Summer 2008 Newsletter: Integrate Notifications Internal Alarms
Originally published August 1st, 2008

Letter from the Publisher
by Jim Jenkins

Asked and Answered

Fermentations
by Chuck Blethen
Food and wine pairings for cheeses

Printer Friendly Worduko Puzzle

Word Find Puzzle Answers

Letter from the Publisher

August 2008

Welcome to the second half of 2008.  Even though the economy continues to be a challenge, organizations are still implementing the latest contact center and communications technology.  IP Telephony is really happening.  Voice recognition and self service technologies continue to improve and be deployed to make the customer experience better and better.  The return on investment related to customer satisfaction and improved efficiency is and will continue to be realized.  Successful deployment of this technology will help companies weather the storm associated with the challenging economy.

As our contribution to the implementation of new technology and improvement of contact center and communication solution performance, we have launched a unique program approach to help customers get the most out of their solution investments.  We are calling it the Investment Protection Program™.  The objective of the program is to indentify the areas of greatest and lowest risk throughout a solution’s life cycle, so customers can put testing time and resources where they will deliver the most value.  This edition of the newsletter contains more information about this exciting and valuable new program.
 
As always, we invite you to check out our events list (linked to this newsletter) to find out where we’ll be speaking and exhibiting next.  We appreciate any opportunity to meet with you face to face and learn more about you and your business needs.

IQ Services continues to be dedicated to helping you deliver excellence to your customers.  Thank you for reading our publication.  We look forward to your comments, questions and suggestions for future publications.

Sincerely,

Jim Jenkins
Publisher
President & CEO

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Asked & Answered

If you have a question that you'd like to see answered in our quarterly newsletter, contact us!

Question:
"Is there any way we can get HeartBeat™; notifications delivered in such a way that they trigger our internal alarm system?" - Bernie Gorman, Network Operations Analyst, Wells Fargo

Answer:
Thank you for your question Bernie.  When it comes to HeartBeat™; availability and performance monitoring, it is critical that the right people receive notifications in as timely a manner as possible.  For HeartBeat™; customers, integrating notification information into an existing alarm system can be a great way to do it.  Although the configuration details are unique for each customer and alarm system, there are three general methods used to deliver monitoring notifications to a customer’s internal alarm system:

1. Email:  IQ Services can provide custom email notifications with field names and values that can be parsed on the customer’s side so the information can be integrated into the internal alarm system.
2. FTP:  IQ Services can provide notification data on a secure ftp site. The specially formatted data is then extracted from the ftp server by the customer and integrated into the internal alarm system.
3. SNMP:  IQ Services can provide SNMP traps containing notification data directly to the customer’s SNMP manager. This method requires a VPN connection from IQ Services to the customer network.

Whether we’re integrating notifications with an internal alarm system or sending standard notifications like telephone calls, pages or emails, IQ Services works with each customer to configure a customized notification plan that will deliver valuable performance information to the right people at the right time.

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Fermintations

A favorite food combination is wine and cheese.  While wine tasters always like to taste wine while clearing their palate with bread or soda crackers, people who routinely sell wine like to offer their wine while serving cheese to the wine buyer.  Cheese has the ability to blind your taste buds so careful consideration has to be made for great cheese and wine pairings.   

For those of us who just want to enjoy the wonderful combination of wine and cheese, I offer the following list of suggested cheese and wine pairings. Experiment as you will with all of the cheeses of the world. This list is just a guideline for enjoyment of some famous cheeses of the world and the suggested wines to make your flavor buds sing. As a general rule, it is best to pair cheese with wines produced in the same region or country… but not always!

I have listed the most likely cheeses you will encounter as Americans. You can contact me (CBlethen@IQ-Services.com) if you need specific wine pairings for cheeses from Denmark, Mexico, Spain, Greece, Holland, Germany, Norway, Belgium or Sweden. You may find it helpful to make a copy of the tables below and carry them in your wallet or purse. The next time you have a chance to pick up some cheese and wine for a few friends, you will be prepared to make a wise choice. Enjoy!

Next time: Wine pairing with Chocolate

Chuck Blethen, Vigneron in Residence, Jewel of the Blue Ridge Vineyard, Marshall NC

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