The Benefits of Cloud-Based Unified Communications

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More and more businesses are seeing the increased productivity and cost savings of the new work-from-home and hybrid work business model. Most of these savings and benefits are made possible by cloud-based Unified Communications.

As businesses closed their offices, globally, cloud UC went from a fast-growing sector of the economy to one that is indispensable for business, providing increased productivity and improving the customer experience. With more companies deploying a remote workforce, it’s important for businesses to utilize cloud based unified communications.

What is Cloud-Based Unified Communications?

Cloud UC provides all of the same applications as traditional UC except that it’s delivered as a cloud-based service, as opposed to needing on-premise telephone equipment.

Cloud UC services are hosted by third-party service providers. These providers provide value and ensure a high-quality user experience with video, VoIP, and real-time communication services. Many providers also package cloud UC applications with SD-WAN and network services so that remote users get more consistent and predictable performance across the globe.

A recent survey found that the top challenges with UC today are network performance management and global service consistency. A global network service provider’s overall management of their application, including 100% in-sequence packet delivery, delivers the total package for ensuring high-performing UC application performance worldwide.

What are the Benefits of Cloud-Based UC?

The majority of the benefits of cloud-based UC are related to remote work enablement, hence, the huge surge of cloud UC amid COVID, providing flexibility, and cost savings to businesses.

Remote Work

Cloud UC allows anyone to work efficiently anytime, from anywhere. Employees are no longer tethered to a physical desk in an office, and that’s opened the floodgates for remote and hybrid work for businesses around the world. Gartner and others suggests that between 22-51% of the U.S. workforce will continue working from home in some capacity through 2025 as the covid pandemic runs its course. Even then, remote work will likely remain an important part of how organizations do business.

The Flexibility of Cloud UC

Cloud UC allows people to work with more flexibility with cloud-based communication and collaboration capabilities. Employees can quickly launch video meetings anytime, anywhere from within one simple app. They can make and receive calls regardless of where they are, what device they’re using, or what form of communication works best for them. In short, cloud UC gives users the freedom they have needed for being productive in a way that works best for them.

Cost Savings

Companies can save with cloud-based UC in a few ways. On the capital expenditure side, research shows businesses can save about $11,000 annually for each employee that works remotely – and those numbers are based on part time employment. On the operating expenditures side, cloud UC allows companies to reassign IT staff to other business goals and objectives. On-premise equipment maintenance costs are also rising. Companies with less than 1,000 users and one single provider save nearly $700 per user license when they switch to cloud UC. Unlike premise-based solutions, upgrades and refreshes are already included in the cost of your cloud UC system.

With cloud-based UC, services are software-driven, meaning features are infinitely customizable to meet the growing and changing needs of your business. In other words, you can use Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, to extend your UC functionality into different business apps and workflows. You can also add automatic speech recognition and virtual agent services so that customers can navigate menus and services by simply speaking to a sophisticated AI-powered engine. The options to customize are seemingly endless.

If you’d like more information about Cloud-based Unified Communications, fill out the form on this page and one of our representatives will get back with you.

8 Ways SD-WAN Improves Your Network

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SD-WAN securely connects multi-location businesses to enable high performance and reliable connections to cloud services for data centers and branch locations. SD-WAN aggregates bandwidth more effectively while providing greater control over the prioritization of applications at a considerably lower cost than traditional WAN solutions.

Here are 8 ways in which SD-WAN improves your network:

  1. SD-WAN gives essential applications, like VOIP services, priority over less important applications.
  2. SD-WAN saves money on access by tying together multiple low-cost bandwidth options and preventing downtime for users. A small business can lose a significant amount of money and large businesses even more.
  3. SD-WAN increases network security and data privacy with advanced included features.
  4. SD-WAN works across any combination of internet connections, allowing users to combine access types and achieve redundancy and increased bandwidth.
  5. SD-WAN dynamically optimizes traffic over multiple links. If one circuit is problematic, SD-WAN will automwatically use another, without interruption or requiring human intervention.
  6. SD-WAN gives you full control over policy decisions, like restricting access to certain websites and services, while ensuring bandwidth is available for business critical services.
  7. SD-WAN is fast and simple to deploy with zero touch provisioning. SD-WAN can be deployed in days, not weeks or months so your company can rapidly on-board new applications without the need for significant service updates typically required by MPLS.
  8. SD-WAN ensures uptime and redundancy and failover when using multiple access connections. It is simpler and more cost-effective than traditional WAN deployments.

SD-WAN solves connectivity challenges common to businesses everywhere, from poor application performance to outages. If you’d like more information on SD-WAN, fill out the form on this page and one of our representatives will get back with you quickly.

IT Solutions for Healthcare

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Healthcare professionals, throughout the United States, have been learning to manage HIPAA compliance to adhere to industry requirements. One component that the healthcare industry must comply with is the Security Risk Assessment (or SRA), which must be completed annually. The Security Risk Assessment includes, not only your processes and procedures, for managing protected health information, it also includes a thorough review of your IT Infrastructure, including areas such as:

  • Access Controls
  • Business Continuity Procedures
  • Perimeter Security
  • Storage
  • Secure data transmission
  • Patch Management

All of these issues are critical to the security and privacy of your patients’ information, and performing a security risk assessment can be time-consuming and difficult. WheelHouse Solutions’ HIPAA risk assessment team has worked hard to make these assessments as quick and painless as possible so that you can focus on your patients.

What you get

Our risk assessment provides you with a full, audit-ready report, that explains to you where you are at-risk and what changes you can make to reduce the risks. We will run an analysis of your IT environment, including scans that will help you identify where you have protected health information. When we leave, you can feel confident that you have a plan that will keep you in compliance.

Security Risk Assessment FAQs

Who is required to complete an annual SRA?

Any organization that maintains, tracks or, otherwise, has access to protected health data is required to complete an annual SRA, particularly medical professionals, such as chiropractors, dentists, general practitioners and other medical specialists.

Is Security Risk Analysis optional for small providers?

In a word – No. All providers who are “covered entities”, under HIPAA, are required to perform a risk analysis. Additionally, any providers who receive EHR incentive payments are required to perform an SRA, as well.

Is it true that EHR vendors are not responsible for compliance?

While an EHR vendor may be able to provide information, or training, on privacy and security aspects, relating to their product, they are not actually responsible for making their products compliant with HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules. It is, solely, the responsibility of the “covered entity” to complete an SRA.

Healthcare is evolving, and you need the technology team to help your organization evolve with it. At WheelHouse Solutions, we’ll assist you at every stage – from HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, including mobile solutions, to real-time access to patient information. Our healthcare IT Solutions, Cloud Services and Managed Services ensure compliance and flexibility, throughout your organization.  Fill out the form on this page or call us at 314-492-2506 for a free consultation.

What Is Hosted PBX and Can It Save Me Money?

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Hosted PBX allows different small and medium-sized business to have a complex telephone system without spending any money on the telephone equipment. The hosted PBX is operated and maintained by the VoIP service provider. It empowers employees to work from anywhere such as their house, a hotel or even on a cell phone. Hosted PBX offers features such as the ability to transfer calls, have music on hold, set up conference calls or the phone can be answered by an automated attendant that can direct the callers to their desired department.

Hosted PBX has the capability of working with your existing telephone system or it can completely replace that system. It can be used with landlines, mobile phones, and VoIP services.  It provides the best telecommunication system for small and medium-sized businesses.  Hosted PBX not only provides the facility of routing calls but it also offers other enhanced communication features.  Apart from routing calls, it allows number sharing in an organization, meaning one business number can be used by multiple employees.  The Hosted PBX also takes care of the incoming calls that were not responded to immediately by the employees.  Additionally, Voicemail, fax, automated greetings, touch-tone menus, conference calls, call records, directory and automatic call distribution are all the amazing services provided by Hosted PBX systems.

Because it is a hosted system, you don’t need to spend extra money in the initial phase of buying the expensive hardware.  Similarly, you will never need to worry about the upgrade cost of this equipment. In contrast to traditional PBX services, hosted PBX makes this high-quality business technology available to even small businesses.

Hosted PBX phone systems are easy to operate and install, as well as being cost-effective for businesses of all sizes. From the one person independent home business that wants to appear to be large and prosperous to the corporation of thousands of employees that wish to make the most of the company resources,  implementing hosted PBX is the optimal solution. It provides all the necessary communication facilities to a business.

WheelHouse Solutions provides exceptional service to businesses of all sizes. Understanding how our clients’ businesses function, on a day-to-day basis, allows our team to design IT solutions that align with their vision and objectives.

We take pride in the many accolades we’ve received, from business owners, who are now thriving by utilizing technologies deployed by WheelHouse. It’s easy to recommend a technology solution, but WheelHouse stands behind our commitment to provide customized and scalable solutions that are as unique as each of the businesses we are proud to serve.  Feel free to contact us at 314-492-2506 or fill out the form on this page and we’ll work with you to develop a solution that will meet your needs now, as well as provide for future growth and flexibility.

Seven Ways to Manage Business Utilities

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When it’s time to manage business utilities, there are things that you should do, and here they are:

  • First: Turn off unused electronics and unplug them. Just because the device is turned off does not mean that it is not using electricity. When done working for the day, utility bills can be reduced by turning off all electronics and unplugging them.
  • Second: Install energy saving technology. For instance, install programmable thermostats and energy saving refrigerators. These tactics are beneficial in saving money due to lower energy usages.
  • Third: Use energy saving lighting. For example, change light bulbs to lower watts. This can be beneficial in reducing energy expenses because not as much electricity is being fueled to the outlet, which will reduce costs.
  • Fourth: Do not cool an empty building. Program the thermostat to be higher after hours when no one is there and on the weekend. It can be programmed to cool the building before employees and clients are set to arrive at the building.
  • Fifth: Be sure air filters are changed monthly. Through regularly changing air conditioning filters, it is possible to reduce energy expenses because there will not be so much grime and dirt for the air to filter through.
  • Sixth: Renovate the facility. For example, white walls reflect light, so heat is not absorbed into the building during the summer. Yet, during the winter, it helps maintain the temperature of the facility.
  • Seventh: Update electronic equipment. For example, exchange the air conditioning system to an updated energy saving system.

In essence, modernizing the workplace is a key component to managing business utilities.

At WheelHouse Solutions, our professional IT Consultants have years of experience meeting the various IT needs of our clients, enabling us to develop proven and reliable technology solutions.

We strive to gain an understanding of the individual needs of every business with whom we work and don’t just provide the equipment, but also the expertise to implement it, flawlessly.

Our Technology Consulting includes Information Technology Consulting, Business Continuity Planning, Disaster Recovery Planning, Cloud Services Migration & Integration and Telecommunications Consulting.

If you would like more information, please fill out the form on this page or call us at 314-492-2506 for a free consultation.

What is Puppet Software Consulting?

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Wheelhouse Solutions provides Puppet® Consulting allowing us to work with our clients to apply advanced development methodologies, in order to deploy IT infrastructure, through the feature-rich and intuitive Puppet® software interface.

Our Puppet® Consulting & Installation Services Include:

  • Consulting and technical resources to assist you in rapidly deploying and implementing Puppet Enterprise into your IT environment
  • Designing Puppet Enterprise® so that it’s configured to meet your company’s IT management and automation goals
  • Providing Technical training to your IT staff, to ensure they are equipped to utilize Puppet® to automate IT infrastructure
  • Subcontracting our consultancy services so that Puppet® Consulting can be added to your services offering

Easily Model & Manage Your IT Environment

Puppet Enterprise® allows you to manage your entire IT infrastructure, in code format, without hiring additional staff. Puppet® allows you to use the same tools that developers use, such as version control, automated testing, code review and continuous integration and automated deployment. Having the ability to see your infrastructure as “code” makes it easier for devOps and QA teams to collaborate, across your organization. Simply put, Puppet Enterprise® allows your IT staff to maximize the speed of deployments and improve software quality.

Intuitive Visual Workflows

Puppet® allows your IT staff to deploy phased infrastructure and application bundles using comprehensive visual workflows. Puppet® automatically assigns the correct order of operations, what data needs to be securely exchanged between services, and when to wait for a service to become available before continuing the deployment.

With intuitive graphical reporting, your IT staff can easily determine how your infrastructure and applications are configured, as well as the relationships and dependencies with other software applications. Your staff can quickly discern what changed, in real time, which employee made the change and what caused the issue, including whether it was accidental or intentional. Puppet® allows you to troubleshoot your IT environment much more quickly, minimizing issues and reducing mean time to recover.

Automate Your IT Environment with Puppet

If your network device has an IP address, it can be quickly and easily automated using Puppet Enterprise®. Puppet Enterprise® provides your IT environment with a common language so that, no matter what software you’re running, and where it runs, Puppet® can deliver and operate all of your devices and applications.

Puppet Enterprise® Capabilities

  • Automated provisioning – Automate provisioning across your heterogeneous infrastructure
  • Orchestration – Orchestrate change with control, visibility, and automated intelligence
  • Configuration automation – Define and continually enforce infrastructure configurations
  • Situational awareness – Gain insight into your infrastructure, audit changes and get rich reporting
  • Code management – Manage infrastructure code across environments
  • Node management – Save yourself the manual work of classifying and managing nodes
  • Role-based access control – Assign permissions to teams in line with company and regulatory policies
  • Discovery & insights – Quickly discover resources that need automated management

Puppet® software allows system administrators the operational efficiency, insights, and agility they need to proactively manage today’s dynamic IT infrastructure, scaling from tens of servers to hundreds, both in the cloud and on-premise. Thousands of the world’s largest organizations utilize Puppet® software to manage and configure their IT environment.

In addition to Puppet® Consulting, WheelHouse Solutions also provides Puppet® installation, Puppet® configuration, Puppet® support, Puppet® troubleshooting services, Puppet® emergency help and Puppet® remote support. We invite you to fill out the form on this page or call us at 314-492-2506 to find out more about our Puppet® consulting services and one of our representatives will get back with you, quickly.

Protecting Your Business Against Ever-Evolving Cyber Security Threats

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St. Louis Cyber SecurityCyber attacks are on the rise and only getting more frequent. It’s imperative for your business to have an effective strategy to protect against data breaches, malware, spyware and other threats that could compromise your company. Because most businesses are technology-driven, IT systems are central to your organization’s success.

With that in mind, there is no more important investment than the cyber security of your business. WheelHouse Solutions’ cybersecurity offering will protect your sensitive company information, as well as the personal information of your employees and customers. We offer a comprehensive line of security products by today’s leaders in cybersecurity. Our mission is to detect and stop threats before they affect your business.

Our cybersecurity solutions include:

  • Malware & Virus Protection
  • Ransomware Protection
  • Email Security
  • Firewalls
  • Intrusion Prevention Systems
  • Router Security
  • VPN Security Clients
  • Web Security
  • Data Security

It’s imperative to deploy security measures across your enterprise to protect from modern threats that change rapidly. WheelHouse Solutions can protect your business with a suite of solutions, helping you mitigate all security threats and keep your business safe from online attacks. And, while there’s no silver bullet when it comes to IT security, the more safeguards we can implement in an IT environment, the more secure it will be and the more our customers appreciate out IT expertise.

If you would like more information on our cyber security or premise security systems, please click here or call us at 314-492-2506 to request a free evaluation today from one of our knowledgeable staff.

Does Your Business Need Help With Disaster Recovery Planning?

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How Important is Your Data?

Wheelhouse Solutions understands that not all data is created equal, and while some businesses may just need files securely backed up, at a low cost, others need to know they can restore their server in minutes, not hours or days. That’s where we can help.

Your business and the data within it, is not the same as everyone else’s, so why should your data recovery solution be forced into a one size fits all? Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) offerings provide our client’s the best fit for their disaster recovery needs and their budget.

Backing up to the WheelHouse Solutions Data Vault is secure

  • Offsite protection combined with local backup
  • Web-based access to protected data
  • Agentless backup across multiple LAN connected systems.
  • 24/7/365 US-based phone support
  • Mirrored data centers to ensure recoverability
  • SOC 2, Type II audited
  • Compliant with many regulations including HIPAA, FERPA, PCI, and GLBA

WheelHouse Solutions provides Disaster Recovery Planning to businesses of all types and sizes. We invite you to click here or call us at 314-492-2506 to request additional information about our Disaster Recovery Planning services. We’ll work with you to develop a solution that will meet your needs now, as well as provide for future growth and flexibility.

Improve Efficiency and Functionality in Your Business with SD-WAN

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Software-defined networking in a wide area network, better known as SD-WAN, has become a useful and functional technology for companies nationwide. It provides an easier way to manage and operate the wide area network by decoupling networking hardware from the original control mechanism. Companies are then able to improve the management and operation of their data centers and create better performing WANs through the usage of lower-cost and more commercially available internet access. Doing this eliminates the need for businesses to use expensive private WAN connection technologies.

WANs are helpful in providing companies the ability to extend their computer networks large distances, allowing them to connect their offices to data centers. While they have served their purpose, the introduction of SD-WANs drastically improves the functionality of networks for companies. SD-WANs combine several different types of technology to support multiple connection types. They have the ability to use dynamic path selection to improve their load sharing and resiliency with networking functions, and their interface is made significantly easier to configure and manage.

These characteristics are highly useful for companies looking to expand their networking capabilities throughout various locations. While such large amounts of connectivity might create network connection or other delays, implementing SD-WANs assists in creating a more streamlined way to manage networks. Not only does it provide more network flexibility, having a centralized network allows changes throughout various connected sites to occur quickly in an organized manner.

By enhancing or even entirely taking the place of more traditionally used branch routers, SD-WANs fight the congestion caused by widely used networks, enhancing the performance of the network itself. Functions such as the ability to make network-wide changes throughout multiple sites through one click, run the network and applications through local sites, and more ease in creating routing policies simplifies network functioning for companies.

SD-WANs also give companies the ability to tailor their networks to their specific needs, offering preferences on configuration and control to the original data center. Features such as the ability to centrally configure each appliance, choose specific path selections for the network, and ultimately permitting all configurations to be done at a centrally based location provide administrators with a significant amount of control over networks in an easy and efficient way.

With such great benefits relating to network flexibility and management, companies will also find an enhancement of security through the implementation of SD-WANs. The firewalls set in place throughout the various networks, stemming from the central data centers, allow for a more secure system. The traffic throughout the network will be more monitored and ultimately more beneficial for the company in its ability to trust the systems integrity as it spreads throughout less central locations.

In addition to the security of SD-WANs, companies will also find it to be a more cost-effective alternative for the dependability and efficiency it provides. With its streamline methods of transferring data from a central data center to multiple sites as desired by the company, implementing SD-WANs allows connection at a lower price with the bandwidth. Additionally, the versatility of SD-WANs in their ability to connect more than one network replaces the need for multiple systems being used.

With various demands and needs for efficiency within a network utilized by companies needing to connect from various locations, SD-WANs prove to be a most effective choice. Not only do they simplify the process of connecting networks together, but they also provide a more cost-effective and organized system for administrators to work with. A company’s outreach and capabilities from locations outside of the central data center is drastically improved through the implementation of the SD-WAN, and it is an obvious choice for efficiency and functionality.

WheelHouse Solutions provides SD-WAN services throughout the St. Louis, MO area. We invite you fill out the form on this page for more information on SD-WAN and one of our representatives will get back with you quickly.

Assigning Priorities to Your Upcoming IT Upgrades

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No matter how much a company spends on technology and equipment, those solutions are not meant to last forever and have an anticipated lifecycle. Even after significant investments in technology in your organization, you may have noticed that those solutions are no longer as effective as they once were. Competitors are leveraging new technologies to better serve their clients and you’re getting left in the dust. Sounds like it might be time to implement some upgrades.

As a result, it’s critically important that you plan your IT modernization activities using at least one of these principles.

Simplify & Streamline the Design

In many cases, older IT solutions are a mixed menagerie of various technologies, frequently designed with a very simple modular focus – one or two processes can be accommodated, but only as long as the focus of the business does not shift.

Modern IT solutions are systems that are primarily engineered on standardized components and languages, so that they can be easily leveraged to use application programming interfaces (or APIs) in order to facilitate multiple processes running at the same time. In addition, modern IT networks and solutions can be used to implement advanced processes, like artificial intelligence and machine learning. These capabilities allow employees to service customers more easily, improving customer satisfaction and enhancing employee skills, by exposing them to advanced IT technologies.

Prioritize Employee Benefits and Added Value

One of the most significant benefits of any modernized IT network is the improved value that network users will experience due to upgrades and investments being made. With the latest in network solutions, your business can now deliver a level of customer service by leveraging the solutions that are available to you through a modernized network solution.

Automation is a large part of this because if you aren’t reducing the number of tasks that your employees need to complete in order to grow your company, you may find it difficult to improve their productivity. For this reason, it’s important that your IT products and solutions provide value to your employees that also translates into operational benefits for the business.

Adhere to Company Culture

When developing the IT technology upgrade policy that will best grow your company, it can be helpful to understand how that technology will fit into your organization’s culture. At the same time, you must also ensure that your staff is prepared to implement the changes you’re making across the IT environment. One part of the upgrade should stipulate that you communicate the changes up front, along with your expectations that they will be implemented.

It will also help to rely upon those employees who are most receptive to the changes, who will fully utilize the upgrades and can be considered a source of valuable information should others in the business require assistance. Are there any problems or issues of which management is unaware? Utilizing these receptive employees to understand the culture within your business will help to inform future decisions on technology enhancements and upgrades.

If you’d like more information on planning and upgrading your IT network, we invite you to fill out the form on this page and someone will get back in touch with you soon.