8x8's Fully Redundant East and West Coast Data Centers Help Ensure
Uninterrupted Business Communications During Unforeseen Disasters
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
With traditional landline phone services still down in many areas
affected by Hurricane Sandy, businesses are placing greater importance
on business continuity and disaster recovery and are taking action by
turning to cloud-based communications services from 8x8, Inc.
(NASDAQ:EGHT).
8x8's Virtual Office cloud communications services are delivered from
two fully redundant and geographically diverse state-of-the-art data
centers located on the East and West Coasts. Should one of these data
centers go offline, 8x8's unique technology allows the entire call flow
processing to be moved to the other data center in less than 30 seconds.
All PBX services, configurations, functions and data, such as
voicemails, are fully mirrored between the data centers, allowing
complete functionality in the event of a disaster impacting either one
of them. Each data center is capable of handling 8x8's entire customer
load.
Having built-in redundancy and automatic failover is not the only
advantage 8x8 services offer when coping with a natural disaster. Rapid
service deployment, mobility and portability are critical for businesses
and other organizations dealing with disaster recovery. 8x8 Virtual
Office users can make and receive calls seamlessly from any remote
location using a mobile app on a WiFi or 3G/4G network, a computer with
a web browser and microphone/speaker, or by relocating their IP phones
to any Internet connection.
ICS Software, Ltd, a private family owned business based in Oceanside,
New York, offers SammyEHR, ARRA certified electronic health records
software for small to medium size medical offices. After Hurricane Sandy
knocked out power and Internet lines surrounding its main office, ICS
turned to 8x8 for Virtual Office cloud based phone service so that
employees who hadn't lost power or Internet could communicate with
customers from their homes.
"Although our office did not suffer any physical damage from the
hurricane, the power to our building was down and, as a result, our
normal communications systems were down. We had no idea how long it
would be before they were restored." said Ken Katz, president of ICS.
"Rather than wait for our internal systems to be back online, we decided
to sign up with 8x8's business phone service so that our employees could
immediately begin working from home using soft phones. This capability
will serve us well not just in this crisis but beyond, as we'll not only
be able to quickly recover from future business disruptions, we'll also
have a lot more features and flexibility than we had with our previous
phone system."
Water Quality Insurance Syndicate (WQIS), the largest underwriter of
pollution liability insurance for marine vessels in the United States,
is based in lower Manhattan and experienced massive flooding during
Hurricane Sandy that destroyed nearly all of the equipment housed in the
basement of its building. Rather than re-establish phone service with
their former provider, WQIS IT Director John Imor will be installing 8x8
Virtual Office business phone and fax services.
"Hurricane Sandy has opened our eyes to the vulnerability and
limitations of the premises-based communications system we currently had
in place," said Imor. "Had we been using 8x8 service previously, we
would not have been tied to one physical location. Our employees would
have been able to simply plug their desk phone into their home Internet
connection or use a PC soft phone to conduct business just as if they
were in the office."
In addition to the redundant architecture of the 8x8 network, the
technology and design of 8x8's cloud communications services allows
customers to dynamically configure service behavior on the fly based on
current needs and circumstances. 8x8's unified communications portals
contain powerful tools that enable users to change routing and call
delivery methods in real-time so that employees can stay connected
during a disaster.
Rockville, Maryland-based Preferred Computing Resources (PCR Educator),
a leader in the school information systems and databases market, became
an 8x8 customer just in the nick of time. Days before Hurricane Sandy
hit, CEO Tom deBettencourt and his team decided it was time to get rid
of the PBX phone system they had sitting in the closet and move to a
100% web-based telephony environment.
"With the threat of Sandy upon us, we didn't want our business to suffer
as a result of storm damage that could disable our PBX equipment," said
deBettencourt. "We are now not tied to any one device with our 8x8
service, not even desk phones, as we are all using PCs and iPhones for
our business communications. We've also been able to add valuable
features, like after hours emergency ring groups, to improve customer
responsiveness."
For additional information on 8x8 cloud-based business communications
services, go to http://www.8x8.com/CommunicationsSolutions.aspx.
About 8x8, Inc.
8x8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT) empowers business conversations for more than
30,000 small and medium-sized businesses with cloud communications
services that include hosted PBX telephony, unified communications,
contact center and video conferencing solutions. Named the No. 1
Provider of Hosted IP Telephony by market research firm Frost &
Sullivan, 8x8 has been delivering business communications services since
2004 and has garnered a reputation for technical excellence and
outstanding reliability. For additional information, visit www.8x8.com,
or connect with 8x8 on Facebook
and Twitter.
8x8, Inc.
Joan Citelli, 408-654-0970
jcitelli@8x8.com
Source: 8x8
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