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We regularly manage RFPs & project plans to upgrade technology to hosted voice/UCaaS (unified communications as a service).   There are a number of reasons organizations are moving this way:  business continuity and disaster recovery, future proof technology, scalability, and the desire to offload the management and move everything to the cloud.  In the interest of setting realistic expectations for deployment, I sat down with ARG’s project management and implementation engineering groups to find out best practices…

As the east coast gears up for the blizzard, we wanted to remind you that ARG is here to help you weather the storm. We’ve been in touch with our carriers to make sure resources have been lined up to respond as quickly possible for restore and repair.  ARG is here to assist you when troubles arise. We are here to answer your calls, open tickets, escalate with the carriers and provide technical consulting and troubleshooting along the way.

Here at ARG we are proud to have one of the best Cloud Advisors on our team heading into 2016. The cloud market is a daunting place for company’s looking to cloud their infrastructure, but luckily, we have the right person on our side that can now be on yours. To see what we’re talking about, here’s ARG Cloud Advisor Jim Begley’s take on the state of the cloud market at the end of 2015:

  ARG has been incredibly successful this year lowering our customers wireless bills by an average of over 38%.  As a special end of the year offer, ARG would like to provide you with a free mobility health review. We want to put you in the best wireless financial position to start 2016. The ARGRead more

It seems like hacks and thefts of information are in the news daily, from Ashley Madison to the US Government, airlines, and businesses, no one seems to be exempt from the threat.  So what can you do to protect your organization and your client or members’ information.

Decision making on Unified Communications (UC) at any and every level can be extremely difficult. 

As adoption of UC grows exponentially, comparing providers may be difficult due to the lack of a standardized definition of UC and the wide variety of offerings.  

Picture this: You’ve done the research, you’ve put in the time, you choose a data center for your business, and it all seems great. BUT, all of a sudden, weeks into your mission critical data being supported, the data center goes down. You never asked about uptime. It somehow got lost in the research and questions and the other projects you’ve been working on. Now, your business has lost tens of thousands of dollars. What now?

“Enterprise mobility” is a hot topic as we head into the final months of 2015. Increasingly mobile workforce emphasize the need for companies to enable and manage employee mobility in order to meet security and productivity demands. But what does this mean for you?

Companies who set out to mobilize their enterprises on their own tend to miss important security factors that could potentially put sensitive data in jeopardy. On top of that, they tend to overlook needs and requirements specific to their company which could lead the company’s inability to expand and improve with future add-ons.

If you couldn’t make it to the seminar, check out the live tweets from the event at #ARGSeminar. You can also reach out to us through our Contact page or info@myarg.com. An ARG consultant can set up a meeting to review UC best practices, and help you find a solution that best fits your unique business needs.

It has been reported that more than two thirds of businesses were not going to make the upgrade deadline, which leaves their networks, servers, and possibly their entire IT infrastructures susceptible to bugs, cyber criminals, compliance issues, and more.  In 2013, Microsoft issued 37 “critical” updates to Windows Server 2003, and another 21 in 2014, suggesting it is still extremely vulnerable to bugs that have not yet been exposed. 

Now is the time to ask, “How are you protecting your business today, and what system does your business have in place to recover from a disaster, man-made or otherwise?”

So, we’re asking. Here at ARG, we have the time, tools, and know how to get your company backed up for life. There are too many examples of major businesses losing their ability to operate and all of their data being lost for your business to NOT be protected.

We’ve all heard our friends and counterparts in the industry say “if they’re going to move their company’s infrastructure into a third-party data center, then they will only consider a Tier IV data center.” Heaven forbid, someone would recommend a Tier II, or dare we say, a Tier I facility.  “Tier I” is almost a four-letter word.  But, why?

We did it! For the second year in a row, ARG has been selected for The Washington Post’s Top Workplaces list.

The Washington Post partnered with WorkplaceDynamics, an employee-survey firm based in Philadelphia, and asked the employees of nominated companies to evaluate their employers based on 22 questions covering the job, leadership and organizational health.  Within each size category, the employers were ranked based solely on employee responses to the survey statements.

Working from home and connecting to an office is becoming a trend, a new fad or style if you will. We here at ARG think every person in a company should be empowered to connect with the office remotely. But how?

Video conferencing is not yet a part of everyday office life, but it should be.

March Madness is just beginning and hosted voice is heavily favored to win here at ARG. So far this month, a big win for ARG has been installing 400 Hosted Voice seats for one long time ARG customer.

This major health association has been a client of ARG for nearly two decades, and we have worked with the organization through a myriad of technologies and platforms. From switched long distance and DSL, dedicated long distance and analog lines, then PRIs, Dynamic services, colocation and now hosted voice, ARG has coached them in order to stay in the lead as technology changes.

The IT hiring environment in 2015 is set to be ultra-competitive. Despite an abundance of open positions, skill levels in an ever evolving tech atmosphere just aren’t up to snuff.

CompTIA’s IT Industry Outlook 2015 surveyed 649 companies in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and the results highlight both the positive andnegative factors the current IT hiring environment encompasses. Forty-three percent of companies said their IT departments were understaffed despite large gains in requests for IT skills including but not limited to SQL, Java, Oracle, Linux and more.

An article on Apple’s quest for enterprise support, written on TechTarget.com, caught the eye of ARG’s Director of Business Management Services, Pat McGugan. Read what he has to say on the issue, and how ARG can facilitate your decision making process.

If you can’t, or aren’t ready as of yet, to cloud your primary environment – consider what by-the-hour, or by-the-month servers that are built by you with your specs could do for your business! We’ve seen folks use it to test the effects of OS revisions and such on their applications prior to rolling them out.

In Technology M&A news, Level 3 announced the close of their acquisition of tw telecom today.  During the months ahead they will be working to integrate the two companies and leverage their assets.  If you have any questions on how this impacts your ARG supported services on either provider, don’t hesitate to reach out.Read more

Tip 9 Failover or Failure Do you have backup Internet with failover?  Are you configured so that if your primary circuit goes down you can failover without missing a beat? If not, you are not alone.  ARG has interviewed hundreds of customers over the past 15 months and about 46% of them do not haveRead more

Are you struggling to develop a mobility policy? From HR and finance to IT and corporate tax implications,  businesses are dramatically impacted by mobile device policy. Cell phones, tablets, and other mobile devices have permeated almost every aspect of our lives and it is difficult to navigate all the possible pitfalls.  Make sure you haveRead more

You can follow ARG on Twitter!  We wanted to make sure you were aware of this valuable service. If you follow us at www.twitter.com/my_ARG you will have visibility into major & regional outages or issues. Whether it’s a fiber cut, a portal down, switching issues or weather related mishaps that may affect your service youRead more

Boy!  When ARG Implementation Engineers say they’ll do just about anything to save a cut, they mean it!  Yesterday, Matt West went WAY above the call of duty by dumpster diving to save a cut that was going south due to a missing cable.  Here is what the phone vendor had to say afterwards: “TheRead more

1.  The gift of time:  When you have an issue simply make one to ARG Client Services (703-770-2407) and we’ll take care of the rest.  We will reach out to the carrier to open and track a ticket until resolution.  If escalation is needed ARG will manage that process as well.  You will be updatedRead more

We had a great response to the Top 15 for 2015 seminar with almost every attendee saying that the content was relevant and helpful in their role.  You may have missed the event, but we don’t want you to miss out on this valuable information.   Keep an eye on our blog and your inbox as weRead more

What a great morning thank you all so much for attending and for making it such a great interactive event.  I hope everyone enjoyed the Astro Doughnuts and found the content valuable.  A special congratulations to Javiar Pelham, Ali Forrest, & Scott Mearns for winning our 3 Bose Soundlink Mini Speakers!Read more

We are filling up fast for our September 23rd breakfast event.  Whether you come for an update on what your peers are doing to update their environment or the Astro Doughnuts and breakfast, we hope you can join us next week. ARG has made the investment to meet with over a thousand of the mid-Atlantic’sRead more

Frequently there is a lot of anxiety about changing voice providers.  This is understandable and ARG project managers and engineers do everything possible to minimize customer risk. We are aware that any interruption of service is disruptive and can be perceived as a stressful by someone who is responsible for their company’s phone service.  A largeRead more

So encouraging to see more and more cloud providers adopting both multi-access solutions and direct connect high bandwidth access.  Just two years ago, ARG argued in meeting after meeting for the need to put greater priority on network connectivity.  Back then, we met a lot of resistance.  Now, we’re being greeted with excitement about broadRead more

Stepping back from all the activity around the show, it’s pretty stunning how far the service providers have shifted towards the channel.  15-20 years ago, a couple dozen of us spent all our time at these shows trying to convince providers that together, we could offer a much stronger solution to businesses.  The response wasRead more