNS exactly one year ago.

Being responsible for Product Development at CNS is no easy task. Not only does it encompass taking ideas and developing them into new products, it also involves working with our existing products and making them better. It involves working closely with our customers to get feedback so we know where and how to enhance our products and which new ideas will succeed. I many cases, it is working with internal teams to develop new processes for their jobs. In short, there are a lot of hats to be worn on any given day.

So, what have I done this year? As it turns out, quite a lot and hopefully you’ve seen some of the benefits of my hard work!

1. The PROSuite Dispatch position was a huge change to our process that has allow us to better prioritize and respond to tickets so emergencies can get to the top of the list and your hold times are minimized. We still have some work to do in this area, but looking at how things were before this position, we are all in a much better place today.

2. Ticket Process / User Training – Along with the new dispatcher position, we made some pretty significant changes to our internal ticket handling processes and introduced service level objectives. Tickets are now better organized and there are metrics in place to help avoid tickets aging without a resolution. We also developed a training program for end users to help them understand how the system works so they can be empower to take full advantage of the program.

3. Windows 7/Office 2010 – I spent time working with Microsoft on a few different marketing programs for these two new technologies. In addition to working with our customer base, Microsoft has commended us on our knowledge and expertise and one of our customers is currently in a video showcase on microsoft.com!

4. Server Virtualization – We jumped into virtual servers in a big was in 2010. While not a new technology to us, we adapted our standard server deployment to utilize this technology whenever possible as it brings huge benefits to productivity and disaster recovery scenarios.

5. Project Management – The whole company has a renewed focus on project management and utilizes these principles to ensure that our development and deployment projects are on-time and on-budget.

6. The Cloud – I’d me remiss if I didn’t mention the Cloud. I travelled a LOT this year and learned a lot as well. CNS is currently in the early stages of redeveloping the traditional office and I am very excited to roll out this new product next year. Besides preparing our customers through the use of server virtualization, we have also just started an upgrade to our offsite storage backup solution. We will now be able to restore a copy of your server in the Cloud and allow you to continue operating without having to wait for failover equipment to arrive. We can also use this as a test lab to see how an application upgrade will interact with the system or demo a new piece of software.

There are a lot of things I didn’t mention here, like this blog, a revamped invoice process or new remote management tools that also augment your experience, as I tried to focus on key points and not individual areas. I hope that everyone is enjoying the benefits of these new aspects to our products. Drop me a line and let me know what you think!

Thanks for taking the time to read about CNS this year. I hope that you can take some time to review your year as well! Happy New Year!

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted by in Business Strategy, Customer Service, Hot Topics, Technology | No Comments »

CNS Helps New Jersey Non-Profit Move to DC

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

The Corporate Network Services tenet, “Our only product is our customers’ success” is exemplified in the story of a New Jersey non-profit. The organization was moving its headquarters to Washington, DC and had hired one of our satisfied customers to head their new office. The non-profit continued to work with its managed services company in New Jersey and initially contacted CNS to provide only the office cabling, network, and phone system. They thought they would economize by continuing to use the New Jersey managed services provider.

After two months working with that provider, the office manager recognized that this bargain was no bargain. They were wasting money due to significant downtimes and outages and the service they were receiving paled in comparison to that offered by a Corporate Network Services’ managed services solution, PROSuite.

In addition to the new PROSuite Executive Agreement with co-location, the non-profit also contracted with CNS to travel to New Jersey, power down the network, disconnect, pack and transport the servers to the CNS COLO location and bring the servers and network back online. Including the out-of -state travel time, the organization was only offline for seven hours. CNS has worked to stabilize the network, establish secure connections for the remote users and assure that the infrastructure supports the organization’s goals.

Knowing that Corporate Network Services was the trusted IT Partner to bring to the new organization has helped the office manager exceed expectations in the new position. Let us help you exceed expectations!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted by in Business Strategy, Hot Topics, Our Philosophy, Technology | No Comments »

The Modern Office Initiative

Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Evolution is an interesting thing to watch. It is fascinating to see each subtle change and adaptation over a period of years. Over my 12 year tenure at CNS, we have been blessed with a number of long term customers. I’m sure each of them has a great story about how CNS has evolved over time, but this is the story of how a company evolves. People change, locations change and even ownership changes. But the key to longevity and survival is process evolution
Of all our long term customers, I can only think of a single one that has not dramatically changed the way their business is run. Regardless of their industry, enacting major change is a regular part of what we do at CNS. To be fair, not every change is a result of technology. Sometimes the industry changes and the customer must change with it to stay relevant. Perhaps the company is sold and a new owner enacts changes to better fit with their style. All reasoning aside, change is pinnacle of business operations.
That said, I would like to state that the modern office has evolved, and most companies have failed to evolve with it.
Over the past five years, so much technology has been introduced and become commonplace to a professional worker that the concept of an office where someone sits at a desk for eight prescribed hours a day seems like a relic out of the 1950′s. We now live in an age where ‘core hours’ and ‘home office’ are common terms. Life lives alongside work, and emails are returned from soccer games. The ‘office’ has become a place to go have a meeting and interact with your team, but is certainly not a place for distraction-less independent focus.
While most companies have modified their employment policies to allow for working from Starbucks or a home office, most have not seriously examined their IT infrastructure to ensure that their staff can be as productive as possible. In other words, companies have sanctioned and legitimized this remote aspect, but the only place to get the best productive IT experience is at the office. That seems wrong. At CNS, we have a branch office and several work at home employees – and we are guilty of the same thing! The solution? Reinvent the modern IT office infrastructure.
With the bandwidth explosion of the last five years, the cloud initiative becoming mainstream, and the overall desire to let people work where people work best, the stage is set to ditch the server closet and local computer IT model. Why do you store your most precious data in your office? It’s subject to theft, fire, heat issues, water issues and backup problems. Why not use a safety deposit box to store your data in the cloud where you can get to it from anywhere? Why spend capital expenses to buy expensive equipment and software when you can spend operational expenses on a monthly basis? Why not provide the same great productivity boosting environment where’ve your staff is sitting? Be it at the office, at home with the plumber, at Starbucks across town waiting for a meeting, or on a trans-Atlantic flight. The technology is here, we just need to get behind it!
Over the next year, CNS is going to evolve again. We are going to work with our customers to develop the next generation of small business IT. The idea is that we develop the picture of the modern office setup and use real world issues and ideas to make sure the overall solution works for everyone. I’m very excited about the opportunity. If you are too, drop me a line and let’s chat about your thoughts.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted by in Business Strategy, Hot Topics, Technology | No Comments »