Key Covid-19 Remote Working Offers Explained

Key Covid-19 Remote Working Offers Explained

See below for vendor offers

Written by Cisilion’s Chief Strategy Officer, Rob Quickenden

This past week has truly been unprecedented. High priorities at 7am fade to obscurity with new challenges by 8am – seemingly with no let-up. 

As specialists in the technology enablement and integration space, I have had the privilege of standing shouldertoshoulder with our clients and strategic vendors through this tumultuous week and being their guide to help combat and challenge almost everything that is being thrown at them – from home-working provision, collaboration solutions and security. 

 As you would expect, crisis breeds opportunity – and a week of scaling up remote working comes with the security threat of unfit for purpose provisioning and malicious attacks. It has never been more important to work remotely – but also safely. Adopting a whole new method of working needs to be done with confidence 

‘One sole vendor is not the solution’

One key lesson that I have learned is that one sole vendor is not the solution. If your infrastructure is anything like ours, youll have a range of players across each portfolio, each with their own complexities. That’s why as partners focussing around Cisco, Microsoft and many other niche vendors, we have been able to look at all the solutions on offer and decide which is best to fit the specific needs. 

Unlike other partners in this space,wont give you narrow advice on what you should adopt based on its own limited specialities. Instead, I am able to discuss a wide range of solutions from the top vendors and figure which one best meets your needs. You will also have and use many of the products listed below but we wanted to draw your attention to some of the offers available to help you commercially through this time. 

 

View the current offers:


 

Rapid Response Security: 

As well as being able to help you best configure your security and remote access solutions to perform optimally in these new working conditions, there are a number of offers you may wish to take advantage of. 

  • Multifactor Authentication

MFA is considered the most important technology organisations can deploy and enable to protect users’ identities from hack/breach or compromised credentials through phishing attacks. MFA can prevent user impersonation and credential theft by over 99% by use of additional authentication to verify users’ identities and establish device trust before granting access to applications. By employing a zero-trust model, it decreases the attack surface and reduces risk. 

Microsoft includes Azure MFA – which support password less, token or phone/apps-based authentication for Office 365 as well as thousands of other cloud and on-premise applications 

Cisco Duo – Cisco is offering free licences for their DUO MFA products and allowing existing users to exceed their user limits.

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts


  • DNS Security

Cisco Umbrella – provides DNS based cloud security and is now offering 90 day free trials to help protects your users from malicious Internet destinations whether they are on or off the network. Delivered from the cloud, Umbrella makes it easy to protect users everywhere in minutes. As well as the free trial, Cisco is also allowing existing customers to exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers.


  • VPN

Most organisation have a mix of on-premise and cloud-based applications and VPNs are usually needed for secure encrypted access to on-premise services.

Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client – Cisco is allowing existing AnyConnect customers to exceed their user limit to support an increase in remote workers. New users interested in purchasing Cisco VPNs can also access free licenses.

 Azure Premium Services – Microsoft are offering extended trials of Azure premium services to allow organisation invested in Microsoft 365 and Windows 10 to leverage always-on VPN services which can connect and work with a large number of hardware VPN services including Cisco VPN. 

Advanced Threat Protection – Advanced Threat protection covers devices based anti-virus and threat protection, email filtering and web protection. 

Cisco and Microsoft are both offering free trials of their endpoint and email security solutions and Cisilion are also offering new customers a free remote basic implementation service to get you up and running quickly.

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts

 

Rapid Response Collaboration 

  •  Microsoft Teams:  

Microsoft is offering free licences for users who don’t already use Office 365 (Teams is included within Office 365 E1 and above)  Non Office 365 users also free access to Office Online with real-time collaboration and co-authoring with the Office on the Web including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (and Teams).

For existing Office 365 and Teams users, Microsoft is providing free premium services to users during the COVID-19 Crisis.

  • Cisco Webex

You can also sign up for Cisco Webex Teams for free with usage including live chat, video meetings, conferences, screen sharing and whiteboarding. This is a low bandwidth application ideal for home use. 

  • Video Calls Interop 

Many organisations need to collaborate with customers and partners who use a mix of different video collaboration tools – Polycom and PEXIP are both offering free trial licenses of their Cloud Interop Services to help you make video calling seamless event between different vendors.

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts

 

Rapid Response Devices: 

Our Ultimate Surface Seller Status jumps us to the front of the queue to deliver the full range of Microsoft Surface devices, accessories and a variety of headsets. We have a range of packages built to support multiple personas and budgets. We can provide these as outright Capex purchased or as a service over 3 or 4 years to help reduce capital outlay.

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts

 


Rapid Response Licences 

Our team can analyse and enable, provision and extend Microsoft Azure, Dynamics and Microsoft 365 licenses,Cisco Webex licenses andCisco Security Cloud Services (Umbrella, VPN AnyConnect & Duo) within a matter of hours. 

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts

 


Rapid Cost Optimisation

Concerned about cloud usage and controlling costs? Our Azure optimisation service analyses your spend and resource commitments and on averages saves our customers 30% on their Azure cloud spend. For Microsoft 365, our persona alignment services ensure you are only paying for services you need to use – which can also save you money or enable you to license more users for what you need without paying for what you don’t!

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts

 


Rapid Response Enablement 

Cisilion will build shortterm and longlasting enablement & deployment strategy to quickly procure, configure, and enable the right collaboration tools to keep your users, customers and clients connected and collaborating seamlessly with Office 365, Microsoft Teams and/or Cisco Webex Teams - along with a structured virtual adoption and training for users.

For more information, click here to get in touch with our experts

 


 Your Next Steps 

If you’re interested in the rapid deployment of any of these solutions, please fill in the form below and we can set up a call to discuss your infrastructure and determine the best path for you to take.