Best posts made by MikeSmithsBrain

Cloud Therapy Podcast: EP 013: SIP Faxing Best Practices

If your company is moving to SIP or VoIP, don't forget about the faxes!

Faxing is a little boring to discuss but it is commonly overlooked and therefore, often a post-install thorn that is a pain for the IT team.

You may or may not want to keep the faxes on analog (POTS) lines but it has to do with things like T.30 vs. T.38, provider support and a few other things. Listen to Level 3's long-time voice engineer, Rich Prohaska, review the best practices for faxing when converting your voice over to SIP.

Here is a snazzy infographic I made, walking you through some questions that will help you choose which WAN technology is the best fit for your company.

I'm new at the infographic thing so it took me forever but I'm pleased with how it came out.

I hope you find it useful.

Does your company have 30+ users on-site and you're using SIP?

If so, what kind of access are you using? 3rd party Internet or a dedicated circuit from your SIP service provider? How's it working?

This topic came up in a recent podcast where, Fusion's sales engineer, gave many wise yet little-known tips on how to transition to SIP without a hitch.

This is a hotly debated topic within the industry so I'd like to hear from the source... IT Pro's that are actually deploying SIP today, in an office with more than 30 users.

Cloud Therapy Podcast - E003

So you’ve decided to move to SDWAN. What should your IT department do to make sure you have a smooth installation?

To answer these questions, we invited an expert SDWAN engineer, Jack Dolan from Aryaka, to speak with us. Aryaka has been doing SDWAN as long as anyone so they absolutely know what needs to be done!

Jack explains 5 specific tactical items that IT Departments need to do in order to transition from SDWAN from MPLS or any other type of business WAN… flawlessly!

For more episodes, find Cloud Therapy on iTunes!

The VoIP Haunting: Episode 2

In IT, your work can easily go unnoticed (since many bosses barely understand what you do), but we all know that is a career killer if you want promotions and raises.

Do you have any strategies that you use to get your boss to see your great work, without sounding boastful?

This discussion idea came to me because in this Podcast with Brian Gracely from The Cloudcast, he tells a story of a time where he strategically had his direct reports attend meetings and present a summary of the projects they've completed... which resulted in a good experience for his direct report, as well as an opportunity for his boss to see Brian's great work without him having to brag about it.

Cloud Therapy with AeroComInc.com E010: SIP Security Tips with Bill Bollinger

VoIP pioneer and co-founder of Appia, Bill Bollinger sees thousands of hack attempts every day. In this episode, he tells Mike his tips on how your company can avoid having their SIP service hacked. He also tells a story of a company that could've done something very simple to avoid getting hacked and paying $10k in fraudulent calls.

I've known Rich for a few years and every time we talk, he teaches me something new. This day was no different.

Like many of you, Rich Erickson learned IT in the military and then took his skills to the private sector, holding rolls like Sys Admin, Network Admin, IT Director and is now the Director of Sales Engineering for a high-end cloud service provider, Matrix IBS.

He's one of those sales engineers that we (as salespeople), love to bring into customer meetings because we've learned that when he speaks, our credibility grows. He's also just a nice guy.

Listen to Rich school me on several ways I can increase our company's cloud performance, at the local level.

Cloud Therapy: Episode 14 - Local Fixes for Cloud Latency

What would you do if your management team told you that the company's growth was so strong that according to forecasts, they needed to double IT infrastructure... but they didn't have the budget to increase cap-ex or monthly spend?

"Impossible" was their first thought.

In this episode, United Layer sales engineer, Saad Saleem, tells a story of an IT team that faced this dilemma six months ago. He details how they pulled it off... and were applauded and viewed as heroes by their management team.

Cloud Therapy: EP 016 - Growing Infrastructure without Money Creates IT Heroes

Like many of you, I love Halloween. Always have.

During October, I'd happily accompany my Mom to any store... just so I could go gawk at their selection of rubber masks in their seasonal Halloween costume aisle.

When my wife's busy, I love indulging in those Ghost Hunter reality shows...

So, when I had to create an October promotional item to advertise an upcoming webinar, you can guess what I was thinking...

Yep, I made a low-budg, creepy/goofy, 3 part video, called "The VoIP Haunting."

For all of you Halloween lovers out there, how'd I do? Did it make seeing a normally business-speak, VoIP webinar ad at least a little entertaining?sle

I recently interviewed an O365 expert on our podcast, who reviewed the questionnaire his company has customers complete, before helping them migrate to O365... to help avoid a big "oops" moment.

I thought it might be helpful (and a little entertaining), to gather some first-hand O365 migration "lessons learned" stories...

Do you have an "oooops" moment that you can share about your migration to Office 365, that the other IT brethren should hear?

Cloud Therapy with AeroComInc.com: E004: 7 Questions for Public Cloud Providers
I review 7 questions that will help you do a great job shopping Cloud VM service providers for your company.

How would you rate it vs. Fiber? Do you ever experience issues caused by weather?

In our latest podcast, the CTO of California Internet made an interesting comment... "When a fiber Internet connection has an issue, we blame the ISP but when a fixed wireless connection has an issue, we blame the technology."

I think there is some truth in that but thought I'd ask the opinion of IT professionals who've had hands-on, non-biased experience with both.

If you're getting bored of using the big guys for your company's Cloud VM's, here is a fun infographic with some ideas on how to find non "Big 3" provider that might be a better fit.

As you can see, I try to have fun with these otherwise semi-boring topics... so I hope you like it and find it at least a little useful.

@wrx7m Yes, those are good SIP providers but can you describe a little about your call/usage patterns? It will help with which providers I'd recommend.

Did you want the call center to be connected to your regular phone system? What workgroup functionality (ideally) is you CS manager looking for?

Listen to 4G expert, Maureen Donovan tell me all about 4G for business, it's maximum user count, it's cost, it's bonding capabilities, it's future business features and more.

Josh Chamois also pops in to tell us about a killer promo price that an ISP is offering for a 100M Internet connection.... then I challenge him to find something at a famous Boston landmark.

Cloud Therapy: E018 - Exploring 4G Business Internet

Seriously... Jose DeHoyos from XO is another one of my favorite engineers to work with. He's a fun, gregarious guy (which is unusual for an ISP engineer), yet is as technical as they come.

In this podcast episode, he gives me a few simple but often overlooked things IT departments should do to secure their new, bright, shiny, ultra-fast Internet connection. He also has some crazy stories!

AND don't miss the appearance by Josh Chamois. I make him tell me what's available at a famous location in Canton, Ohio. Any guesses what famous place I'm talking about?

Cloud Therapy: E019 - Business Internet Security & Continuity

The VoIP Haunting: Episode 3

Fiber Hunters: Equinox

What famous US building should we investigate next?