IT Goodness On The Way!

Sharing these important IT initiatives for your information:

• Desktop Refresh - We are in the midst of deploying 130 new computers in Tampa to address obsolescence and, with about half of the new machines being laptops, resilience for storm response or other remote work requirement. Laptops are being deployed wk of 9/22.  Desktops will follow within 2 wks thereafter.
• IT Security - We are improving our IT governance, security and defenses, first leveraging Microsoft Defender (endpoint protection), and Intune (device management).  Then, we plan to implement a new managed detection and response solution and 3rd party service to augment the Microsoft foundation and our internal team with 24x7 monitoring and threat response. We expect to complete this effort within the next two weeks and will have greatly improved our security posture while also reducing annual cost.
• Data Communication Upgrades - We've recently moved to update our internet connection in both Costa Rica and Tampa - significantly increasing capacity and raising the class of service to gain dedicated bandwidth and committed service level response from the providers. These changes will improve the reliability and performance of our data-intensive systems and processes.
• All New Telephony Systems - We recently completely replaced our legacy telephone and contact center systems with a combination of Five 9 (contact center) and Microsoft Teams (general business and desktop calling). Behind the scenes we now have a very nimble, highly reliable solution.
• New IT Service Desk Features - We are fully implementing a Service Portal (where you are reading this article) to improve self-service capabilities, increase automation, improve response times and allow team members to access requests to monitor and update them from beginning to end. Soon, we will end the ability to submit requests via email and all requests must be submitted via the Service Portal.