DICTIONARY

When you’re using your computer, you’re using applications or ‘apps’. These are the software products you use to complete specific tasks, like word processing, video calling or managing your customer information.

The Availability of your internet connection is the percentage of time it’s online and accessible. Availability would drop below 100% if you experience an internet outage. Most internet provider guarantee at least 99% Availability.

Data back-ups are a carbon copy of your computer, Server or other data-holding devices, so that should the worst happen and you experience a problem, you have a second copy of all the information that was on the device.

Put simply, the amount of data that can be received or sent per second, through your internet connection. Many factors can affect your Bandwidth, such as time of day, distance from the exchange and the number of devices connected.

Instead of saving data or applications to the physical device in front of you, you can save it to the Cloud; an internet-connected storage device, usually within a large Datacentre, that you can access from wherever you have an internet connection.

The working world is changing, and staff need to be able to work together on projects, even when they’re not in the same location. Collaboration applications like Office 365, Google Docs and Slack, enable teams to work on the same project at the same time.

Similar to a back-up, Colocation means having a second source for all your data, so that if your hardware (whether on-site or in the Cloud) fails, you can immediately access it from the secondary location.

The lifeblood for most businesses is their Connectivity or internet access. Whether fixed, mobile or a blend of the two, Connectivity is a broad term for how you connect to the internet, as well as how your staff connect to that same network.

Think of the internet like the digital Wild West. Most people just go about their daily business but others are out there looking to access data that they shouldn’t and strong Cybersecurity ensures the sensitive data of your business can’t be reached.

You’ve seen them in movies; rows and rows of all, screenless computers, but they can also be quite small to fit in a desk, depending on your needs. Servers just work in the background, transferring data and applications to ensure reliable access to information.

While IT hardware and services have become much more reliable in the last couple of decades, businesses should have a plan in place for if things go wrong, whether a Cybersecurity attack, fire, flood or any other issue. That’s Disaster Recovery.

The phrase that goes after the ‘www.’ On your website, and after the @ on your email address. It’s your online brand identity and choosing the right one means giving your business the best chance of being noticed AND remembered.

When data travels across the internet, there’s a small chance hackers and cybercriminals may intercept it. Encryption translates your data into indecipherable code that can’t be understood without a specific key to decipher it, meaning a much more secure system.

The act of running your email and website servers so that anyone, no matter where they may be or the device they’re using, can access your site, email your team quickly and reliably.

A Local Area Network is a computer network that links devices within a building or group of adjacent buildings, usually within a radius of less than 1 km.

Private Branch Exchanges are telephone systems within a business that switches calls between users on local lines while allowing all users to share a certain number of external phone lines.

Standing for ‘Software as a Service’, products like Microsoft 365, Salesforce.com and Adobe Creative Cloud, are all SaaS products as you access them through the internet and typically pay a small monthly fee for the privilege.

The ability to increase the speed, size or any other factor of a particular service. For example, if your business starts to grow rapidly, you’ll need to scale up your internet services to ensure reliable access for your growing team.

Typically installed without a screen, keyboard or mouse, servers just work in the background, transferring data and applications to ensure reliable access to information, and can be remotely accessed to ensure changes can be made, if necessary.

A guarantee that any issue with your product or service will be fixed within a specific timeframe. Depending on the specific product or service, multiple options may be offered so you can balance cost and fix-times to suit your needs and budget.

Total cost of ownership is the purchase price of an asset plus the costs of operation. Assessing the total cost of ownership typically takes a’ big picture’ look at what the product is and what its value is over time.

Short for ‘Voice over Internet Protocol’, it’s a fancy term for using your internet connection to make calls, instead of using the landline network that we’ve used for the last half-century.

Now that businesses can leverage their internet for so many different forms of communication – emails, video calling, instant messaging, chatbots, SMS etc. Unified Comms solutions bring all those disparate methods into one, single platform.