VoIP migration best practices

Legacy PBX systems are old and IP-based phone systems comprise the majority of systems now shipping. Properly done, VoIP can reduce communications costs, with VoIP applications delivering real-time collaboration, unified communications, IP-based call centres, and more. Take inventory Embracing VoIP can bring a business many advantages. Before making the move, know the age of your equipment, agreements with your providers and carriers, and available service offerings. Handling the extra voice traffic requires network analyses, and depends on how scalable the initial network is. If the design is scalable then it should be a simple matter of purchasing additional bandwidth from a service provider on the carrier side, and expanding the network on the enterprise side. If it's not designed to be scalable, then a voice server may need to be added or a router may need to be changed or added. "The key point is to start with a clean and well-structured network, which proves the importance of the initial network assessment," says Philippe Babin, director of product line management at Mediatrix Telecom in Sherbrooke, QC. Chris Thompson is a senior product manager of voice products for Huntsville, AL-headquartered Adtran Inc., which makes networking and communications equipment for businesses with 15 - 1,000 users. As large enterprises struggle with legacy infrastructure, small and mid-sized businesses are nimble and able to take advantage the flexibility that IP-based networks can provide. "The economics of business trunking offerings make a lot of sense," he says. "You can usually offer an SMB a compelling reason to change. You can take an integrated access device, and drop it into an SMB and hook up whatever equipment they already own - key systems, PBX, or multi-line system. You don't have to convince them to trade out their systems - simply save them money using what they have." When taking stock of a situation, it's important to change your thinking from ‘Which one is better?' to ‘How might I best use this technology to further the business goals?' "Of course ‘Should we go to VoIP?' has been solved; now it's ‘How and where do we start?'" says Tracy Fleming, national IP telephony leader with Avaya Canada. "It really depends on the customer: core out or edge in. Evaluate the technology base first. A lot of technology today is nearing the end of its life. Especially in Canada, where there are a lot of legacy PDMs and PBXs." Cost savings from IT spending on common infrastructure allows for the building of a total communication strategy. This means it makes more sense to invest first in the unique capabilities provided by video and voice integrated data, instead of building out separate networks. A responsible vendor will tell you that it's always important for an IT department to make the very best use of what it has. "From a financial perspective it's compelling to maintain operational costs," says Rod Scotland, unified voice solutions specialist at Cisco Systems Canada Inc. "When we maintain a phone system, data network, mobility and cell communications, the service contracts, maintenance, and training are very diverse. Consolidating into a common infrastructure allows me to train once, pay one main contract, one service contract, and one single vendor to continue my support." Then there's the competitive advantage. IT has been responsible for finding the best price, and matching for suitability technology. Now enterprises are making competitive decisions to keep the lights on tomorrow. "We see technology as a competitive weapon instead of a necessary evil," Scotland says. "That's how we introduce to a customer. We help them build that strategy. When a customer is considering different options, it's important to have an opportunity to invest in a communication strategy, and not just buy another phone system." Once that communication strategy is in place, it's time to look at the common network infrastructure. Now is when an enterprise can take the opportunity to get a handle on what's installed, how current it is, and whether or not it needs upgrading. "When they understand what's necessary for voice, video, and collaboration, they understand how to quality assure those independent solutions," says Scotland. "And then it must be secured." Options If you're willing to change a PBX or key system, look at what type of system it is. Without IT staff, a hosted system might be the best, as that offloads all the troubleshooting while connecting remote offices together - without additional tie lines. Get it done as a ‘PBX in the sky' that a hosted model offers. "If you've got a VAR you're comfortable with, who is already managing data networks, then you might want to go with an IP communications platform, says Thompson. "This also gives you one point of contact for your problems. You have to look at all the different aspects, including your staff structure and equipment before you can make an intelligent decision." The goal is for technology to further enable customer reach, with its simplicity and usefulness such that it makes its own intricacies transparent. "It's pretty easy to associate this technology to a competitive advantage because everyone available in some form," " says Scotland. "Unified communications does it via the open standards way of attaching every type of device or procedure into a common investment, managed from centralized mentalities, and deployed in automated forms." Deployment The two biggest stains on the early reputation of VoIP were jitter and dropping. "Having a one-second delay on an e-mail is not that bad," says Babin. "But such delay on a voice call is lethal. That's why QoS must be built-in - not only within your enterprise network, but also available from your service provider." On the enterprise side, the key is to select the right components for tagging your voice traffic. Then ensure proper usage of sub-networks so traffic is handled properly. Using routers to prioritize your voice data on your network is key, especially as your network grows. "Before letting your voice packets over the ‘Internet world', you must make sure you control the flow of traffic, to prioritize the incoming and outgoing packets based on voice" Babin says. "Over the Internet, you're in the hands of your service provider. Large enterprises most likely have access to managed networks where QoS is ensured between sites. For small enterprises, selecting the best service provider is important. As we move forward, some service providers will be able to bring QoS features to companies of all sizes, but that won't always be the case. Selecting a good system integrator is the key point when looking for multiple sites or larger enterprises." While Mediatrix has deployments from very large universities and government institutions, down to small shops and home offices, it is focused on the SMB and branch offices marketplace. This is a fast growing market segment for VoIP deployment. Mediatrix also tackles this market through carriers. For its part, Avaya is well-seasoned: the company has done 10,000 deployments. "Early on the thought was IT people tend to deploy systems as they buy them - switches, firewalls, routers - whereas on the voice side it's the opposite," Fleming says. "Voice people are very concerned about user experience. IT thought they could buy voice and throw it on the network. But if you put two phones on the desk, and you don't give the user some good reason to use the new phone, it will sit in the corner covered in dust." The most significant end user customer interactions can be when professional trainers sit down with staff. Sometimes fairly senior people feel they don't need to sit in a training session. But without their participation the benefits can be missed. "We get them to commit to an hour, and they're blown away," says Fleming. "A call comes in, I push a button to find the person, and bridge them in. They tell me, ‘I spend 30-45 minutes a day tracking people down. You've just saved me that'." Avaya claims that at the end of one pilot the feedback was unanimously positive, with only one person missed the training day. And first thing on Monday that user called the IT help desk, to say, ‘I have this new phone and it doesn't work.' "Our flagship product has 700 features," says Fleming. "We could have gone in with a 700-page PowerPoint presentation saying, ‘You can do this and this and this...' In fact, sometimes for fun I begin the presentation announcing the 700 features, go to the first page, and say, ‘This is the first one' just to watch their eyes roll and glaze over. " Adoption Instead of overwhelming users by trying to ‘go all in', it's best to pick those few features that have the most benefit and deploy them over time. Fleming has found two of the most popular are Instant Messaging (IM) and Presence. "What we've seen is people are coming to IM out of peer pressure," he says. "The demand doesn't come from corporate or from IT; it's from others in the workgroup. Then you see further adoption." ‘Presence' refers to accessing the person regardless of where he or she is and what device is near. One feature Avaya offers to support Presence is ‘no-hold conference'. Fleming offers the example of trying to locate a typical employee, ‘Frank'. "Without putting someone on hold, I can call Frank's extension. If the person isn't at his desk, the system searches for him. When he picks up, the system pushes multi-line functionality down to whatever device he is near. Obviously that feature's not appropriate for every organization. But there are 699 more." For his part, Thompson sees problems when people take adoption too lightly. "The primary culprits are the low-cost ‘free after mail in rebate' routers at the retail level," he says. "It certainly has its place on a home network. But when you scale it from e-mail and an IP connection to business, you have to upgrade your equipment. A lot of people have tried to use existing data infrastructure for IP telephony, but eliminating latency and quality problems requires a router that can apply priority to voice packets." Network monitoring also isn't something you do at setup and then forget about. It has to be a constant process, given that networks are dynamic and will be asked to do new things in the future.

VoIP migration best practices

News | 05/28/2008 3:20 pm EDT

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