SOS Online Backup Maintains Always-On, Global Conference Room with Nefsis Video Conferencing

It's hard enough to connect global co-workers at one time, and almost impossible to keep them connected and communicating. But one company is doing it around the clock.

SOS Online Backup is one of the largest worldwide providers of online backup services for consumers, small and medium businesses (SMBs) and IT/managed service providers. With operations in the U.S., Australia, India and Ukraine, SOS safeguards the data on millions of computers. The company has built a successful model around military-grade security, customer support and six data centers spread over multiple continents.

Problem: Online backup company has employees in offices around the world Widely dispersed project teams need to work closely and collaborate in real-time Limited common working hours across multi-national time zones

Solution: Nefsis instant online meetings between any group of team members right from their own desk, during common hours Three physical meeting rooms connected to one, always-on conference – i.e., one virtual room across three continents

Business and IT Benefits: Geographically distributed project teams get the most out of common working hours Always-on video conference room useful for a wide variety of 'just walk in' multi-office meetings – saving time and greatly simplifying video conferencing process

The company's ambitious growth plans, especially in North America, rely on keeping its offices moving in unison. This is no small task given that the sun never sets on SOS or its one million-plus customers.

"SOS project teams are distributed, really distributed," explains John Wagner, chief sales engineer at SOS Online Backup.

"With that kind of reach, we've spent a lot of time keeping our global offices in synch, which hasn't been easy. To maintain contact, we started exploring ways to conduct online meetings and video conferences. That led us to start working with Nefsis a couple of years ago."

Connecting the project teams

SOS' engineers are old hands when it comes to cloud computing and the power of the Internet. While they knew that there is no Web-based technology for keeping the sun over both Melbourne and Kiev for more than a couple of hours per day, they also knew they had to get the most out of the working hours shared across offices.

The distributed project teams began to conduct online meetings across time zones with web conferencing products and webcams. After some experimentation, the company selected Nefsis based on its ease-of-use, high-quality video and advanced collaboration tools; and, as an online service, it was easy to deploy for production use. This allowed individual employees in SOS offices worldwide to meet, share data, collaborate and hold ad hoc, one-on-one conferences.

The always-on, virtual conference room

Then, the Nefsis cloud-based architecture posed an irresistible technical temptation to SOS: three physical conference rooms tied together in a single virtual conference room, available all the time. This is a big step beyond individual engineers conducting online meetings with their laptops; SOS can now bring its entire development, support or product team into a high-quality, collaborative video conference that helps employees get the most out of common working hours.

Because the process is as easy as setting an appointment and walking down the hall, SOS uses its always-on, virtual conference room regularly. The company has since expanded its Nefsis license to accommodate increased usage and more offices.

"We're a naturally global company," concludes Wagner, "and we're very pleased that Nefsis does all of the heavy lifting in the very important task of keeping our offices communicating with one another. It's a big boost for our internal communication and teamwork."

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