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About 5 exabytes of data was created from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. Now that much data is created every two days.”

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google (in 2011)

There are many references to put in perspective what data means and how important it is. Data is ubiquitous, indispensable and is being generated at a dizzying rate and in almost unfathomable volumes. With such an astronomical growth, organizations need and continue to make special arrangements to store, retrieve and process the data being generated. 

Large enterprises own and operate their own data centers, while others either lease servers from data colocation service providers (data center as a service or DCaaS) or host their data with service providers who own or lease and manage these data centers (infrastructure as a service or IaaS). 

Anatomy of a Data Center

The infrastructure set up to manage data is called a data center. It comprises primary hardware such as servers, storage, networking devices, applications and databases. It also contains supporting systems like an uninterrupted power supply (UPS), power distribution unit (PDU), computer air handling unit (CRAC), and electric primary switchgear, among others. 

Data Center Supporting Systems

Data is considered a sensitive asset and needs to be guarded. Therefore, physical access to the servers and digital access to data is controlled by means of access control systems like biometric scanners and CCTV or IP cameras and applications, respectively. The entire operation of the data center is managed by the data center information management (DCIM) system.

A DCIM system is designed to control virtually every aspect of the data center from data (physical and virtual) security to potential hacking attempts to anomalies in (server and data center) temperature and power thresholds.

Once the DCIM system detects any part of the data center infrastructure to be down or experiencing latency or deviating from user-specified thresholds, it sends an email notification to the authorized IT personnel.    

It is absolutely critical for every data center system to be continuously up and running all the time. Therefore, one of the key metrics that a DCIM system seeks to minimize is the meantime to know (MTTK) which is the time it takes for the concerned personnel to find out the problem as it occurs. 

If there is an issue with the email server, then the notification that the DCIM system sends to authorized personnel can and will likely be delayed. Hence, it is imperative that a secondary system such as a cost-effective and highly scalable notification management platform (NMP) such as sendQuick be put in place.

What is a notification management platform? 

In the case of any anomalies occurring with the IT infrastructure, the DCIM system sends notifications about it to the NMP in the form of Syslog filters, SNMP traps or email. The NMP then receives these incoming notifications from the DCIM system, converts them into out-of-band SMS, email, automated voice calls, social messenger apps (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, Telegram, Viber) and team collaboration tools (Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams and Slack) messages and sends them to the authorized personnel.

What are some ideal features of a notification management platform (NMP)?

User Management

That an unlimited number of users can use it without buying additional licenses. Users are able to specify in which format they would like to receive system alerts.

Roster (Shift) Management

In case a data center incident occurs, the NMP will only send alerts to the concerned person who are on duty at that time and not to all data center system management personnel. This will enable accountability and swift and focused incident remediation. 

Escalation Management

If the specified primary contacts do not acknowledge alerts via two-way messaging, the case is escalated to another specified individual or workgroup. This ensures that the alerts are received and addressed immediately.

Message Filtering

Users can specify which keywords to send to the concerned as part of the incident alerts. This will keep the messages relevant, concise and help avoid alert fatigue. 

Omnichannel messaging

The alerts are sent via multiple channels including out-of-band SMS, email, automated voice calls, social messenger apps (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, Telegram, Viber) and team collaboration tools (Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams and Slack) messages. 

Dual HTTP-Post and Email Integration

Messages can be sent by being converted using HTTP-Post to out-of-band SMS and email to SMS.

sendQuick Notification Management Workflow

Data is a precious resource which must be accessible at all time. This is only possible when the data center infrastructure is up and running continuously. Even with redundancy protection, the data center will experience downtime about 2 weeks in a year. Therefore, the question to ask is not really if data center shutdowns can be avoided but how soon can the relevant and authorized personnel be alerted in case there is any issue with any critical part of the data center.

Click the Request for Information button, below, and get in touch with us should you need further clarification and we will be happy to assist you.

To anyone who has experience interacting with us, we seem like a lean, zealous startup. However, TalariaX was founded almost twenty years ago, in 2001, with 3 co-founders who are still with the company today. At the time, businesses were beginning to implement A2P communication through SMS.

We started with that very concept, but our expectations for ourselves was to make it best in class and pursue excellence at every step of the way whether in product innovation or customer service.

We started with the solution which, today, we call sendQuick Enterprise to enable organizations to send broadcast messages. Among its applications were marketing and emergency messaging broadcasting. We continued on this path and over time evolved its cloud-based variant we named sendQuick ASP.

Business Transformation

It was not long, thereafter, that we noticed an emerging shift where businesses were increasingly relying on technology to carry out functions like accounting, word processing, and financial analysis.

It was not long before technology became increasingly pervasive within how businesses operated with the number of devices and systems expanding rapidly. The rise in these numbers and IT infrastructure being increasingly integrated with the internet, gave birth to the network management system (NMS) which was, and still is, used to monitor their performance and availability.

NMS systems then could only transmit Syslog messages to users via email. This meant that if any part of the system was down or performed sub-optimally, the IT personnel would be notified provided their email service was functioning well otherwise the notifications would not get through.

To make these notification workflows in organizations more predictable, the sendQuick IT notification management platform emerged. Other brands followed suit, but sendQuick outpaced them by constantly innovating and delivering value to clients.

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Automated Workflows

The new millennia has been the era of business transformation. Two notable trends that we are continually witnessing are the merging of two or more business functions into one to explore inter-departmental synergies and business process automation.

So, for example, operations departments are merging with departments including finance, marketing, engineering, and production.

And organizations are increasingly relying on mobile messaging technologies to automate business processes. Today, it is not uncommon for you to receive a notification on your mobile phone reminding you of your upcoming clinical appointment and seeking confirmation from you. You may also receive an automated notification once the online vendor from whom you bought an item has been shipped to you. The use cases can be endless.

Our solution, sendQuick Entera, is purpose-built to suit organizations that wish to automate their business processes with two-way messaging and has features like plug & play, support for unlimited back-end applications and high availability (HA) option.

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2FA Security for Enterprises

The global economy is becoming increasingly competitive and, as a result, businesses are getting more nimble. The workforce is progressively mobile and communication is taking place over public networks which elevates the concern for security to protect individual privacy and corporate data.

sendQuick ConeXa was designed and developed as a 2FA remote access solution that delivers secure access to staff and customers to access sensitive information. As a second factor, it provides a one-time password (OTP) via out-of-band SMS, email, and mobile soft token through a smartphone app.

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Power of Omnichannel Messaging

The signature feature of all sendQuick solutions is their ability to provide better depth and breadth in terms of available communication channels.

This feature facilitates true mobility and allows IT departments to better manage their workflows efficiently and reduce task turnaround times.

The omnichannel messaging platform is a stand-alone sendQuick solution. Using a single API, each independent sendQuick solution can seamlessly integrate with it to enable it to send notifications and alerts via out-of-band SMS, email, automated voice calls, social messenger apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, Telegram, Viber, and team collaboration tools such as Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Other brands / companies can integrate with our mobile messaging solution with a single API to send omnichannel notifications to their audiences, as well.

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Click the Request for Information button, below, and get in touch with us should you need further clarification and we will be happy to assist you.

With the ubiquity of information technology has arisen the need to have it up and running at all times. About 20 years ago, IT was still a novelty and nice-to-have but, now, businesses cannot function without it.

Imagine, on any given day, you are at work. You may be replying to an email or working on a remote file in the cloud. Out of the blue, your email server seems to stop responding. You call your IT colleague and she does not see any issue with the email server. You reboot your computer, your colleague runs several diagnostics on the email server, restarts it. Still it does not seem to work. The network is working fine. You are all perplexed.

After half a day of frustration, you all decide to call-in external technical experts who, after about 2 hour of conducting some tests, tell you that it is your security server that had blocked access to your email server as it had detected some malicious cyber activity.

They further advise you to get a network monitoring system (NMS) as then you can remove the guesswork and know when any of your IT systems perform suboptimally or experience unplanned downtime.

Since the NMS sends notifications by email, they also recommend you to get a notification management platform like sendQuick that sends notifications through email, SMS, social messenger apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, LINE, Viber and Telegram and team collaboration tools including Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams and Slack.

sendQuick Integration Within Corporate IT Network

At this stage, especially given your experience with the email server being seemingly non-responsive, you form or join a workgroup in figuring out which notification management system to get that you can integrate with your corporate IT infrastructure. 

While there are different ways of researching and evaluating a technology, a good starting point is a thoughtfully prepared checklist. To point you in the right direction, we have developed one for you.

IT Notification Management
Solution Selection Checklist

If you clicked “Yes” to all these requirements then you need a robust notification management platform like sendQuick.

However, you should delve deeper and determine if there are any other specific requirements you have or business needs that you need to address. 

Click the Request for Information button, below, and get in touch with us should you need further clarification and we will be happy to assist you.

“Enterprises predict they’ll invest on average
$3.5M on cloud apps, platforms, and services this year.” – IDG

 
Cloud computing has become a buzz term, and with good reason. It is popular with many organisations and the cause of it being so pervasive is the flexibility, among other key benefits, that it offers.

To relate one example, today, your website runs in the cloud, the databases that store information related with your products which you sell online run in the cloud, the payment gateway that facilitates your online transactions runs in the cloud and the application that secures your website and related assets from cyberattacks runs in the cloud.

Further, you do not need to set up and maintain high-end infrastructure, but, rather, pay only for services which you use and do not need to worry about upgrading the system as it is done by service providers you may use, such as Amazon, Google or Microsoft. This makes cloud computing very cost-effective and can dramatically help a startup or small business to grow and scale.

So, then, cloud-based systems are the best option?

For many organisations, yes, but not for a lot of them. Consider the following question: What if you are a large organisation, a bank, an insurance company or a hospital, a government organisation, or a defence contractor? Chance are that you will be bound by privacy laws or vendor contracts that require you to protect your customers’ / patients’, product development or usage data using a particular security standard?

If you are such an organisation, you need to install and maintain the IT systems and data management infrastructure and likely will have a compliance department that will ensure the security and integrity of the data which you are entrusted with. In this case you will opt to store such data on your premises as then you can have more, and very specific, control over who has access to store, update and secure such data.

In addition to having these systems on-premise, you will have security servers with firewalls and antivirus protection, a network monitoring system that monitors all your connected devices, applications and an IT notification management platform such as sendQuick that will alert you should any part of your IT infrastructure performs suboptimally or experiences unplanned downtime.

In summary, generally speaking, whether you need a cloud-based or on-premise system depends on your organization type, size, usage and whether your industry is subject to governmental privacy regulation.

Click the Request for Information button, below, and get in touch with us should you need further clarification and we will be happy to assist you.

Sometimes, in order to get to the right answers, one needs to ask the right questions. And with so much information coming at us everyday, this can be very challenging.

As with any vendor that approaches you to sell you their products, you cannot go wrong by asking yourself: “Do I need it?”

But before we delve into that, let’s talk about what is an IT notification management platform. It is either an appliance-based or a cloud-based system that connects with a network monitoring system (NMS) and sends out an alert every time a device or application connected to the NMS performs suboptimally or experiences an unplanned downtime.

The NMS will have a built-in notification module and it differs in comparison to a stand-alone IT notification management platform in terms of its reachability. A stand-alone platform will be able to reach IT support personnel via email but also on their mobile devices via SMS, social messenger apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat and team collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex or Slack.

In terms of determining whether you need an IT notification management platform, you can approach the matter in a number of different ways: For example, you can conduct internal surveys from your users in the company or do a cost-benefit analysis, etc. At our end, we have prepared a short questionnaire-checklist, below, to help organizations like yours determine their need:

If your answer to all these questions is “Yes,” then you likely need a stand-alone IT notification management platform. However, we recommend that you discuss this with us, further, so you can be certain.

Our lives are increasingly being integrated with technology. From email and data servers to PBX and CRM systems, and even IoT devices such as refrigerators and coffee makers, we are entering a transformative era of sophistication and convenience that comes with a catch.

Now you need to ensure that these devices are connected to a corporate network and working all the time. In that case, you would need to have these IP-addressable devices connected to your existing network monitoring system. And since employees in companies are extensively being mobile, you also need an IT notification management platform that can send them alerts when necessary.

A network monitoring system will proactively monitor the status of all your hardware, software and processes connected to the network and send regular or event-based reports to the IT notification management platform which will convert these messages into SMSes, social messenger apps or team collaboration tools messages.  

The sendQuick IT notification management platform has a built-in roster management system, thus whenever a device, software or process connected to the platform performs suboptimally or experiences an unplanned shutdown, it sends alert notifications to the authorized personnel on duty at that moment.

While the two ways, mentioned above, will help improve the response time to any IT incident, the IT notification management platform uptime can be further enhanced. To facilitate this, the sendQuick platform comes with a high availability (HA) option for zero downtime implementation.

Together, these three factors, combined, will enable improvement in performance of IT systems and will help reduce any network bottlenecks. And any organization with a well-performing IT infrastructure will be able to enhance their operations and better serve their customers, employees and stakeholders.

Click the Request for Information button, below, and get in touch with us should you need further clarification.

On occasion, we get asked on the difference between TalariaX and sendQuick since we often use both logos side by side. We are happy to explain. TalariaX is the company which has developed the sendQuick brand of communication products.

sendQuick enables communication between all enterprise applications and smartphones whether for IT Alert notification management, secure access via 2FA or to automate business processes including appointment-setting or some banking transactions. 

This is particularly useful to IT departments as sendQuick works with all network monitoring systems and alerts the assigned users when a fault within the system is established. This helps to minimize IT infrastructure downtime and improve return on investment for the organization.

TalariaX places an inordinate focus on simplifying how sendQuick works, therefore it can be set up and managed with relative ease.

Get in touch with us by clicking the Request for Information button, below.

Banks and other financial institutions are under pressure to deliver a mobile-first customer experience strategy. Banks are increasingly looking to provide an omnichannel customer experience to retain brand loyalty and meet the ever-increasing expectations of their customers, especially the millennials. According to a 2017 IDC report on mobile messaging in retail banking, SMS will play an important part in the overall mobile banking experience. The use cases of SMS encompass alerts & notifications for breaches, reminders, account status, credit card, and loan application, 2-way broadcast messaging and various updates.

Banks need to meet stringent compliance and governance to protect customer’s information and sensitive transactions. They also need to conduct their daily operations efficiently, cost-competitively, while providing excellent customer services.

sendQuick is an award winning SMS gateway that companies can use for their omnichannel messaging solutions and deploy it as an effective tool in the banking industry.

Following are 5 ways by which banks can benefit from using SMS alerts in their daily business operations:

1. Integration with CRM to improve operational efficiency

Organisations can integrate our sendQuick SMS gateway with the internal CRM platform to send out automated notifications to customers thereby automating administrative processes and freeing up their resources to focus on higher value customer-centric services. sendQuick can also act as a standalone messaging platform

2. Reducing the risk of data breach using 2-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Customer data security is of utmost importance to banks. To minimise the risk of data breach, banks can implement our sendQuick 2FA via SMS One-Time Password (OTP) solution to provide an extra layer of security while accessing financial information. Our authentication solution can also help customers conduct sensitive transactions conveniently and securely

3. Omnichannel Messaging to enhance the Customer Experience Journey

sendQuick’s omnichannel messaging capabilities enhances the customer experience journey by allowing the bank staff to reach the customers through multiple channels. Bank personnel can send various updates such as account opening, loans, and credit card application status, reminders, alerts via SMS, Email, Social Messengers, and Collaboration tools

4. Improve IT responsiveness by reducing downtime of outages

Our solutions can help IT departments response faster to applications, systems, web services, or network outages by active 2-way remote monitoring. For any abnormality detected, sendQuick will activate the multi-level escalation of instant alerts & notifications to personnel on-standby duty. With timely response by the IT team through this, it would minimize business disruptions which could be damaging to your reputation and profitability

5. Boost Interactivity with 2-Way messaging

Banks can tap on the 2-way messaging feature provided by the sendQuick to increase interaction and engagement with the customer

SMS notifications can greatly benefit various vendors in the education ecosystem – schools, universities, enrichment centers etc. It can increase revenue, simplify administrative processes and provide seamless interactive communication. Here’s how:

A.     School Communication

Timely reminders for Parent- teacher meetings

Announcements on class/school activities

Library book loan reminders sent to students

Course updates

Sending exam reminders, changes in schedule, exam results

B.     Student Enrolment

Alerts for open days and applications deadlines

Information on upcoming events, and seminars to prospective students

Payment/ fee reminders to avoid penalty

Survey and feedback

C.     Emergency Alerts

Send bulk SMS notifications in event of shutdown due to unforeseen contingencies

Notifying parents & students of any closure or cancellations due to inclement weather

Notification of a child’s absence from school

Alerts on epidemics to help parents decide the best course of action

D.     Staff Communication

Secure access for staff into corporate intranet and applications

Facilities monitoring notifications and alert on unauthorised access

Data centre environment monitoring

How can sendQuick help:

1. Provide Interactive platform: 2-Way messaging platform allows you to conduct better outreach programs, receive assignments, provide feedback and updates with minimum investment or resource utilization
2. Improve Student, Parent and Alumni Affairs Management: sendQuick can integrate with your existing applications to help with appointment booking, reminders, communiques, reports and student affairs updates
3. Reduce Operating costs through automation: automate your administrative processes through rule-based scheduling, delegating, or escalating. This frees up your limited resources to aid responsiveness and availability
4. Enhance Student and Parental Experience: Our bi-directional messaging systems allow you to perform course marketing and follow-ups directly. Our authentication solution can add confidence, trust, and security by managing sensitive information