Author: Hemayun Bazaz, Regional Manager - Channel Sales, Middle East and Turkey at HPN Aruba

Whether you have staff servicing customers a few miles from the office or joining a meeting from somewhere across the country, your workforce is rarely in the same place at the same time. And with an increasing number of employees working with team members across different remote locations, mobile unified communications and collaboration (UCC) solutions are a necessity. Customers globally are embracing UCC to accelerate their businesses – the UCC market is predicted to grow from $23.39 billion in 2016 to $42.72 billion in 2021.

UCC solutions like Skype for Business and Office 365 can help you accelerate business growth while also protecting your IT environments from security breaches with the increasing use of employee-owned devices. With mobile UCC solutions, your employees can take their office communications with them wherever they go. These solutions offer you faster, more efficient, and secure communications – regardless of location, time, or device. They also simplify voice, video, IM and file sharing for team members and accelerate decision-making when engaging with customers or partners.

To ensure the success of your Skype for Business deployment you need a wireless network solution that can optimize Wi-Fi network performance and availability and prioritize Skype for Business voice and video applications.

Supporting increasing smartphone and tablet growth

To make the most of you Skype for Business investment and ensure a reliable experience for Skype for Business voice and video applications there’s a good chance you’ll need to upgrade your Wireless LAN infrastructure. There are cost-effective, reliable and high-performance wireless solutions including Wave 2 access points providing gigabit wireless speeds for your users to enjoy rich media on the go.

Enhancing the mobile user experience

Employee and customer interactions are critical to the success of your business. A poor Skype for Business service quality can diminish user productivity, impact customer interactions, and impede Skype for Business adoption. But ensuring high service quality for UCC traffic can be tricky, especially for IT personnel who aren’t steeped in networking technology.

It is important to choose ‘Skype for Business’ certified wireless solutions for on-premises, hosted or hybrid environments. Some solutions, with built-in RF optimization and technologies that leverage heuristics to differentiate Skype for Business voice, video, and desktop sharing from other application streams, can prioritize Skype for Business traffic whether on-premises or as part of Office 365 solutions.

Optimizing network availability

Your business communications are the lifeblood of your business. If your network goes down you can lose sales and frustrate customers. You need to ensure your network is easy to deploy, reliable and available at all times. It is imperative that in the eventuality that the network goes down, it can be brought up and running in minutes without networking expertise. Built-in resiliency ensures your network stays up and running.

Securing your mobile UCC

Office 365 offers built-in security and continuous compliance so you can focus on what is important to your business. You always know where your data is and who has access to it. You can also remotely wipe all data if your users lose their mobile device.

To enhance the security of your Skype for Business applications, the wireless solution should feature an integrated firewall that monitors all data entering or leaving the network, blocks data that does not satisfy specified security policies, and prevents unauthorized users from accessing your network. You should be able to use a simple firewall policy to define access rules based on user roles and the firewall should also allow you to control bandwidth for different applications and classes of users, such as for example employees or guests. An additional feature of an integrated wireless intrusion protection system will further safeguard your network from unauthorized or rogue APs and other devices that can potentially harm network operations.