Last week’s major AWS outage has put the spotlight back on resiliency and reliability in networks and services. Enterprise communications industry veterans will remember when these issues were always front and center. The key was diversity – multiple carriers, route diversity to avoid single points of failure vulnerable to backhoe cuts, and redundancy everywhere.
But in a world where service providers aren’t just carriers but cloud hosts, diversity is a trickier matter, as this CIO Dive article notes. The article quotes John Annand, digital infrastructure practice lead at Info-Tech Research Group, who points out that more resiliency means more cost, and trying to have multiple providers for diversity can introduce too much complexity.
“It looks nice on paper, and people talk about it in conferences, but they don’t practically do it,” Annand told CIO Dive. “You have to pick the efficacy and the ease of use of a cloud platform, and then try to plan around the times when you know you’re going to have an outage one way or the other.”
Well, as a matter of fact, we are going to talk about these issues at our conference, Enterprise Connect 2026, March 10 – 12 in Las Vegas. But the folks talking about it will be a pair of Fortune 200 enterprise leaders who are living out these issues, and have committed to a vision of reliability engineering that’s reflected in their session title: Reliability Engineering: When the Contact Center Can Never Go Down. Swaraj Kankipati and Jason Patterson of The Hartford will offer a detailed description of how they’re balancing the tradeoffs of cost and reliability, and what strategies and tactics by the IT organization are most effective in delivering uptime that’s as close to perfect as you can get.
I suspect one reason we don’t hear as much about reliability and uptime for internal enterprise communications now, versus during the telephony era, is that enterprise end users actually have a highly diverse set of tools for handling internal communications. If the core collaboration platform goes down, you can usually still reach people via email or cell phone, or even an alternate platform.
The contact center is another matter. Not only is it revenue-generating, but it relies more heavily on public networks and, as the CCaaS migration progresses, on external cloud providers. I’m looking forward to hearing how Swaraj, Jason, and their team are crafting resiliency for the modern customer experience.
Issues like resiliency and building networks for the AI era will be a component of EC2026, even while the critical and fast-moving topic of AI itself garners much of the attention. In crafting the program, the enterprise leaders on our Content Advisory Board were heavily focused on AI, of course, but most of them have also found themselves dealing with some of these down-in-the-weeds infrastructure issues (or the impacts of such issues) as well. So we want to make sure that, in your time at EC2026, we help equip you with the information that helps you be an effective IT pro no matter what challenge you face. I hope to see you in Vegas!
Reimagine Collaboration and Communications with Enterprise Connect
All In on What’s Next
For over 35 years, Enterprise Connect has been the premier event where IT leaders, solution providers, and industry analysts come together to define the future of enterprise communications. As the most trusted conference in the industry, we deliver cutting-edge insights, world-class networking opportunities, and hands-on solutions that drive real business success.
Enterprise Connect is more than an event—it’s an experience that empowers enterprise communications leaders to reimagine the future of work. With elevated content, curated networking, and an engaging atmosphere, it remains the must-attend conference for professionals shaping the industry’s evolution.
Our mission is to equip you with the tools, strategies, and actionable insights needed to address your organization’s unique challenges. With industry transformation in mind, this year’s program introduces fresh new conference tracks, including:
- Legacy Unleashed: Optimizing Your Communications Backbone
- Workplace Reimagined: Engineering Tomorrow's Collaboration
- Tech Disruption Zone: Implementing Without Imploding
- Achieving Transformation: Architecting Your 3-5 Year Roadmap
- Future Shock: Communications Tech Beyond the Horizon
Featuring the most comprehensive program of objective content and an expansive vendor-neutral expo hall, Enterprise Connect is your ultimate resource for advancing collaboration, CX, and AV strategies. Join us to stay ahead, connect with industry trailblazers, and lead the transformation of enterprise communications.