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Cerium expands participation in Cisco’s NASPO ValuePoint DataCom Contract

Cerium Networks expands their participation in Cisco’s NASPO ValuePoint DataCom Contract #AR233 to offer public-sector clients in WA, OR, ID, and MT Cisco networking and converged infrastructure technologies.

NASPO Value PointPreviously authorized to represent Cisco technologies in public sector accounts across Washington and Montana, Cerium was awarded a NASPO ValuePoint Data Communications Products & Services Contract #AR233 in Oregon and Idaho. The newly acquired master agreements recognize Cerium’s technical and resource investments, and our strategic business plan for better serving state and local agencies, and education accounts including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities throughout the Northwest.

Cerium differentiates itself in the state and local government and education (SLED) sector with a strong, cohesive Cisco portfolio and some of the most highly-certified and skilled Cisco experts in the industry. Cisco recognized our investment in hiring and developing skilled resources by awarding Cerium with Cisco Gold Partner Masters Certifications in both Security and Collaboration, and Advanced Certifications in Security, Collaboration Data Center, and Enterprise Network Architectures.

Products covered under this agreement:

  • Data Center Application Services
  • Networking Software
  • Network Optimization and Acceleration
  • Optical Networking
  • Routers
  • Security
  • Storage Networking
  • Switches
  • Wireless
  • Unified Communications

Read on to learn more about how Cerium supports state and local agencies across the Pacific Northwest with Cisco Technologies.

Cisco DNA Architecture & Smart City Strategy

We are seeing IT budgets generally stagnating or shrinking as opposed to the ballooning expansion we saw a decade ago. Additionally, many of our clients in both the public and private sectors are seeking to commoditize IT groups and the technology they manage as a means of recuperating business costs. Many of our clients are coming to the realization that the network, as we have known it from the last three decades, needs to be modernized and re-tooled.

Legacy technologies are holding back many government agencies from reaching their full potential. To ensure their network is efficient, reliable, and secure, we are encouraging our clients to modernize access-layer and routing elements to begin supporting new software-defined concepts of network management and maintenance. Without a compatible network, your organization cannot fully embrace new modernized network management and leverage software-defined tools. Cerium’s network modernization approach is built on Cisco’s DNA Architecture, the foundational element that unlocks extensive capabilities and makes Smart Cities strategies possible.

READ MORE:      VIDEO:  Network Management Simplified – Cisco DNA Center

Cerium’s Security Resources

As a Cisco Gold Certified Master Security Specialized Partner with an Advanced Security Architecture certification, Cerium is recognized as having the highest level of expertise and success designing, implementing, operating, and supporting sophisticated Cisco security solutions. We believe cybersecurity is integral to your organization’s overall strategy, not just an expense. We design Cisco industry-leading threat intelligence directly into our solution offerings to proactively protect your resources, investments, and reputation without overextending your IT team or hampering user productivity.

We believe that for an organization to be truly effective in securing their environment, it is necessary to regularly test and probe the system to ensure that policies are followed, technology is working, and compliance is being maintained. Accordingly, we complement Cisco’s best in breed security technology with security assessments, auditing, and compliance confirmation. From Network Health Checks to External Vulnerability Analysis, Cerium can identify potential vulnerabilities, assess the impact of vulnerabilities, and make recommendations for mitigating security issues.

READ MORE:

Private Cloud Data Center Solutions

Private cloud data center solutions available through NASPO ValuePoint contracts include the combination of Cisco UCS Director, data center automation and private cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and Dell EMC VPLEX virtualized storage appliances. UCS Director and VPLEX deliver “better together” benefits and functionality. UCS Director’s highly secure, end-to-end management, orchestration, and automation solution paired with Dell EMC VPLEX provides a heterogeneous framework that ensures availability of mission-critical applications even in the face of disasters and can accelerate your data center’s migration to the latest storage technologies. VPLEX’s flexible storage architecture makes data and workload mobility seamless across the hybrid cloud. Moreover, with all-flash storage options that offer scalable growth of your flash environment without requiring software licenses, VPLEX is a cost-effective solution for your growing all-flash workloads.

Collaboration, Emergency Notification, & Emergency Response Strategy

Cerium has collaboration written into our DNA. We are both a Master Collaboration as well as Advanced Collaboration Architecture credential holder with Cisco Systems and our ability to provide integrated collaboration solutions to our marketplace is hard to rival. Collaboration is a broad portfolio which encompasses multiple elements including emergency notification and response, as well as conferencing, and mobility to name a few.

Public entities and agencies often have unique requirements with respect to emergency notification and response. We are familiar with these requirements and concerns. Our highly skilled technical resources can help schools and campuses understand capabilities and requirements and then build solutions that meet the needs of an all too often victimized class of our citizenry.

READ MORE:      Benton County – better serving their constituents even in the face of  ever-shrinking operating budgets

Connected Justice Approach

Often the Justice Departments in our states, counties, and municipalities are overworked and understaffed when accommodating the multitude of citizens, accused, and offenders that require attention. One way that we can reduce the burden is by using collaboration and video conferencing solution components of Connected Justice. Cerium Networks has an excellent track record of providing video conferencing solutions to public entities and agencies to address these types of needs.

USE CASE:

Cerium worked with a local diagnostic and treatment center to implement a Cisco Unified Communications Manager and collaboration and mobility suite. This organization is under the local county umbrella and provides intake and mental health evaluation services for individuals incarcerated at their local county. Cerium worked with this client to deploy an inter-county video conferencing solution that incorporated Cisco room systems, Jabber, and bridging for their diverse client base. This solution was strategic in providing services to a rural, under-served constituency. The solution required mobility and strict adherence to HIPAA standards as required when assessing and addressing clients’ mental health needs. The deployment of this solution has significantly increased the effectiveness of this client to work with their patients by increasing availability and reducing the need to travel to receive treatment and counsel. Many of the requirements that Connected Justice recognizes are paralleled in this client’s collaboration and video conferencing deployment.

Wireless

We live in a mobile world, and people expect connectivity wherever they are. This is true of schools, cities, municipalities, libraries, parks, and private sector spaces. Cerium understands this as well as the complexities associated with wireless and RF-based communications. Cerium boasts an extraordinarily strong wireless team, with extensive expertise assessing, designing, and deploying solutions in even the most complex of scenarios.

Our partnership with Cisco provides two major wireless capabilities: Enterprise Wireless and Meraki Wireless. With these two solution sets, we can attend to almost any wireless need. Our approach is one of a solid understanding of the needs of any wireless deployment including wireless/RF surveys to assess the environment in which a wireless solution is expected to operate. Once the expectations of the solution and environment are understood, Cerium technical resources create predictive models based upon the intended solution. We do this to provide the highest quality delivery in a manner that consistently meets expectations of coverage, density, and throughput. After our predictive models are completed, a final solution package is proposed. finally, after implementing a wireless solution, a validation survey is performed to compare the predictive model to the real world. Often, no remediation is required but, in some circumstances, a validation survey will uncover variables that were not addressed in the predictive model and will create an opportunity for solution improvement. Through this engagement model, we believe we can deliver wireless at the highest quality that meets the expectations of our clients.

Read More:     Read how Network Overhaul Expands Wi-Fi Coverage at Spokane County Fair and Expo Center

Contact Center Approach

A significant part of our collaboration DNA includes customer engagement and contact centers. Cerium boasts a very robust practice dedicated to helping our customers interact with their clients and customers in meaningful ways. We have on our team industry professionals with 20+ years of experience in working within and consulting with contact center administrators and teams.

Our strategy is one of consultation with key stakeholders within agencies and entities to identify the outcomes desired and expected from a customer engagement solution. Our ability to deliver upon those expectations is empowered by our Master Collaboration and Advanced Collaboration Architecture certifications with Cisco as well as the powerful portfolio offered by Cisco .

Your constituents and citizens use multiple methods of communication in their daily lives, and we can design and deliver solutions to public sector agencies and entities to enable their communication in meaningful ways with their constituents and communities.

 

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