Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Tim Armstrong, Vice President of Product Marketing, Nectar
Visibility into the Cloud
One of the biggest UC trends of 2018 has been the continued
move to the cloud for collaboration workloads. Evidenced by the rise of
services like Zoom, alongside players like WebEx and GoToMeeting, enterprises
and SMBs alike see clear value in cloud-based collaboration. To wit, all the
major players in the collaboration ecosystem are pushing customers this
direction - from Cisco and Microsoft to Google and Amazon.
As cloud-based collaboration services stand to cross the
chasm into mainstream adoption, there is an interesting reality that is
surfacing from the enterprise operations and IT support teams - they've lost the
visibility they need to support their own users. When an end-user is
complaining of poor-quality calls or failed meeting joins, how does support
begin to troubleshoot the issue?
The solution seems obvious - cloud providers
need to enable the ecosystem of IT management and monitoring tools with APIs
that enable real-time visibility into user activity on their platforms. Without
this visibility, the transition of enterprise voice, video and collaboration workloads
to the cloud might be a bumpy ride for providers and enterprises alike. We
predict that customer demand will appropriately motivate the platform providers
to address this apparent oversight in 2019.
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About the Author
A 20-year veteran of the communications and collaboration
industry, Tim is currently Nectar's Vice President of Product Marketing. Tim
has held positions in all major categories of the UC industry including
consulting, carriers and vendors, including a ten-year career at Microsoft
where he helped drive Microsoft's UC business in global channels. Tim's
responsibilities at Nectar include working with our Product Engineering teams
to align Nectar features functionality with customer needs and to help Nectar's
customers and field teams to maximize the value of Nectar's tools. Based in the
small Eastern Washington town of Walla Walla, Tim and his wife are proud
parents of two young daughters. On the weekends, the Armstrong family can often
be found at their family-owned vineyard and winery, hosting guests and working
hard to grow and produce premium wines from the region.