Keep your customers productive and secure on their favorite apps and devices—and their company data protected—with Enterprise Mobility + Security solutions from Microsoft.
Why choose Microsoft?
More than 86% of Fortune 500 companies have the Microsoft Cloud, which offers companies a fully integrated stack for any kind of data from on-premises, hybrid or fully in the cloud, with an open cloud platform that supports a wide variety of Operating Systems and programming languages.
No other company has such a complete portfolio, from IaaS to PaaS and SaaS, from productivity and social solutions to ERP, from smartphones to PPIs. Microsoft offers the most connected, comprehensive set of cloud solutions (Azure, Enterprise Mobility + Security, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics), with an unmatched breadth and depth of capabilities from platform to productivity apps to business solutions. Our integrated portfolio of cloud services works across devices and is supported by one of world’s largest developer and partner ecosystem. From a customer perspective, this means a lower cost and complexity associated with the product/services integration, IT provider management and support.
THE ONLY CLOUD: ENTERPRISE LEVEL, HYPERSCALE, AND TRUE HYBRID
Microsoft is the only Cloud provider that combines a Hyperscale cloud offering, a truly hybrid platform and an Enterprise Level Support for your cloud workloads with Enterprise level SLAs.
Dixons Carphone is a major electronics retailer that is based in the UK but employs many people over 11 different countries. Dixons Carphone provides consumers with products and services that help them lead seamlessly connected lives at home, in the office, and on the move. Similar to most retailers, Dixons Carphone has had to adapt to modern consumer buying patterns by incorporating a larger amount of online product research and shopping. In fact, 90% of their customers start their shopping in some way or form online, and an astounding 65% use their phones to assist them while shopping in-store.
Dixons Carphone partnered with Microsoft with aims to find better ways to increase customer engagement as well as ways to better optimize employee time spent with customers, they determined that AI was the answer. Specifically, Dixons Carphone investigated the capabilities of the Microsoft Bot Framework and Microsoft Cognitive Services in the context of customer interactions. The Bot Framework helps companies build, test and deploy intelligent bots capable of interacting with customers in a conversational way, working in tandem with Cognitive Services, a collection of intelligent APIs hosted on Azure that provide the underlying language and image recognition capabilities that power the bots.
After contemplating and brainstorming a personality and persona for their bot, Dixons Carphone decided on "Cami" with a mildly geeky and confident personality. Cami, for the time being, accepts questions (as text-based input) as well as pictures of products’ in-store shelf labels to check stock status, using the Cognitive Services Language Understanding Intelligent Service (LUIS) for conversational abilities and the Computer Vision API to process images.
Dixons Carphone will also be putting Cami to use in order to help employees in their day-to-day responsibilities, for example, in doing stock checks. In addition, the research done in conjunction with Microsoft showed that when shopping in store, customers who researched a product online (as far as things like stock level) are frustrated by the fact that when they get into the store they must start from scratch through store employees. Cami helps bridge that gap through a "Wishlist" feature. As customers add items to their Wishlist, Cami saves the search criteria they used and store colleagues can pull up that information in-store to see what the customer was looking for, leading to a much more efficient shopping process.
When Dixons Carphone goes live with the use of Cami, they will use the Cognitive Services Text Analytics API, Azure Application Insights, and Power BI dashboard to review which products customers are looking at, the sentiment of their interactions, and the questions they are asking. Understanding the questions that customers are asking and analyzing their interactions with the bot will help the company improve their communications and messaging as well.
An estimated 70 percent of online sellers in Germany have suffered fraud attempts, but only 14 percent of them use any safeguards today. Even though merchants are aware of the dangers of e-commerce fraud and the solutions available to protect themselves, they lack the resources to be able to manage the risk efficiently. On top of this, hackers quickly adapt their fraudulent ways and as a result, whatever solutions are put in place must adapt as well.
Arvato Financial Solutions, an integrated financial services provider, offers vital services around e-commerce safety for some 2,000 odd customers. One of eight divisions of Bertelsmann – the German media, services, and education giant – Arvato has recently partnered with Microsoft, inovex GmbH (a cloud and big data specialist), and a few of Arvato’s e-commerce customers with aims to create a fraud detection solution using Microsoft’s big data and machine learning offerings.
Through the combination of Azure services with the open-source Storm and Hadoop frameworks, Arvato built an integrated cloud-based solution that uses a modern lambda architecture to process massive data quantities using both batch and stream processing. The batch path transforms existing data using Hadoop, then, by applying machine learning algorithms, the solution develops self-learning analytical models from past fraud cases, for early recognition of any new fraudulent approaches. The stream-processing path captures incoming real-time transaction data via Azure Event Hubs. It then analyzes the data with the assistance of Storm and Azure Machine Learning to uncover fraudulent activities as they happen.
An important goal of the project was to visualize and monitor the models, and Power BI serves this function by displaying data sets drawn directly from cloud sources, Azure HDInsight and SQL Database, on several large screens in Arvato’s monitoring center.
Avato’s investment in good cloud design is paying for itself, helping the company reliably fulfill SLAs using cloud services. Their flexible architecture enables rapid deployment, which is key for fraud recognition in an international e-commerce setting. Using Microsoft machine learning on big data, Avato has created an innovative e-commerce fraud recognition solution and built the basis for innovative financial BPO services based on Microsoft Azure.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row parallax="content-moving" css=".vc_custom_1465945819577{background-color: #e98922 !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]
800-208-3617
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text css_animation="appear"]Securing productivity, collaboration and enterprise data is critically important as organizations digitally transform. Reduce risk and support compliance requirements. Contact us today to schedule a security assessment.
By customizing the perfect mix of software, hardware, and IT services, we deliver a flexible technology solution that evolves and adapts to meet your needs and exceed your expectations at every stage of your business cycle.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row font_color="#ffffff" css=".vc_custom_1471641930410{background-color: #6994bf !important;}"][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation="appear"]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row parallax="content-moving" css=".vc_custom_1465945819577{background-color: #e98922 !important;}"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text css_animation="appear"]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row gmbt_prlx_parallax="up" font_color="#ffffff" css=".vc_custom_1467053554901{padding-top: 170px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 190px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;background: rgba(55,82,161,0.66) url(https://managedsolut.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/New-Signature-Managed-Solution.png) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;*background-color: rgb(55,82,161) !important;}"][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation="appear"]
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=".vc_custom_1459368087193{background-color: #ffffff !important;}"][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="11132" img_size="200x200" alignment="right" css_animation="appear"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="11164" img_size="150x150" alignment="right" css_animation="appear"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=".vc_custom_1459368087193{background-color: #ffffff !important;}"][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="11166" img_size="200x200" alignment="right" css_animation="appear"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="11165" img_size="200x200" alignment="right" css_animation="appear"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation="appear"]
[vc_text_separator title="Join forces for ultimate protection" heading="3" headingbg="no" title_align="separator_align_center" color="" el_width="60"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text]
Managed Solution provides a Business Continuity/Backup & Disaster Recovery Service to protect your essential data from loss and can prevent costly downtime in the event of a catastrophic server failure. Our cost-effective method offers high availability, reliability, and manageability.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text css_animation="left-to-right"]
Microsoft is the only major combined IaaS, PaaS and SaaS public cloud provider to enable organizations to meet strict compliance qualification requirements through their Windows Azure and O365 platforms. Instead of qualifying each app individually, the cloud vendor qualifies the one platform to many different standards and certifications. The customer then validates their apps on the cloud vendor’s platform.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][vc_row padding="70px 0px 0px 0px"][/vc_row][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][vc_column_text]
I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][vc_column_text]
I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][vc_row padding="70px 0px 0px 0px"][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation="appear"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row hide_row="ct_tt_hide_content_timeline" font_color="#ffffff"][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Earlier this month, a monkey caused a nationwide power outage in Kenya. Millions of homes and businesses were without electricity. Which just goes to show that “not all disasters come in the form of major storms with names and categories,” says Bob Davis, CMO, Atlantis Computing.
“Electrical fires, broken water pipes, failed air conditioning units [and rogue monkeys] can cause just as much damage,” he says. And while “business executives might think they’re safe based on their geographic location,” it’s important to remember that “day-to-day threats can destroy data [and] ruin a business,” too, he says. That’s why it is critical for all businesses to have a disaster recovery (DR) plan.
However, not all DR plans are created equal. To ensure that your systems, data and personnel are protected and your business can continue to operate in the event of an actual emergency or disaster, use the following guidelines to create a disaster plan that will help you quickly recover.
1. Inventory hardware and software. Your DR plan should include “a complete inventory of [hardware and] applications in priority order,” says Oussama El-Hilali, vice president of Products for Arcserve. “Each application [and piece of hardware] should have the vendor technical support contract information and contact numbers,” so you can get back up and running quickly.
2. Define your tolerance for downtime and data loss. “This is the starting point of your planning,” says Tim Singleton, president, Strive Technology Consulting. “If you are a plumber, you can probably be in business without servers or technology [for] a while. [But] if you are eBay, you can’t be down for more than seconds. Figuring out where you are on this spectrum will determine what type of solution you will need to recover from a disaster.”
“Evaluate what an acceptable recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) is for each set of applications,” advises says David Grimes, CTO, NaviSite. “In an ideal situation, every application would have an RPO and RTO of just a few milliseconds, but that’s often neither technically nor financially feasible. By properly identifying these two metrics businesses can prioritize what is needed to successfully survive a disaster, ensure a cost-effective level of disaster recovery and lower the potential risk of miscalculating what they’re able to recover during a disaster.”
says Robert DiLossi, senior director, Testing & Crisis Management, Sungard Availability Services. “Tier 1 should include the applications you need immediately. These are the mission-critical apps you can’t do business without. Tier 2 covers applications you need within eight to 10 hours, even up to 24 hours. They’re essential, but you don’t need them right away. Tier 3 applications can be comfortably recovered within a few days,” he explains.
“Defining which applications are most important will aid the speed and success of the recovery. But most important is testing the plan at least twice per year,” he says. “The tiers might change based on the results, which could reveal unknown gaps to fill before a true disaster.”
3. Lay out who is responsible for what – and identify backup personnel. “All disaster recovery plans should clearly define the key roles, responsibilities and parties involved during a DR event,” says Will Chin, director of cloud services, Computer Design & Integration. “Among these responsibilities must be the decision to declare a disaster. Having clearly identified roles will garner a universal understanding of what tasks need to be completed and who is [responsible for what]. This is especially critical when working with third-party vendors or providers. All parties involved need to be aware of each other's responsibilities in order to ensure the DR process operates as efficiently as possible.”
“Have plans for your entire staff, from C-level executives all the way down, and make sure they understand the process,” and what’s expected of them, says Neely Loring, president, Matrix, which provides cloud-based solutions, including Disaster-Recover-as-a-Service. “This gets everyone back on their feet quicker.”
“Protocols for a disaster recovery (DR) plan must include who and how to contact the appropriate individuals on the DR team, and in what order, to get systems up and running as soon as possible,” adds Kevin Westenkirchner, vice president, operations, Thru. “It is critical to have a list of the DR personnel with the details of their position, responsibilities [and emergency contact information].”
“One final consideration is to have a succession plan in place with trained back-up employees in case a key staff member is on vacation or in a place where they cannot do their part [or leaves the company],” says Brian Ferguson, product marketing manager, Digium.
4. Create a communication plan. “Perhaps one of the more overlooked components of a disaster recovery plan is having a good communication plan,” says Mike Genardi, solutions architect, Computer Design & Integration. “In the event a disaster strikes, how are you going to communicate with your employees? Do your employees know how to access the systems they need to perform their job duties during a DR event?
“Many times the main communication platforms (phone and email) may be affected and alternative methods of contacting your employees will be needed,” he explains. “A good communication plan will account for initial communications at the onset of a disaster as well as ongoing updates to keep staff informed throughout the event.”
“Communication is critical when responding to and recovering from any emergency, crisis event or disaster,” says Scott D. Smith, chief commercial officer at ModusLink. So having “a clear communications strategy is essential. Effective and reliable methods for communicating with employees, vendors, suppliers and customers in a timely manner are necessary beyond initial notification of an emergency. Having a written process in place to reference ensures efficient action post-disaster and alignment between organizations, employees and partners.”
“A disaster recovery plan should [also] include a statement that can be published on your company’s website and social media platforms in the event of an emergency,” adds Robert Gibbons, CTO, Datto, a data protection platform. And be prepared to “give your customers timely status updates on what they can expect from your business and when. If your customers understand that you are aware of the situation, you are adequately prepared and working to take care of it in a timely manner, they will feel much better.”
5. Let employees know where to go in case of emergency – and have a backup worksite. “Many firms think that the DR plan is just for their technology systems, but they fail to realize that people (i.e., their employees) also need to have a plan in place,” says Ahsun Saleem, president, Simplegrid Technology. “Have an alternate site in mind if your primary office is not available. Ensure that your staff knows where to go, where to sit and how to access the systems from that site. Provide a map to the alternate site and make sure you have seating assignments there.”
“In the event of a disaster, your team will need an operational place to work, with the right equipment, space and communications,” says DiLossi. “That might mean telework and other alternative strategies need to be devised in case a regional disaster causes power outages across large geographies. Be sure to note any compliance requirements and contract dedicated workspace where staff and data can remain private. [And] don’t contract 50 seats if you’ll really need 200 to truly meet your recovery requirements.”
6. Make sure your service-level agreements (SLAs) include disasters/emergencies. “If you have outsourced your technology to an outsourced IT firm, or store your systems in a data center/co-location facility, make sure you have a binding agreement with them that defines their level of service in the event of a disaster,” says Saleem. “This [will help] ensure that they start working on resolving your problem within [a specified time]. Some agreements can even discuss the timeframe in getting systems back up.”
7. Include how to handle sensitive information. “Defining operational and technical procedures to ensure the protection of…sensitive information is a critical component of a DR plan,” says Eric Dieterich, partner, Sunera. “These procedures should address how sensitive information will be maintained [and accessed] when a DR plan has been activated.”
8. Test your plan regularly. “If you’re not testing your DR process, you don’t have one,” says Singleton. “Your backup hardware may have failed, your supply chain may rely on someone incapable of dealing with disaster, your internet connection may be too slow to restore your data in the expected amount of time, the DR key employee may have changed [his] cell phone number. There are a lot of things that may break a perfect plan. The only way to find them is to test it when you can afford to fail.”
“Your plan must include details on how your DR environment will be tested, including the method and frequency of tests,” says Dave LeClair, vice president, product marketing, Unitrends, a cloud-based IT disaster recovery and continuity solution provider. “Our recent continuity survey of 900 IT admins discovered less than 40 percent of companies test their DR more frequently than once per year and 36 percent don’t test at all.
“Infrequent testing will likely result in DR environments that do not perform as required during a disaster,” he explains. “Your plan should define recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) goals per workload and validate that they can be met. Fortunately, recovery assurance technology now exists that is able to automate DR testing without disrupting production systems and can certify RTO and RPO targets are being met for 100 percent confidence in disaster recovery even for complex n-tier applications.”
Also keep in mind that “when it comes to disaster recovery, you’re only as good as your last test,” says Loring. “A testing schedule is the single most important part of any DR plan. Compare your defined RTO and RPO metrics against tested results to determine the efficacy of your plan. The more comprehensive the testing, the more successful a company will be in getting back on their feet,” he states. “We test our generators weekly to ensure their function. Always remember that failing a test is not a bad thing. It is better to find these problems early than to find them during a crisis. Decide what needs to be modified and test until you’re successful.”
And don’t forget about testing your employees. “The employees that are involved need to be well versed in the plan and be able to perform every task they are assigned to without issue,” says Ferguson. “Running simulated disasters and drills help ensure that your staff can execute the plan when an actual event occurs.”
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][vc_cta_button2 h2="Looking for a technology partner to assist with a specific project or services?" title="Managed Services Quote" position="bottom" link="url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.managedsolution.com%2Fmanaged-services-quote-request%2F||"]
[/vc_cta_button2][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Chat with an expert about your business’s technology needs.
