•Azzurri Launches Managed Cloud Connectivity for the Contact Centre Enterprise – ICON Connect brings together best-of-breed connectivity under one solution to support cloud-based communications and applications
Azzurri Communications has launched ICON Connect, Azzurri’s new converged connectivity solution which sits within the ICON Cloud and Managed Services suite. With ICON Connect, organisations benefit from a managed connectivity solution which brings together best-of-breed wireless and fixed line data connectivity under a single unified network framework. ICON Connect eases the deployment and overall availability of cloud applications; as well as improving the reliability of network-based communications services.
Leveraging Azzurri’s proven experience in building communications infrastructures that focus on business outcomes and not specific technologies, ICON Connect delivers a complete, flexible connectivity solution. ICON Connect can be adapted and scaled to meet the specific needs of every organisation, irrespective of their size, bandwidth requirements, number of locations or resiliency requirements. This is because ICON Connect integrates an extensive range of connectivity services along with all the key technologies available from the major tier 1 vendors and carriers as a true managed service. Connectivity solutions can include ADSL, FTTC (Fibre-to-the-Cabinet), Ethernet, dark fibre and radio services (Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G etc.), with the benefit of all services being delivered on a unified network framework with a single billing interface. The modular nature of the solution allows customers to pick and choose from a range of service options, delivered over a private cloud infrastructure and fully managed by Azzurri.
Traditionally when building a hybrid connectivity solution for a customer, the type of connectivity technologies that are used are often simply determined by the number of users, and to a certain extent cost. This approach can often lead to a disconnect between the connectivity delivered and the needs of the employees. With ICON Connect, Azzurri uses its site profiling methodology to define the best enterprise connectivity to match the customer’s specific requirements prior to each deployment – including several key criteria around how the customer uses their network and the specific network dependencies that they have. By focusing on business outcomes first and foremost, Azzurri ensures that ICON Connect delivers the productivity gains that its customers require.
As with all of the other cloud services under the Azzurri ICON banner, ICON Connect is supported by an Azzurri Managed Service overlay to ensure the on-going delivery of the service and to provide guaranteed availability. With ICON Connect, Azzurri designs, installs and manages the complete solution to ensure that it is secure, flexible and scalable to the customer’s requirements.
Rufus Grig, CTO of Azzurri comments, “IT leaders are forever challenged with delivering connectivity to a broad range of stakeholders – including their customers, employees, suppliers and partners – all of whom have differing requirements. Choosing the correct technology for the various scenarios facing the organisation is made all the harder by the continual advances in connectivity technology. Staying on top of the evolving connectivity spectrum – weighing up the risks, costs, benefits and support requirements of these different connectivity needs – is a full time job. That is why we developed ICON Connect. We take the burden of technology decisions away from the customer so that they can concentrate on getting on with their jobs, safe in the knowledge that their network delivers the connectivity that they need to access their applications and services.”
ICON Connect offers the broadest set of connectivity options across all geographies and technologies, in combination with the national networks of all the major UK carriers. This ensures that customers can receive a truly best-of-breed solution. “As we all know, some carriers are stronger than others in certain locations; some provide specialist products whilst others are more generalised. Therefore if you want the best of the best you will often have to contract directly with a large number of carriers which could be time consuming, complicated and costly. We take that pain away with ICON Connect by providing one fully managed service that provides the best option for each of our customers’ locations, but more importantly, through one single contract allowing them to concentrate on what really matters,” concludes Grig.
ICON Connect forms part of Azzurri’s larger suite of ICON Cloud and Managed Service offerings. These include ICON Communicate, its cloud-based voice and UC services, ICON Contact, the cloud contact centre solution and ICON Mobilise, the mobile device and application management solution. Due to the common network framework across all ICON services, each on can be seamlessly added on top of the ICON Connect service.
For those customers that wish to retain some elements of their own network connectivity, ICON Connect also includes the ICON Gateway, which enables customers to consume Azzurri’s other ICON services (such as ICON Communicate and ICON Contact) in a secure, resilient and managed way whilst retaining their own data infrastructure.
