The recent fire in a telephone exchange in Parklea west of Sydney's CBD has had a severe impact on the viability to business in the effected area and may even cause some to close their doors permanently.


With all services types effected, telephony, internet, mobile and data services. The outage crippled parts of Norwest Business Park. This Business Park is one of the largest Commercial Business Parks in Australia and when writing this post, it will be a week since the fire and some businesses are still without services.

In today's competitive global market all businesses are totally dependant on technology and the technology providers that include carriers and content providers delivering a service that allows their clients to present a 24 x 7 "open for business" product. This weeks disaster will be an "extinction event" for some, and it is totally out of their control.

For those businesses who have their data systems on premises their local employees can still work, but no email, internet or telephony and the remote branches or mobile workers will have no access.
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For those who have their systems hosted in the cloud their local staff can work from home and the remote branches and mobile workers still work as normal.

If the business is using unified or hosted voice then this also is accessible with calls able to be redirected to other branches or mobile worker agents working from home.

So, for those businesses who have embraced shifting their business into the cloud and giving their staff the flexibility to be mobile (work from anywhere), this event has not disadvantaged their clients or business.

If you are reading this and are not effected by this outage, but have not moved to a cloud solution or service, either hybrid or totally, rethink your strategy.

Of course this is no silver bullet in protecting your business as there are a number of other factors you need to consider when doing an operational continuity strategy.


Some are;

1. Is the Hosting Centre Geo-redundant.
2. Are the Carrier exchanges Geo-redundant (remember all carriers do not operate meshed environments for their network products, their networks are centralised in a single switched MPLS network. Whilst they can lose aspects of their network and have redundancy, if they lose the core or the cable between you and the carrier exchange is cut, well you know what happens) "Ask Questions" Is your provider a tier 1 provider if not, what tier? you do the research.
3. Does the provider do hosted voice or can I use my on-premise unified solution as a hybrid enterprise SIP solution.

So, to put your business in a position to survive a catastrophic event like this you need to consider and act to allow your business to operate from anywhere, this means calls easily being diverted and staff being able to access your business systems from anywhere.

As mentioned, this is single factor in protecting your Business there are also Cyber and onsite and offsite backups factors to name a few - but that is another post..



Jeff Whitton  - CEO - KNet.

​​KNet is now recruiting experienced and graduate IT people to join our team. We want to hear from qualified people with the forte of Information Technology.

KNet has an immediate need for certified persons in –

• Microsoft SQL
• Microsoft SfB
• Microsoft SharePoint
• Cisco Security
• API Dev & Support
• Unified Communications

 
Please send your expressions of interest to knet@knet.com.au

You must be an Australian citizen or Permanent Resident to apply.

KNet Technology has included to our suite of "As a Service" catalogue, Security as a Service (SECaaS).

Security as a Service compliments our suite of market products that allows our customers and the wider market to experience and choose from a TRUE "end to end" Managed Services and As a Services provider in KNet, said Michael Dickerson, Global Director, Marketing and Products. 

The changing landscape of cyber-attacks has evolved at such a rapid pace, it has often be difficult for business and security information officers to maintain a true intelligent secure environment to protect our most sensitive data.
 
Often we have relied heavily on the edge through smart Firewalls, Next Generation Firewalls and the like to protect our information. We have also looked for ways to limit our exposure to these threats by simple business rules that have tended to limit our employees ability to perform their tasks in a timely manner.
 
Cisco has revealed that employee behaviour is the second greatest source of risk to data security, second only to cyber-crime at 52% and 60% respectively. Despite being victims of cyber-attacks themselves, employees and IT administrative are unwittingly playing a hand in these attacks themselves.
 
KNet’s Security as a Service (SECaaS) reduces costs and simplifies the implementation and full life cycle security portfolio from Cisco into a single device. With the most comprehensive range of security products that encompass all areas of Cyber threat prevention, the end customer is now able to rely on the skill sets and knowledge of simply deployed solution to manage these needs.
 
The illumination of security control process has been broken down in the following key areas:
 
•          Identity Management
•          Perimeter Defence
•          Mobile Worker Defence
•          Content Filter Management
•          KNet SECaas Defence
 
As the fastest growing industry within the ICT world, KNet is able to bring to life real world understanding and information surrounding cyber intrusion and attacks within an organisation. This understanding and time to remediation potential threats, is key in any organisation maintaining data security breaches and awareness.
 
Commercial organisation have also tended to be shut out of the security defence marketplace, with Cisco’s own records showing the business that have greater than 10 but fewer than 100 employees 15 times more likely to suffer the effect of cyber-attacks.
 
KNet SECaaS Defence 
Encompassing all aspects of the Cisco Security stack, the KNet SECaaS Defence is the ultimate in cyber security deployment for all customers. It contains all 4 distinct offerings within the KNet SECaaS offering, along with offering access to our 24 x 7 Security Operations Center (SOC).
 
Offering the full life-cycle from Threat Prevention, To Detection, To Remediation across the entire threat landscape – the KNet SECaaS Defence service, working in conjunction with our Security Services team, will allow our customers to protect their organisation whether they are working within the office or working remotely.
 
The threat landscape is ever changing – KNet SECaaS Defence will allow our customer to manage the threat landscape as it is changes and evolves, the SECaaS is flexible enough to evolve to continually assist in mitigating the risk to and remediation when a breach has occurred.


Let KNet show you how you can have the latest in technology without the need to own, manage or continually upgrade  - Consume it, as a Service from KNet !!

Talk to KNet today - 1300 801 802 - +612 6363 8999 - knet@knet.com.au 

Michael Dickerson - Director, Global Marketing and Product, KNet Technology Pty Ltd

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KNet Technology announces a major step forward in our corporate continuing improvement program with the addition of the Cisco Cloud and Managed Service Provider - Master (CMSP) accreditation from Cisco.

This provides KNet with a global capacity to deliver and manage Business Communications, including Unified Communications as well as Network and Managed Security. While this accreditation adds to KNet’s capability, it’s real relevance and winners are KNet’s Customers. Solutions, irrespective of the delivery form, can be deployed and managed across the broader global environment. 

The Master CMSP adds to KNet’s commitment to Cisco and its current Advanced Collaboration, Advanced Security and Premier corporate Cisco accreditations.

KNet’s Director of Sales and Marketing commented that “although the attainment of the CMSP accreditation was costly in time and preparation and required a very comprehensive Audit by Cisco, it did show customers and the market that KNet is serious about delivering exceptional services backed and supported by highly qualified individuals and corporate infrastructure.”

With over 20 years in ICT Provisioning and Service Management, KNet continues to deliver quality to our customers through ITIL process management, internal and external staff development the latest in Managed Services reporting and self healing Technology with the understanding that without our clients we exist in name only.

Understanding the technical and emotional requirements of customers is the fundamental driving force in KNet’s development and strategy.


For information contact: Michael Dickerson – michael.dickerson@knet.com.au – +61 2 6363 8999
Or knet@knet.com.au