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Bob's Blog Bob Lamvik, COO Thanks for reading our SAI blog! I look forward to commenting on the telecom industry, discussing important trends that we see, and then as blogs go, giving my OPINIONS about many things from consequential through pettifoggery. If you're interested in this stuff, we hope you check back often! Comments and suggestions are always welcome at blamvik@sierragold.com.
February 12, 2010Fiber Optic Connection!Here is a letter we sent today to our key accounts:
Dear Valued Customer: We are happy to announce the completion of our Northern California Data Center upgrade, which includes a new Fiber Optic link between our building and our Internet Service Provider. This will result in a significant speed improvement for users accessing our SierraGold reports and other key services that require various types of data transfer. Each customer transfers data to us in a slightly different way, but those using an IP-network methodology such as Secure FTP or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will require a small change in IP address referencing that will be completed by our Hotline Support Staff. Over the coming weeks you will be contacted by our team, where necessary, to complete this important change. We thank you in advance for your cooperation, and for your continued business!
Sincerely, Bob Lamvik Chief Operating Officer SAI blamvik@sierragold.com
December 31, 2009A year in reviewWow - was that a quick year or what???? And doesn't the year "2010" sound like some space age date? Gosh -the wheels keep turning. When I think back on the full year - many things come to mind. Probably the biggest factor has been the ongoing financial demise. This plagues jobs, credit, investment, many many things which from a telecom perspective limits the investments large enterprises want to make. Many want to move to VoIP or other contemporary Unified Communications solutions - but aren't at this time. One nice thing for us is that we're a SaaS vendor - so it's not a big investment - just "pay as you go". Many times in giant organizations, Capital Expense is difficult to get approved, but Operating Expense, if justified, continues. Another big event this year has been the Nortel situation. As the year closes, it looks to be final that their Enterprise Division ends up with Avaya Corp. That is probably a pretty good thing and will certainly get Cisco's attention. UC and SIP have gotten a large hype factor in 2009, but many times I wonder about the actual adoption rate. If I were the CEO of a F500 company - I wonder how the team would lay out the ROI analysis for a global deployment of Unified Communications???? And even more tactically as an example - if someone put high end video conferencing in 25 key conference rooms, would that decrease the travel budget for the enterprise? Probably yes, but who and how would all of that get measured? Interesting stuff to think about. The wireless market moves so fast - it's hard to even keep up with that! Just as a simple consumer I watch what my kids can do with their iPhones, and it's amazaing. AND even with this increased bandwith and tons of new applications, the price keeps coming down. Yet there are security and business continuity issues with wireless - and so the enterprise team needs keep that in mind. And you can't open any tech web page without hearing about Cloud Computing. As a SaaS vendor, we monitor this trend very closely. And since nowadays so much voice traffic is moving over IP networks, "Cloud" is just as pertinent of an issue for an enterprise as it is for a SaaS vendor. My view now is that its headed this direction like a freight train, but one has to remember the old cliche' "the devil is in the details". I know some pretty tech savvy folks who have some very strong resistance to this trend from a security perspective. Also, as having spent some time in larger public companies in the past, I know there are a lot of audit, compliance, and regulatory matters that may suffer with corporate data "in the cloud". But, eventually, all of this get sorted out. Just because you need AC power in your house - doesn't mean you need a power plant in your backyard.... I hope I'm not overly optimistic that it seems we may be on a little uptick entering into 2010. I have many friends who have changed and/or upgraded their job roles - so some companies are hiring and promoting. I see plenty of RFPs so enterprises are considering and acquiring new solutions. There will be challenges in 2010 like always - I for one am particularly worried about inflation based on challenges the US Dollar is having. But the spirit of business is to overcome challenges - as we've done for decades. Thanks to our customers and partners, and any other blog readers, for your support in 2009, and best wishes for a great 2010!
November 6, 2009SAI goes Global!
One of the biggest demands we’ve had in our business, and hence, one of our biggest development activities over the past 6 months – has been adding support for various countries around the world. We have added more than 10 countries during this period. The business case is probably pretty straightforward; international calling is on the rise. We primarily service large enterprise accounts – most of which are either expanding their business internationally – or “off shoring” due to tax, labor savings, or other incentives. And even as consumers – we all know how affordable, if not outright free, international communications have become thanks to the likes of Skype, JaJah, ooVoo, and others. So what does it actually mean when a call accounting vendor (SAI – in this case!) says they support a new country. Well, let me explain it this way:
If you’re in the USA and call the UK – you get to your proper international call trunk by dialing 011, and then you dial the country code 44, and then 10 more digits. (more on this later). And then to return the call from the UK to the USA, you would dial 00, then US country code “1” then the area code 916, and then the number 939-8500 in this example. These two patterns are pretty familiar in both directions; most of us can easily dial between those 2 countries, and most call accounting vendors have supported this for years. Here’s where it gets interesting. Lets say you are now sitting in our newly supported country – Poland, and you need to make a non-local call within the country, let’s say from Krakόw to Warsaw. So first you dial “0”, to get a long-distance trunk, followed by “22” which is the Warsaw area code, and then between 4 and 7 subscriber digits. Now let’s up the ante – you’re still in Krakόw, but you need to call Sao Paulo Brazil. There you would dial international access “00” followed by country code “55” followed by area code for Sao Paulo “11” followed by the 8 subscriber digits. What’s my point? When we say we support a new country – it means we are supporting a view of the telecom world being based in the new country we are supporting. So in my example of Poland – we have to be able to support: International Calls, Intra-national Calls, Local calls, and Short Codes (like 411 and 911 in the US). This is a fairly daunting task when you consider all the combinations and permutations this could take. Fortunately, there is some help available. One tool we use is called an E164 database. This is the work of the International Telecommunications Union who publishes The International Public Telecommunication Numbering Plan. There are also private companies that track what I would consider “excruciating” details on “numbering plans” around the world. Certain things are on a subscription fee basis, but other things are just fun to play around with. One company is simply www.numberingplans.com, and for any of us doing international travel – here are two pretty cool tools they have (for free): Here is their tool to help figure out how to call from one country to another Here is their tool that will analyze any global phone number
In “Blog School” – we learned to keep in short – so I’ll end it here for now by thanking the great accounts that participated with us in this effort and our SAI staff that completed ALL of this work! Clearly the volume of international calling is on the rise. Large enterprises have multiple global initiatives so therefore SAI is poised to track calls in more countries on the planet than ever!
August 25, 2009Special Guest Blog - Brad HallVice President, Sales, SAIIdentifying Under Utilized or Stranded Assets
August 11, 2009Risk - it's everywhere you look!I have recently finished an article which helps one understand risk factors in running a business. The article, posted at Baseline Magazine overviews 4 main risks; Business Risk, Technology Risk, Legal/Regulatory Risk, and External Risk. You can read the full article, but in plain English, we need to protect ourselves from risk as best we can yet do it in a practical way..., because there is cost associated with risk prevention. Remember "Bubble Boy"? - that's an example of taking risk prevention a little too far. The ultimate cliche is: " 100% quality control means you'd never ship a product"! So where is the line drawn, and what does that have to do with SAI? The first line is drawn by regulators that require the large enterprise to do certain things such as: What that has to do is an important point of this blog, because when one finds themselves "out of compliance" - severe consequences can materialize - from either regulator agencies or stemming from lawsuits. Just imaging an employee or guest in a high rise building becoming injured, dialling 911 from the closest phone, but the emergency responders not being able to find the incident because they went to the billing address listed for that phone number! On another risk factor on the business and technology front, we had a recent situation which I can't name specifically, but basically a public company in the healthcare industry was about to make a important announcement which they were sure would drive up the stock price, only to find it leaked to the press a few days early which severely diluted the impact of the formal announcement. Through the retention of Call Detail Records, it was reasonably easy to locate calls placed to major media outlets from the corporation's offices during the critical time period. I could go on with examples, but by now you get the point. One plug we like to make, however, is how well CDR data holds up in a court of law. We have seen it many times, but because CDR is automated and output at a switch level, and also time stamped - juries find it very credible versus some report or spreadsheet that could be easily modified. CDR collection and retention is a very small price to pay when compared to the enormous risk all companies face, especially in these times where there are so many varieties. I encourage you to read the article.
July 3, 2009Cisco Live!Well Cisco Live! ends today. Maybe macroeconomic conditions are poor, but looking at the events and activities in and surrounding Moscone Center in San Francisco, it appears the "Cisco economy" is doing just fine. What a remarkable display of global market power in the form of products, solutions, and services. They really rolled out the red carpet for their customers, developers, and people like us who add value to their products. All of the key presentations are archived on their website, so if you were unable to attend, there is still a lot of information you can look at in the virtual world. One other thing we want to do is put a "shout out" to our friends at the Cisco Telecom Users Group --> CIPTUG. They were very generous and thoughtful supporting our outreach efforts during this show. CIPTUG - THANK YOU!!! A really cool thing I saw at the show was the Cisco TACOPS NERV - Network Emergency Response Vehicle.This vehicle can bring communications to first responders in disaster areas when traditional telephony and radio systems are unavailable or destroyed. Certainly it is a technology showcase for them, but also it is a very nice and generous thing that Cisco does on behalf of communities in need. And finally, there were some fun times too! Bad economy, hmmmm, Cisco rolled in the B-52s, DEVO, The Bangles, and Curt Smith (Tears for Fears) to entertain all of us out on Treasure Island with lots of food and fun! All in all - a great show! June 12, 2009What the heck is "CDR" and why do we care???I've had fun conversations with some of our tenured staff members, asking some very basic questions about CDR like: "when did it start", "why does it even exist", and "is it old news or new news"???? Well, the first fundamental is that CDR stands for "Call Detail Record". So where does that come from and why? The where part is pretty easy, but we can only speculate about why. Let's retire the easy one first. CDRs are created by the PBX, VoIP server, and other devices that I'll get to in a moment. Let's take the top of the bell curve over the last 30 years, namely, a PBX. As you know there are many producers of PBXs, like Avaya, Nortel, etc...., and they output a CDR for each call. Contained in that record are data including "origin extension", "dialed digits", "time stamp", "call duration", a "condition flag" that would describe things like inbound vs. outbound, and "facility" aka the trunk group over which that call traversed. This information is outputted in (normally) simple ASCII text, and stored in a repository for some period of time. This data is many things, but some words that can give you a feel would be: voluminous, arcane, and arbitrary. Then SAI comes along and captures this data using "format routines" that we have built up over decades, and turns this raw ASCII data into usable reports. As we've been doing this so long, we have a "format routine" for virtually every PBX imaginable. We also archive that information for much longer than it would reside on the PBX. Now the why part is actually quite interesting. Let me give you the answer first --> we don't know for sure, but with some speculation, it can be deduced. In a time prior to the 1980s, there was one giant company called "American, Telephone, & Telegraph Company", AT&T. (And one could certainly go further back to Bell Telephone, but this blog is about CDR not a history lesson.) AT&T, being a "monopoly", needed CDR, because they were fully turnkey from carrier grade services to consumer billing. But an interesting question is after the divestiture of AT&T, and the entry of private companies into the space - why did CDR continue? The answer, we believe, is twofold: 1) it became a de facto standard, and 2) it remains very useful information. The final point I want to make is regarding the question of the future of CDR. Is it old news, or new news? Well, we believe it has always been important, and we've made a 25+ year business out of that. But more importantly, when you look into the future it will become even MORE important. WHY? My thesis statement has two main arguments. First, two of the most powerful vendors in our industry these days are Cisco and Microsoft. Cisco creates a product called Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and Microsoft builds Office Communications Server. And what do you suppose is a feature of these new products, being developed, used, and improved as this blog is being written? Yep, Call Detail Records. My second argument is that CDR collection and retention is a discipline that can be used with many other types of communication. So maybe instead of just capturing data on voice calls, that the future holds detail reporting on many types of communications such as video conferencing, SMS, chat, etc.... Hey, maybe we've just coined a new industry term ... "UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS DETAIL REPORTING". Hmmmm...... May 22, 2009Interop and the economyInterop is over and that was sure a very interesting time. Our main presentation there was "Call Accounting is DEAD!" - or is it? This provocative title gave us a platform to discuss whether Call Accounting is more, or less, relevant in a VoIP world.... Certainly we feel it is more relevant now than ever, which is discussed in other blog entries. Beyond this point it is always interesting to discuss trade show dynamics in general. From my view, it was good attendance. Certainly many, if not most of us, have experienced trade shows during the peak of the dot com days. Attendance at that time was remarkable, as was the ostentatious presence of many vendors. We are clearly not at that point in May 2009, but the show was well attended. And also, the flights were full, the restaurants were full, and people seemed to be having a good time in the casino. For our company, there was a very clear advantage to being there, and that is the fact that we were able to participate in the Cisco booth. That gave us an access to show attendees that was beyond what we would normally have. Our team had great conversations with enterprise representatives, channel partners, and analysts. It was GREAT and we'd like to again thank Cisco for the invitation! April 27, 2009CDR as it relates to "CRG"; Compliance, Risk Management, and GovernanceIn just a few weeks we will be on the show floor at Interop - Las Vegas and participating at the invitation of Cisco in their booth. So obviously, VoIP will be the number one subject matter. In my March 28 blog I made some cursory comments as to whether Call Accounting is even relevant in a VoIP world where many consider calls to be "free". Why does it even make sense to capture call records when the grand total of the expense is considered by many to be nominal? (not even close to true BTW!) Well there are many comments to those assumptions, and also many answers to the question, but today, I just want to comment on one of them, namely, recording them simply for the sake of retention. Why is that important? Well, ask yourself, what value to you get out of an automobile insurance policy, for example? In a perfect world, nothing bad ever happens, so one just pays the premium and gets nothing in return. So therefore it would be easy to say that it doesn't make much economic sense to buy auto insurance! But we all do, and not out of altruism or government regulations - we buy it because it MAKES SENSE! As you know, in time of need, insurance is INVALUABLE! We just don't know when we're going to need it, and we pray we never do! Assessing this type of risk is a full-time job for people called actuaries. It's actually daunting to think about it, probably everyone will have at least one auto accident, need hospitalization, etc.... Corporate life is no different, it's just that risk cases vary quite a bit, but one of the biggest of the big is legal risk. In the litigious society that we live, where corporate lawyers routinely charge $750/hour for their time, the risk of litigation for a large enterprise is great. And as we service the Call Accounting needs of some of the largest companies in the world, you can surely imagine their costs of litigation. It would not be appropriate for me to mention any specifics, but we routinely get calls from our corporate accounts to dig out legacy call details from a forensic standpoint. You see, we not only RECORD the call details, but we RETAIN the call details, in some cases, for 20+ years! So I ask you to imagine the value having precise call logs if a corporate attorney were defending against a multi-million dollar lawsuit, especially if that was the key piece of data that could debunk an argument. Just like insurance - INVALUABLE - when you need it! And my final point is that we know through experience that CDR holds up well in court. It's not like some anecdotal report that could be easily manipulated, but "hardwired" numbers coming straight off "switch" which judges and juries find to be extremely credible and convincing. So that's one reason (of many) why we say - Call Accounting is critical - even in a VoIP world!
April 18, 2009SAI Corporate OverviewWe have recently completed a new corporate overview for public consumption. If you are interested please take look here.
April 9, 2009Serving the Fed Govt Telecom marketI'm excited to let our blog readers know that we've made an important strategy decision. There is a pretty clear trend right now, whether one leans left or right politically, that it is indisputable that federal government spending will be increasing considerably over the next 4 years. Just take a look at the US Government's $1B+ telecom award adminstered by the GSA under the name NETWORX! That is a remarkable award with the big winners being ATT Corp, Verizon Business, and Qwest. But while the "big guys" cash in on this huge award, we're thinking it would be nice if we could collect a few crumbs during the feast. Therefore very soon we will be formally announcing our new relationship with FedResults, a company that has many decades of experience in maneuvering the complex US Govt procurement cycle. Their CEO, Jim Beaupre and I worked together many years ago, and he is a proven and time-tested veteran of public sector engagements. And their COO, Bob Dinkel has been in government service as well as large scale delivery of Telecom services to the government. In short, a very strong team! If you're reading this blog and can think of any enterprise or government needs that could be met by our Sierra Gold solutions, please know that we consider a business referral the highest compliment! Please let us know!!! March 30, 2009Voicecon OrandoVoiceCon Orlando 2009 started today and it sounds like a lot of cool things are happening down there. Avaya introduced Aura which appears to be a step toward integrating SIP and SOA for simplifying the integration It also looks like Microsoft has cooked something up with Polycom to have them deliver and support RoundTable. This is part of Microsoft's broader Office Communications Server, which is a product and technology we are keeping a very close eye on. More on SAI's view of call accounting within a Unified Communications world in an upcoming blog!
March 28, 2009Is a VoIP call really free?First, before I get to Telco comments, anyone on our website reading blogs is internet savvy and interested. So please make sure you've done your research on the Conficker "C" worm which may wreak havoc beginning on April Fool's Day. One never knows how intense such a problem might become, but it's worth some study. For me ----> Apple - MacBook Pro! so I'm not quite as worried (I may regret saying that!) In my March 16 blog I started commenting on the big change, or maybe convergence, of traditional POTS with Internet calls. During this transition, our team at SAI has been monitoring the call accounting needs of the enterprise very closely. When calls were expensive (some still are), the big push was to allocate those cost dollars to divisions or externally. In a VoIP world, calls cost less (but still not free) so some question the value of Call Accounting in a VoIP world. Well, the Association of Telecom Management Professionals has done some great research on that issue. They have done a very professional job of researching this and it is available to their subscribers at this location. If you don't have access, they clearly see call accounting prospering in a VoIP world. Why? 1. What's the real cost of a free puppy? Whaddaya think - Bed, Food, Shots, Vet, toys = $500??? Well, those "free" VoIP calls are a lot like the free puppy. One has to consider many factors including network utilization of all of those voice packets flying across broadband networks and through routers and servers. Assuredly, that is not free! 2. Calls need to be collected and retained in anticipation of ad hoc needs that could include, compliance, corporate governance, or other matters of risk management such as forensics. Thanks to our friends at AOTMP, and we encourage you to download their report!
March 18, 2009InteropJust a quick blog to let y'all know we were thrilled to be invited by Cisco to participate as a partner in their booth at Interop in Las Vegas May 17 -21. If you are around, we hope you'll stop by the booth or send me an e-mail and we can arrange something more formal. Best, Bob March 16, 2009Trends in TelecomOkay, blog #1. I would like to kick off the blog by talking about my observations upon joining a company that has been in the telecom industry for 20+ years versus my background which is more in information technology. It's actually quite a metaphor for what is going on within our company as well as the industry in general and the enterprise accounts we serve. Believe it or not, there was actually life before the Internet existed. Talk to anyone under 25 years old, and they won't be able to comprehend that possibility, but it's true. Back in those dark ages this fancy gadget called the telephone could send your voice from one place to another. It was expensive, especially for long distances, and you could pretty much forget about international calling, unless you were some type of dignitary. These calls were routed, originally by a telephone operator, a process that was later automated using a PBX. Tons of calls using this traditional technology occur today, from the likes of Avaya and Nortel. But, clever people have also figured out how to digitize your voice, and send it via the Internet which is called VoIP. As you can imagine, that changes many dynamics - especially lowered costs for long distance and international calling. So there are two prevalent land-line based ways to make phone calls today, traditional (PSTN) and Internet (VoIP) But, as they say, the devil is in the details. As great as the potential cost savings from VoIP, there are many things to consider, especially for large enterprises. These would be matters of system administration, risk management, TCO, and many, many other items. Our business provides Call Detail Reporting for both of these architectures and I look forward to discussing this dynamic marketplace in upcoming blogs. Best Regards, Bob March 12, 2009Why start a blog?Selfishly, it's a lot of fun! But there is a more important reason than that. We're in business, which means we need to be contemporary, because that is the way we can take the role of thought leader and solution provider for our existing accounts, and also look attractive to potential new customers. The simple fact of the matter is that blogging nowadays is one of the most important communication media. So off we go! |
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