2016 Roadmap – A Shifting Landscape For SMB’s
Tech Q&A with President, Bruce Nelson
Vertilocity held its Kickoff 2016 Strategy Meeting this January and among the topics covered was the shift in the technology landscape for small and midsized organizations. Vertilocity President, Bruce Nelson discussed the Product and Services roadmap for 2016 which included expanding offering around Remote Support Plans, Enhanced Managed Security offerings and Dynamics GP Web solutions. During the session he expanded on not only the details of the solutions but more importantly why these solutions are on the Vertilocity Roadmap.
I had the opportunity to sit down discuss in more detail some of the offerings and the key drivers behind those.
Q: You introduced some expanded offerings for prospects and clients which include the new vCare Remote Services. Tell me a little more about the solution and drivers behind it.
A: Vertilocity has provided an on-site with remote support bundled Manage Service offering (vCare) dating back to 2007. The solution provided clients with proactive services built on a predictable monthly fee. We managed the on-premise server infrastructure, workstations, and end user devices. The model addressed the demands of clients in our space and enabled us to become one of the largest IT Managed Services partners in the country. As we looked at was happening within our clients’ business and our own we realized we needed to revisit our offering. The fact of the matter is that on-premise servers are going away at an unprecedented rate as key operational systems are moved to secure data centers or other Cloud based solutions. The critical points of failure and risk no longer reside within the on-premise server infrastructure. End user support is now in large part driven by the need to access operational systems in the cloud and the end user experience. vCare Remote Services addresses this requirement by reducing the end user support fee and shifting key elements of security and monitoring to the network edge.
Q: Ok, so building on the theme of a shift in the technology landscape of small and midsized business, how do the Enhanced Managed Security offerings come into play?
A: As I had mentioned earlier many organizations have moved critical systems to various cloud solutions. As a Managed Service Provider we now need to work with our clients to help them understand where their risks are and where our services should be focused. The shift to cloud solutions has happened almost overnight. I many cases little thought was put into the bandwidth and network technologies required to support these new deployment models. Sure the first Saas solution didn’t have a major impact but as organizations add more and more solutions onto this stack they are overloading the wide area network that was never designed to support this in the first place. To address this changing demand we started working with clients to upgrade key components of the wide area network with NextGen Firewalls from Fortinet. These solutions provide the most advanced solutions for network security, web filtering, application control and reporting. Our ability to monitor, manage and report on security incidents, network performance, user access and other elements gives our clients a distinct advantage as they evaluate current and future solutions.
Q: The fully Managed NextGen firewall solutions seem like a MUST have for small and mid-sized organizations. During our session you also addressed the changing requirements for Wi-Fi networks. Can you tell us a little more about that?
A: Sure. Much like the Wide Area Network solutions I just discussed, Wi-Fi networks are now being asked to support environments that they were never designed for. Most of the WiFi networks we see where setup using the most basic equipment, have significant security gaps and are not monitored. They were designed for a few laptop users in the office and maybe a Guest network for outside users. Now as mobile devices are common place, peripheral devices (printers, scanners, etc) are WiFi enabled and the Internet of Things is here these networks are overloaded. I will give you an example, Marc Silverman our CTO recently setup a small Fortinet device at his home. He quickly discovered that over 10 devices connected to the new Wi-Fi device. Keep in mind this is a home with two people. In my case with the kids we are at 15 to 20 at any given time between laptops, ipads, phones, TV’s, printers, solar panel system and other wireless devices. These WiFi networks are no longer just a convenience or nice to have for organizations. They are MISSION critical networks that must be redesigned, secured and monitored. For our clients we are implementing NextGen Firewalls with integrated WiFi solutions giving us and our clients the ability to monitor, secure and expand these critical network elements as the requirements increase.
Q: Last but not least can you tell us a little more about the Dynamics GP Web Client offering that is slated for 2nd quarter this year.
A: As you know we’ve hosted Microsoft Dynamics GP since 2012. This offering is a full desktop, including Microsoft Office and has been a huge success for us. As we look at the product development of Microsoft Dynamics GP and specifically the Web Client functionality we see another opportunity expand our offerings. The fully function Web Client provides us the ability to offer a different delivery model and bundles extremely well with the Office365 solutions. This will not only expand our opportunities in our current market but it will provide greater flexibility and pricing for existing clients who may want to take advantage of the new deployment option.