Cloud Services the Buzz at PTC ‘12
What do you get when over 2,000 delegates representing telecommunications interests in the Asia Pacific region gather in Waikiki Beach? Technologies are vetted, alliances formed, and industry “buzz” gets generated in what seems to be endless cycles of conference sessions, meetings and mixers. Creative chaos ensues and the stakes are high.
January is upon us and once again, it is time for the Pacific Telecommunications Council‘s annual conference — PTC’12. On its 34th year, this event is a strategic springboard for the global telecommunications industry.
Virtela’s Follow-the-Sun Customer Support
My American and Indian colleagues have been blogging away here. I think it’s time for Virtela Philippines to be represented on Virtela ViewPoint.
The Philippines Global Operations Center (GOC) works in full tandem with counterparts in Denver, Colorado and Mumbai, India to provide 24x7x365 customer support.
Sunrise in Manila prompts the Philippine team to get in full gear, ready to perform a smooth handoff from the Denver GOC team. Shortly before Manila’s famed sunset, we pass on support functions to our Mumbai counterparts. As an integral part of Virtela’s global service delivery, the Virtela Philippines team is committed to a seamless transition in the never-ending follow-the-sun customer service support cycle.
Can you trust your Managed Service Provider (MSP)?
In order for a business partnership to be successful, there must be several levels of trust. This is true in any industry, for any business transaction.
In the managed services industry, the issue of trust is paramount. Customers must trust that the services provided – whether network, security, cloud, IT infrastructure management or otherwise – will be reliable and high-performing. Companies also need to trust that the MSP implements the best solution to meet their unique needs. Additionally, if problems occur, the customer must be confident that the MSP will do what it takes to resolve problems quickly; better yet, predict potential problems and fix them before they severely impact the health of the network.
Global Access team at Asian Carriers’ Conference 2011
If it is late September, it must be time for the annual Asian Carriers’ Conference in the island of Mactan, Philippines. On its 7th year, Virtela’s Global Access and Sales teams joined almost a thousand delegates representing over 350 global carriers in braving a typhoon that preceded the conference, airline labor unrest induced travel inconvenience and another headline grabbing typhoon tailing the event.
True to form, the island of Mactan showcased world renowned Philippine hospitality in languid lush tropical powder white sand beachfront setting. But wait. The vastly deserted idyllic outdoors belie the collective conference energy in meeting rooms, partitioned ballrooms, restaurants, bars, lobbies and hallways of the Shangri-la Mactan Resort as the conference venue.
Virtela heads to Capacity Africa on a telecommunications safari (so to speak)
Virtela goes where our customers tell us to go. Picture these: amazing wildlife, very rich culture, scenic country and great people. Virtela’s Global Access Strategy team headed to Nairobi, Kenya for Capacity Africa 2011.
As Virtela’s response to the increasing need of our customers to push the frontiers of our network even deeper into the African continent, the Global Access Strategy team actively participated in this year’s annual Capacity Africa event. Nairobi, Kenya as the venue of this year’s conference is very apropos. Nairobi is reported to be the most populous city in East Africa. As an African hub for business and culture, it hosts over 100 transnational companies and is the site of the United Nation’s headquarters for Africa and the Middle East.
Managing 500+ carriers in over 190 countries
The Virtela Global Access Team, which is responsible for purchasing network services and managing carrier relationships, is working around the clock to improve Virtela’s global supply chain through tough negotiation with suppliers and through automation.
Purchasing circuits from carriers is a complex process since there can be hundreds of carriers to choose from and literally millions of price points to manage. The team has to buy cost effectively while simultaneously designing the network with as much network uptime as possible to meet the stringent SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that Virtela commits to its customers.
Come a little closer in the cloud
When thinking about the cloud, one may not realize the importance of proximity. This is understandable, given that one of the most commonly cited benefits of the technology is its potential to increase mobility and provide users the option of working from nearly any location.
However, the cloud is only an effective tool if your business can connect to it. This is where proximity comes into play. The closer a business is to a cloud center, the faster its services will perform, and issues with such services are drastically reduced.
Isn’t MPLS a commodity? Isn’t it all the same?
This is a question we receive frequently from customers and prospects, and we would like to clarify on this misconception. How MPLS is implemented can affect the performance of a network.
For one, choosing a multi-carrier MPLS service can overcome single provider limitations. For example, a fully redundant, multi-carrier backbone network provides rerouting and dynamic failover across the best network path – meaning that the network can withstand anything from small performance issues to major infrastructure outages. Another benefit of a multi-carrier MPLS service is the consistent CoS (class-of-service) across multiple MPLS providers.
Virtela puts its Stamp on ITW 2011
The Virtela Global Access Team descended on Washington DC for the latest installment of International Telecoms Week. As a four year veteran of this event, I know the 3 most important aspects of a successful ITW: comfortable shoes, an endless supply of business cards, and a well organized schedule. While I can claim success on the first two, the third never seems to survive the first morning.
ITW is the premier networking event in the global telecoms market, and thus a crucial opportunity for Virtela to meet with our existing suppliers to reaffirm our strategic relationships. These relationships are the cornerstone of our global managed services offering and a huge differentiator when we are compared to the competition. No cookie cutter global networks here, our job is to make certain our suppliers can support the unique requirements of our customers, and support the high level of customer service that is required of all our suppliers.
Why Managed Services Makes Sense and Saves Big Dollars
It’s been one of those days already. Forgot my security badge… couldn’t get in the building, had to reboot my computer twice (it’s been locking up more often), then spilled my darn coffee on my keyboard and mouse. I thought for sure, it’s fried. So I quickly dried it using a bunch of paper just lying around (I hope it wasn’t anything important, probably not) and checked to see to see if it’s still working. Clicked on the first email and viola, it still works and the email I clicked on was an Insight Research report.
It was a report on “Managed Services in an IP World: New Opportunities for Wireless and Wire Networks 2010-2015.” So I thought, let me read on and click/move around this report to make sure everything’s really working versus just a one click fluke. In the report, Insight Research predicted the managed services market will grow from $29 billion in 2010 to $47 billion in 2015 – about two to three times the rate of the telecommunications market. Interestingly, the report cites the recent global economic downturn as a major reason why enterprises are turning to managed service providers. MSPs save them money on internal staffing and also solve the intricacies of managing voice, data, and wireless networks. It’d be interesting to see how the stats change as the economy recovers. I sure know of more people getting jobs and even getting multiple job offers nowadays.