IT professionals need to wear a lot of hats. It is not just enough to be the “server expert” or the “mobile expert.” IT departments are often stretched thin by the amount of work that is necessary to get every employee in the business working at optimum efficiency. That means being the server expert, mobile expert, cloud, virtualization, unified communications and applications expert, all rolled in to one person.
What are the applications that IT experts need to be able to function at optimum performance? The ability to streamline aspects of the business into one application is very useful. Here are five applications that help IT professionals do their jobs at peak efficiency.
This post is part of a series brought to you by GoToAssist.
XenApp by Citrix – When it comes to virtualization and scalability, Citrix and VMWare are the go-to choices for IT gurus. XenApp is an on-demand application delivery solution that can enable Windows applications to be virtualized and managed in the data center and then delivered to any employee, on any device. Citrix is always ahead of the game in terms of compatibility as well, working with original equipment manufacturers to make sure that XenApp and the Citrix Receiver are available as soon as the hottest new device comes out. (Disclosure: Citrix is a ReadWriteWeb sponsor.)
BoxTone – The “Consumerization of IT” has become a nightmare for your tech guy. Everybody is now bringing in their own phones and tablets and wanting the tech department to make them work. It used to be so easy! Hand out BlackBerries to everyone and link them through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. IT professionals now have to navigate through disparate platforms like Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone (who did no help to IT departments by forking away from Windows CE compatibility).
BoxTone is mobile device management software. The software can help IT pros maintain and enforce security on personal and corporate and deploy over-the-air (OTA) updates to phones to patch security holes or set device permissions. It can leverage the best technology across iOS, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia and make scaling your workforce into a mobile machine easier.
Chatter – Salesforce.com Chatter is a great way to communicate in or out of the office. For IT professionals, communication on the go is a necessity when managing tickets across the business. Chatter works a lot like a private Twitter channel and is available for iOS, Android and BlackBerry. Chatter allows for file uploads, status updates, analytics dashboards and has notifications when you are not signed in to Chatter itself.
Microsoft Lync – On the topic of communications, Chatter may not be a robust enough solution for enterprise communications. That is where Microsoft and other enterprise communications providers like Cisco and Avaya step in. Lync is Microsoft’s unified communications platform that integrates presence, security, chat, video and telephony into one location. Lync can be on-premises or hosted and with service options available from Microsoft, it can be easy to manage for IT professionals stretched for time.
Mozy – Online data backup is one of those things that you did not know you needed until there is a catastrophe at the server level and your company’s data is literally melting on the floor at the data center. So, multiple backup options for data are preferable and Mozy is as good as any of them. Mozy can automatically backup data on a set schedule and delivers information to the data center on a 128-bit SSL encryption.
Photo by flaivoloka
