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VERTEKSCONNECTIONVOLUME 9 NUMBER 2Verteks deploys ShoreTel UCwith ShoreTel EnterpriseContact Center to provide TriageManagement with a strongplatform for continued growth.Wind or hail damageis a stressful situation for any homeowner, and findinga reputable andqualified roofing contractor only addsto the anxiety. Triage Management Services helps to relieve that anxiety.The Jacksonville, Fla.-based firmhas built a network of pre-screenedroofing contractors who specialize inthe repair of wind and hail damage.Operating under the name First ChoiceRepair, the company also streamlinesthe estimating process and insurancepaperwork for homeowners, and backsthe contractor’s five-year warranty onworkmanship with its own guarantee.Triage has been growing rapidly,and needed a phone system and contact center solution that would bettersupport its business requirements. Thecompany called on Verteks Consultingto replace an aging NEC system with astate-of-the-art ShoreTel solution.“We had an older system that justcould not accommodate our growth,”said Karen Spiegelberg, Manager ofBusiness Applications, Triage Management Services. “We needed something acontinued on page 2VERTEKS CONNECTIONPRESORTEDFIRST CLASSUS PostagePAIDTulsa, OKPermit #2146
Ready to Growlittle more robust and easier to work with. We started looking around at various companies, and consulted with a few.Then we came across Verteks and decided to give them ashot.“They were very accommodating from the get-go. Theycame to visit us, sat down and listened to our needs, andcame up with a solution. They were fantastic to work within getting us what we needed and not trying to oversell uson a system that we weren’t quite ready for.”Key ComponentThe contact center is an important part of Triage Management’s business — not only for customer support but forgenerating revenue. The ShoreTel Unified Communications(UC) Solution with ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center hascall management features that enable the firm’s small staff toefficiently handle growing call volumes.“It’s very key to us,” Spiegelberg said. “Right now, we’reusing it to manage inbound calls and route them appropriately. It helps us keep those lines open, which keeps revenuecoming in. We’re also excited about being able to use theoutbound dialer in the near future.”The company has about 65 agents taking calls, as wellas managers and other personnel who utilize the system. TheShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center solution gives Triage theflexibility to adapt to meet changing business requirements.“We really like having the ability to dynamically creategroups,” Spiegelberg said. “We’re not a large company andour agents tend to cover multiple groups at one time. That’sthe flexibility we were looking for, and that’s what we foundwith the system.”Triage is also taking advantage of the management andreporting tools that are built into the ShoreTel system toimprove its operations.“Our managers love it,” said Spiegelberg. “They can seeif one group is starting to get heavy traffic, and if they needto ramp up we can put more people in that group quickly.They can quickly shift people around in responsibilities andpriority of how they want calls handled. It has definitelyhelped them better manage their staff.”All the Right ToolsVerteks took the time to learn about Triage Management’s contact center operations and design a solution thatwould meet the company’s needs now and in the future.ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center has the ability to sup2port multiple communications channels, such as online chat,in addition to phone calls. It can also expand along with thebusiness.“We’re definitely looking at online chat — that’s big tous. We’re excited to have those extra tools available,”Spiegelberg said. “And we’re already talking about addinghardware and additional licenses. Verteks has been veryhelpful in planning all of that. We met with them recentlyand started laying the groundwork for the next phase of thisproject.”ShoreTel UC serves as the platform for Triage Management’s corporate communications. End-users like the capabilities of the ShoreTel UC solution, which offers many features that simply weren’t available on the old NEC system.“It was a little intimidating to the folks when we firstmade the cutover,” said Spiegelberg. “There was a lot tolearn, and we were asking them to take on new technologyand still maintain productivity. But they’ve had it now for ayear and half. I think if we threatened to take it away, we’dhave mutiny on our hands. A lot of our folks don’t even dialanymore — they use the ShoreTel Communicator to dial thephone. They really do love the flexibility it gives them.”A True PartnershipThe Verteks team handled the ShoreTel implementationfrom end to end, doing a lot of work upfront to set up thesystem according to Triage Management’s requirements.Verteks was also on hand to ensure a smooth cutover fromthe old PBX to the new ShoreTel system.“The disruption to the business was very minimalbecause Verteks took on all the initial coding. We sat down,mapped out what we wanted and they coded it,” Spiegelbergsaid. “From there it was a case of disconnecting the old system and getting the new system in place. They had engineersonsite during the cutover to help us out.”The ShoreTel system is very reliable — Triage has experienced only minimal downtime due to factors external tothe system. The system is also easy to administer and boastsa very low total cost of ownership (TCO). Should a problemarise, Verteks is there to provide ongoing support.“They are very quick to respond to any of our needs,”said Spiegelberg. “I joke with Don [Gulling, President ofVerteks] because I have him on speed dial. And Don recorded my name for me on the phone system, so if you call youhear his voice announce my name. I tell people that’s myassistant.”All joking aside, Spiegelberg says Verteks has played akey role in giving Triage Management the communicationstools it needs to support its ongoing growth.“Verteks is great to work with,” she said. “They aremore than just a vendor — they are a partner in helping usgrow our business.”VERTEKS CONNECTION
News BriefsTablet Apps to Surpass Smartphone Appsmartphone apps reign supreme right now, butABI Research expects tablet apps to catch upand then surpass them as the combinedmobile app revenue base nearly quadruples.Tablet apps will generate 8.8 billion in revenuein 2013, compared to the 16.4 billion expectedfrom smartphone apps, according to the latest forecasts from the research firm. However, tablet appswill steadily increase their share of the market overthe coming years. Tablet app revenues will nearlymatch smartphone app revenues in 2017 and surpass them in 2018, when the combined revenuebase will reach 92 billion.“The dynamic is quite straightforward,” saidsenior analyst Aapo Markkanen. “The larger screenmakes apps and content look and feel better, sothere are more lucrative opportunities.”SCustomer Experience a Top Priorityinety-seven percent of executives agree thatdelivering a great customer experience iscritical to business advantage and results.Respondents to a recent global survey by Oraclefurther estimate that the average potential revenueloss for not offering a positive, consistent andbrand-relevant customer experience is 20 percentof annual revenue.Ninety-three percent of executives say thatimproving the customer experience is one of theirorganization’s top three priorities in the next twoyears. However, many organizations are stuck in anexecution chasm: 37 percent are just getting started with a formal customer experience initiative, andonly 20 percent consider the state of their customerexperience initiative to be advanced.NRecovery atyour fingertipQuorum onQ One-Click Backup, Recovery and ContinuityQuorum onQ provides everything you need for immediate One-Verteks ConnectionCopyright 2013 CMS Special Interest Publications. All rightsreserved.Editorial Correspondence:7360 East 38th Street,Tulsa, OK 74145800.726.7667 Fax 918.270.7134Change of Address: Send corrected address label to the aboveaddress.Some parts of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced innonprofit or internal-use publications with advance writtenpermission.Click Recovery of all your critical systems after any storage, systemor site failure. It does this by automatically maintaining up-to-date,ready-to-run virtual machine clones of your systems that can run righton the appliance, transparently taking over for failed servers withinminutes. Contact your Verteks representative to learn ed in the U.S.A. Product names may be trademarks of theirrespective companies. 2013 WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.volume 9 number 2WTG-163
Print, Copy, Scan .HACK?Unprotected MFDs open doors for hackers and put sensitive data at risk.As businesses, institutions andgovernment entities discoverthe significant benefits deliveredbymultifunctiondevices (MFDs), the combination printer/copier/scanner units are gaining anincreasing role in the office.Like most technology in the workplace, copiers and MFDs have evolvedto include many new features, such asthe ability to wirelessly communicatewith computers and smartphones andto fax and email documents throughnetwork connections. They also offereconomies of scale by serving an officefull of users with one machine wherepreviously numerous devices were needed.The same advances that have giventhese smart devices so much power havealso introduced a host of potential security issues.4No longer are they the comparatively simple devices that required littlemore than a secure location and controlled access to printer and fax queues.The printers and copiers of the pastwere immune to the threats of malwareor cyberattacks faced by computers,servers and related equipment.In many cases, the perception ofthese devices as “safe” has remainedstagnant as the capability and complexity of MFDs has increased significantly.Today’s MFDs are built around powerful computing systems loaded withmore complex applications than everand offering connectivity through multiple access points. As such, networkedMFDs can no longer be treated likedumb peripherals.“Over the past decade, greaterintelligence has been built into (most)enterprise and consumer equipment (an MFD) may now contain a fullyfunctional operating system and a computer with processing power dwarfingthat of an older desktop computer,”wrote the Washington UniversitySchool of Medicine in its guide forinformation security.The State of SecurityWhile there has been little indication of printer-based attacks spreadingacross large networks, at least onerecent intrusion went a long waytoward opening the eyes of IT departments to the importance of identifyingand applying security controls consistently across an entire organization. In2011, a massive breach of Sony’sPlayStation Network led to 77 millionaccounts being hacked and resulted inmillions of dollars of lost revenue forSony. A similar attack is possiblethrough an MFD if its physical andVERTEKS CONNECTION
electronic access points aren’t securelycontrolled and protected.In 2010, the CBS news story “Digital Photocopiers Loaded with Secrets”highlighted the potential risk of criticalinformation being stolen from cacheddata stored on the hard drives of printers and photocopiers. Higher educationinstitutions and government entitieshave responded with strict guidelinesfor establishing security controls onMFDs, and most manufacturers nowoffer data security kits and services tomeet hardened industry standards.Among the most detailed is theSecurity Technical ImplementationGuide the Defense Information SystemsAgency developed for the Departmentof Defense, which “provides the technical security policies, requirements andimplementation details for applyingsecurity concepts to commercial-offthe-shelf hardware peripheral devices.”The document devotes a complete section to MFDs.The guide advises, “If an attackergains network access to one of thesedevices, a wide range of exploits may bepossible. If an attacker gains physicalaccess to a device, the programming ofthe device can be compromised and thepotentially sensitive data stored on thehard disk can be recovered.”‘Is There Really a Threat?’Even with these warnings andguidelines, many businesses have beenlax about MFD security. Instead ofpatching and hardening MFDs, ITdepartments often overlook the devicesfrom a risk management perspective.A survey commissioned by Xeroxand McAfee last year found that somecompanies don’t take even simple stepsto lessen the risk. The survey reportedthat only 13 percent of employees saythey are prompted to enter a passwordon MFDs before releasing a job they’veprinted or accessing the ability to copy.There are nearly 30 million printersand MFDs in offices and homesthroughout the U.S. and Westernvolume 9 number 2Steps to Secure an MFDTo protect confidential information from security threats, it is a priorityto apply security controls consistently across an organization wheninstalling a multifunction device (MFD). When acquiring new equipment,select an MFD that is configurable and offers built-in security features. Askvendors about security-related features and recommendations on installation and implementation. For existing equipment, contact the vendor aboutequipment upgrades that include security features.Here are some tips for securing MFDs in your organization: Configure copiers, printers and other MFDs for improved security.Shut off any ports or features that you do not use. Place MFDs in secure areas if possible, and limit network access tosystems administrators. Change the default administrator password, although it is recommended to use the same password for all MFDs for administrativeefficiency. The copier dealer will need the password to perform maintenance — make sure that it is kept secure. Work with vendors to ensure devices meet industry security standards and certifications. Many vendors offer optional data securitykits. Make sure IT staff and employees are aware of the organization’s datasecurity policies and practices. Where possible, require that usersenter a passcode or PIN to access spooled print or copy jobs. Perform firmware updates regularly. Consider requiring drive encryption. If possible, configure deviceswith hard disks to erase files after each print, scan, copy or fax job. Develop policies and procedures that address MFD disposal. Destroyor erase internal hard drives before decommissioning the device.Europe, according to an InfoTrends survey of the market in 2010. Consideringmost of those devices are connected to anetwork, and the growth in numbers ofdevices was running from 4 percent tomore than 5 percent a year at that time,the opportunity to exploit MFD weaknesses must be increasingly attractive topotential attackers. As PCs and laptopsbecome more secure through toughersecurity standards and best practices,unprotected MFDs are a logical targetfor hackers and information thieves.A carefully structured search of theInternet brings up enough “teaser” hitsfrom hacker forums to suggest a growing interest in MFD weaknesses. Onewebsite describes how to use Googlehacks – requests typed into the searchengine that bring up cached information on networks – to discover and uselogin details for networked photocopiers in order to watch what is beingcopied.“The threat landscape has evolvedto include devices that when originallydesigned were never considered a security threat,” said Tom Moore, vice president of embedded sales, McAfee.“Now we are seeing the need for security on devices like MFDs to protectconfidential and proprietary datawhich, if lost or stolen, could negativelyimpact a company and its employees.”MFDs have evolved, adding morecapabilities that bring significant benefits to the workplace and new securitythreats. Organizations need to be awareof those risks and take steps to secureMFDs so that the safety of the networkand confidential data is not compromised.5
Making the SwitchOrganizations need to prepare strategicallyfor the transition to IPv6.It’s not exactly like the Mayan Apocalypse, oreven Y2K. No tick of the clock is going to signalthe end of the IPv4 Internet addressing system.But network administrators worldwide are facing the task of transitioning to IPv6, a project thatrequires careful planning to avoid business disruption.The move to IPv6 is inevitable. IPv4’s 32-bitaddressing allows for about 4.3 billion unique IPaddresses. That’s simply not enough to accommodateall of the Internet-connected devices in use today. Infact, the pool of IPv4 addresses managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority dried up in 2011,although a few regional Internet registries still havesome IPv4 addresses available.Using 128-bit addressing, IPv6 theoreticallyallows the creation of more than 340 trillion trilliontrillion possible unique addresses. That’s about a billion-trillion times larger than the total pool of IPv4addresses, enough to give every human on the planettrillions of addresses of their own.Although it has been available for a decade, IPv6has been slow to catch on while IPv4 addresses were6still available. Techniques such as network addresstranslation (NAT), in which many of an organization’sdevices are hidden behind a single public IP address,have extended the life of IPv4. However, organizationsneed to make their networks compatible with theincreasing number of IPv6 addresses. And if their websites and other web-based applications cannot bereached through IPv6, they are not accessible acrossthe entire Internet.Planning AheadThe transition to IPv6 is not simply a matter offlipping a switch. IPv4 and IPv6 are different protocolsand are not directly compatible, so programs and systems designed to one standard cannot communicatewith those designed to the other. Techniques such asNAT further complicate the transition to the new protocol.This doesn’t necessarily signal the impendingdeath of IPv4, however. Dual stack IPv4/IPv6 devicesand software can help ease the transition by runningboth protocols simultaneously. Other strategies forVERTEKS CONNECTION
making the transition include performing IPv6-to-IPv4 translation, tunneling,and using proxy servers to facilitate amigration to the new address space assoftware allows.The latest versions of most enterprise-class network components andsystems are already IPv6-capable. Still,most organizations have legacy equipment and applications that do not support IPv6 — a fact they must bear inmind as they plan future IT purchases.Experts also say firewall and securitypolicies should be reviewed to determine how IPv6 will affect them, and inhouse software should be upgraded toensure compatibility. IPv6 should betested in an internal lab to certify software, develop operational and supportpractices, and support transition planning.Perhaps the biggest impediment tothe IPv6 transition is the learning curveinvolved. Network engineers who arewell versed in IPv4 shouldn’t havemuch trouble learning IPv6. Nonethe-less, IPv6 involves new concepts andfunctions in a very different way thanits predecessor. Organizations shouldinvest in training so that networkadministrators can become familiarwith deploying and configuring the newprotocol.Great PotentialWhile network future-proofing andinfrastructure management are the keyreasons for transitioning to IPv6, businesses will be able to leverage the newprotocol in a number of ways. At themost basic level, it supplies the additional IP addresses needed to accommodate the many smartphones and otherInternet-connected devices flowing intothe workplace.There is also huge potential for newapplications and devices that are IPv6enabled. IPv6 will enable devices tomulticast, which is the ability to sendinformation and establish unique linksto multiple devices without resendingthe same data to each device. That willmake it easier to stream live video tomultiple locations at once.IPv6 also offers built-in securityand enhanced support for streamingmedia and other Web 2.0 applications.In addition, the QoS features builtdirectly into IPv6 can help improve thequality of encrypted Voice over IP calls.The depletion of IPv4 address is notsome impending doomsday. As IPv6continues to gain momentum, however,organizations that fail to plan aheadrisk finding themselves at a competitivedisadvantage. Even if organizationsdon’t have immediate plans to implement IPv6, preparing for the inevitabletransition now as opposed to later willonly decrease the burden on IT administrators.IPv6 will open up a pool of Internetaddresses that is virtually inexhaustiblefor the foreseeable future. Making theswitch to this new protocol doesn’thave to be daunting if a thoughtfulapproach is taken.Unlike many other consulting firms, Verteks has developed unmatchedexpertise in several critical areas, which allows us to serve as a central sourcefor a broad range of high-quality solutions to complex IT issues. Contact ustoday and let us show you how we can help you simplify your business withtechnology.volume 9 number 21-877-VERTEKS352-401-0909www.verteks.com7
ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center is a powerful call center solution that puts businessintelligence right where its needed. ShoreTel enables contact center functions and key businessapplications to be integrated onto a single, web-managed and highly available platform.Additionally, enhancements in ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center 8 now make it easier to meetthe needs of today’s multi-device, multi-channel consumer by allowing agents to effectivelyhandle emails, chats and calls, both inbound and outbound. Call Verteks to learn more howShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center can help you improve your customers’ experience.1-877-VERTEKS 352-401-0909Copyright 2013 ShoreTel. All rights reserved. SHR-13www.verteks.com
ShoreTel UC serves as the platform for Triage Manage-ment’s corporate communications. End-users like the capa-bilities of the ShoreTel UC solution, which offers many fea-tures that simply weren’t available on the old NEC system. “It was a little intimidating to the folks when we fi
