November 2022
The PSTN—a Historical Overview
By Peter Aggus
The PSTN was created to interconnect telephones. Over time it grew to be the largest man-made technical artefact ever created. Now the old 2-wire analog PSTN is nearing its end days as many new buildings have only fiber connections into the network. We are looking into implications for users for a later article but we begin the series with a look at the interesting history of the PSTN – where we started from.
Is Your Disaster Plan Weak?
By Guy Robertson
Are you certain that, after a disaster such as a fire, flood, or earthquake, your disaster plan (or Business Continuity Plan) will help you to get back in business? Will it support the recovery of your network and vital data? If your plan is inadequate, your organization’s recovery costs could be much higher than you expect. That is, if you can avoid bankruptcy. After a disaster, many organizations do not survive.
Zero Trust Network vs. VPN
By Ellen Koskinen-Dodgson
Traditionally organizations have relied on VPNs to provide access to remote workers to let them operate securely, as though they were working at their desk in the office. More and more, this is considered to be insufficient from a security perspective, and the move is towards zero-trust network access (ZTNA) solutions, even for local access at the corporate office.
Amazon’s Amazing AI
By Roban Chahal
Amazon has amazing AI. When I called to resolve a billing problem and realized that I was talking with an AI, I was really impressed. One of their goals is to be the “Earth’s most customer-centric company,” and to support this, they have developed a few flavours of AI - some for internal customer service and some for outside organizations like NASA through their AWS operations.