Within many organizations today, CIOs are embracing the many possibilities that are opened up by the implementation of cloud technologies. By introducing the cloud into their workplaces, many businesses have been able to establish much more flexible and efficient workflows and reap the rewards in greater profitability and lower expenditures.
Some of the benefits of cloud computing are now obvious to everyone. We are all familiar with remote file access and even being able to access and run applications remotely. However, fewer people appreciate the ground-breaking role that cloud technologies have played in streamlining communications throughout enterprises.
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is enabling businesses to access all-in-one cloud-based communications services. These services are often highly-scalable, meaning that a small business can stick with the same communications system throughout the growth of their business.
The software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) is the perfect complementary technology, augmenting UCaaS in a number of different ways.
Minimising Packet Loss
UCaaS enables businesses to integrate multiple forms of communications into a single platform. This enables them to be much more dynamic in their operations by ensuring that workers are always able to communicate with one another. However, as with all cloud services, a UCaaS setup is only as good as its uptime rate.
UCaaS systems are highly susceptible to unreliable connections; any packet loss is going to inhibit the effectiveness and quality of communications on your network. Cloud-based system providers like Broadgate Voice implement a variety of measures to minimize packet loss and ensure that communications are able to flow uninhibited.
SD-WAN enables much more efficient and reliable packet transmission, minimising the rate at which communications are dropped. This is essential for video communications, where packet loss leads to pixelation on the image. Meanwhile, the audio quality will drop as data is lost. SD-WAN ensures UCaaS quality remains high, regardless of load.
Scalability
Businesses today want to minimize disruption to their networks while also ensuring that the software they use is secure and up to date. Even if you keep the same software packages for years on end, installing updates can lead to unexpected conflicts and other issues. For this reason, businesses are always eager to avoid having to install entirely new systems and integrate them with their existing infrastructure.