maybe it’s time to throw out your pbx study: bias, rivalries

CO

NT

ENT

S

An interactive eGuide

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CONVERGENCE AND VoIP ALERT Tips on SIP trunking and managing virtual performance

OPEN SOURCES Mobile applications lay bare the IT/telephony divide

MAYBE IT’S TIME TO THROW OUT YOUR PBXEven if telephony scares you, it’s time to get serious about unified communications

STUDY: BIAS, RIVALRIES CAN THREATEN UC DEPLOYMENTSContention and biases among technology and business factions can derail the deploy-ment of unified communications systems, according to a Forrester Research study.

TEACHABLE MOMENTS WITH UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS The education sector continues to face budget uncertainty, teacher layoffs and cuts in services.

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS Cloud computing may be the savior of true unified communications

CONVERGENCE AND VoIP ALERT

OPEN SOURCES

MAYBE IT’S TIME TO THROW OUT YOUR PBX

BIAS, RIVALRIES CAN THREATEN UC DEPLOYMENTS

TEACHABLE MOMENTS WITH UC

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

1 OF 21

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONSAs the technology behind Unified Communications (UC) matures, products and services are proving essential to keeping employees connected and collaborating. At the same time, these technologies are helping organizations to cut costs by spanning geographical borders and time zones, while boosting productivity. Here, IT World – along with sister sites Network World, InfoWorld, Computerworld, and CIO – examine the relevance of trends such as cloud computing, mobility, and open source to UC, and the importance of IT and telephony groups in enterprises working together to achieve successful UC implementations.

http://www.itworld.com


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OPEN SOURCES





While we’ve focused lately

on product rollouts and trade

shows, Steve and the folks at

Webtorials have been busy

sharing some great material

our readers may find useful,

including two vendor-spon-

sored papers. These papers

focus on some tips from

Integrated Research, and are

called “Managing Multi-Vendor

UC and Collaboration in a Vir-

tual World” and from Verizon

Business and Cisco “SIP Trunk-

ing — Addressing the Hidden

Costs of Telephony Networks.”

Cisco and Verizon Business

have partnered on a white

paper discussing SIP trunk-

ing, beginning with the prem-

ise that some of the hidden

costs of traditional TDM (time

division multiplexing) phone

networks are becoming appar-

ent because these traditional

networks are location-orient-

ed, need physical provisioning,

maintenance, and manage-

ment at the site of the voice

access lines — thus making

TDM systems inefficient and

costly. A more efficient solu-

tion in the form of SIP trunking

takes advantage of IP broad-

band connectivity, combining

multiple voice circuits with

data networks.

According to the paper, a

recent study estimates com-

panies that adopt SIP trunk-

ing can save 26% compared

to what they now pay for

TDM trunks. SIP trunks offer

the advantage of deploying

multiple phone lines as they

are needed, allocating phone

capacity across various loca-

tions. SIP trunking also pro-

vides a platform and protocol

that can add a variety of

business-enhancing applica-

tions and services to boost

employee efficiency. SIP trunk-

ing has become increasingly

important as a natural part

of the evolution of VoIP net-

works. A free copy of the “SIP

Trunking” paper is available

at www.webtorials.com/con-

tent/2011/06/hidden-costs-

telephony-networks.html.

Integrated Research has

provided some advice on how

to manage unified communi-

cations and collaboration in a

virtual world with their latest

paper. They point out that

“when hardware is virtualized,

with multiple guests acting as

individual servers, it’s criti-

cal to know that it’s up to the

job. When a guest running

a continuity-critical applica-

tion makes a request in real

time it is without regard for

other host activity. Hence both

guests and hosts can come

under performance pressure.

With this type of environment

problems can exist in any one

of the layers.”

The company recommends

that problem detection needs

to be-layer, multi-vendor and

multi-technology since perfor-

EXPERT ADVICE

CONVERGENCE AND VoIP ALERTBy Larry Hettick, Network WorldTips on SIP trunking and managing virtual performance



http://www.webtorials.com/content/2011/06/hidden-costs-telephony-networks.html


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OPEN SOURCES





mance issues can reside in the

physical hardware, the virtual

machines or the applications.

The paper looks at how the

host, guests and applications

perform metrics. It concludes

that “availability, performance

and quality assurance are as

much key performance indi-

cators in the cloud as well as

down on the ground ... and as

service level agreements for

cloud computing are service

rather than customer-based,

cloud service providers need

to manage the ability of their

infrastructure to provide the

service their customers are

paying for.”

A free copy of this resource

is available at www.webtorials.

com/content/featured/prognosis.

Our thanks to Cisco and

Integrated Research for spon-

soring these educational re-

sources and to Webtorials for

making them available.

Larry Hettick is a principal

analyst at Current Analysis.



http://www.webtorials.com/content/featured/prognosis/

http://www.webtorials.com/content/featured/prognosis/


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MARKET TREND

The growing demand for mobile

applications is set to challenge

the apprehension that enter-

prise telephony buyers have

toward open source telephony

offerings. As IT departments

strive to meet new mobile ap-

plication requirements, they

will play a role in driving open

source and cloud telephony

adoption within enterprises.

THE IT-VERSUS- TELEPHONY DIVIDE IT and telephony departments

are often separate depart-

ments, if not fiefdoms, within an

enterprise. This historical sepa-

ration has resulted in markedly

different views surrounding

open source usage. I learned of

this reality when my company

(IBM) launched the WebSphere

Application Server Feature Pack

for Communications Enabled

Applications (CEA), and I’ve

since seen this reality play out.

Open source telephony so-

lutions are not new. However,

for enterprise telephony buy-

ers, the risk of any downtime

is too great to consider open

source alternatives to Cisco,

Avaya, Siemens, and other

well-established telephony

vendors. You can hardly blame

enterprise telephony buyers:

No one thinks twice about

having to refresh a browser

if a Web application crashes.

But it’s a different story if a

conference call crashes or a

call between a customer and a

contact center representative

is terminated abruptly.

Still, although you may sym-

pathize with enterprise tele-

phony buyers’ risk aversion,

their decisions end up restrict-

ing how IT departments can

respond to user demands for

innovative applications around

communications.

NEXT-GENERATION MOBILE APPLICATIONS DEMAND COMMUNICA-TIONS ENABLEMENTAs mobile Web application

usage grows, the first step for

most businesses will be to de-

liver today’s desktop browser

application on a mobile brows-

er. But forward-thinking IT de-

partments and enterprises will

look instead to deliver a class

of applications beyond those

currently available on desktop

browsers. In time, the majority

of enterprises will follow suit.

These mobile applications

will be communications-

enabled from the start. Thus,

we’ll see a couple kinds of ap-

plications become the norm:

• A mobile CRM application

that lets a sales executive

review a sales lead, and

within the application itself,

call one of his or her direct

reports, based on presence

availability and personal-

ization information, and

jointly browse through the

OPEN SOURCES Mobile applications lay bare the IT/telephony divide By Savio Rodrigues, InfoWorld




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sales lead data online while

speaking over the phone.

• A mobile retailer applica-

tion that lets buyers co-

shop online using desktop

and/or mobile devices, and

if required, call the toll-free

number and be routed to

the appropriate contact

center representative,

based on browsing history,

without having to traverse

automated call menus.

The challenge for IT is that

these and similar applications

require IT and telephony groups

to work more closely together.

More important, these applica-

tions will require a degree of te-

lephony flexibility that enterprise

telephony buyers aren’t likely to

be comfortable delivering based

on their risk-adverse nature.

So what’s an IT department

to do?

OPEN SOURCE AND CLOUD TELEPHONE TO THE RESCUEAn interesting solution is being

offered by open source vendor

Twilio Cloud Communications,

which recently announced

OpenVBX, an open source

telephony product in the cloud.

OpenVBX offers virtual telephone

numbers, voice transcription,

voice collaboration among users,

and a drag-and-drop approach

to building call flows and menus.

OpenVBX is offered as a hosted

service so that IT departments

don’t have to trouble themselves

with keeping a telephony infra-

structure up and running.

Most important, OpenVBX

can route calls to existing phone

numbers. This means IT can build

innovative new applications that

rely on the enterprise’s existing

telephony infrastructure without

actually having to involve the

telephony department in the ap-

plication development process.

I am not proposing that IT cir-

cumvent the telephony depart-

ment in the long run. However,

I am suggesting IT departments

consider applying the lessons

of grassroots open source

adoption: It’s much easier to

convince decision makers to

use open source when the

organization has already been

using open source.

Nor am I suggesting that

telephony departments migrate

away from their existing enter-

prise telephony products; that

would be a fool’s errand. But I

am suggesting that telephony

departments evaluate how open

source and cloud offerings can

augment the existing enterprise

telephony environment to deliver

application innovation.

A mobile communications-

enabled application generating

revenue for the enterprise will

go a long way toward convinc-

ing telephony departments to

augment their telephony infra-

structures with open source and

cloud offerings. As a user, I can

hardly wait.

This column doesn’t necessarily

represent IBM’s positions,

strategies, or opinions.




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I’m a huge fan of unified

messaging, which is built into

Exchange Server 2007 and

2010. This feature takes your

inbox and transforms it so

that it can receive not only

email, but incoming faxes

and voicemail. The voicemail

aspect is intriguing; with so

many incredible features —

especially built into Exchange

2010 and Outlook 2010 — it’s

worth considering, even if it

means purchasing additional

telephony hardware.

However, going to the next

level beyond unified messag-

ing and into unified commu-

nications involves deploying

Microsoft Communications

Server.

Gurdeep Singh Pall, corpo-

rate vice president of Micro-

soft’s Unified Communications

Group, made some predictions

about the future of communi-

cations software: “In the next

three years, we predict that

[unified communications] will

become the norm in business

communications, more than

half of VoIP calls at work will

include more than just voice,

and your communications cli-

ent will enable [unified com-

munications] with more than 1

billion people.”

It’s hard for folks to break

with traditional hardware-

based phone systems that

include desktop phones and

legacy PBXes. Plus, many IT

administrators are leery of

implementing new communi-

cation technologies when they

aren’t comfortable with the te-

lephony side. I always encour-

age Exchange administrators

to seek out their telephony

guru or team of gurus before

implementing unified messag-

ing, and the same holds true

for Office Communications

Server. Still, I believe we need

to move forward on these

new communication tools and

drop the past. I agree with

Gurdeep, who says “many

of today’s PBXes belong in

a museum; they are already

artifacts of the past.”

When you think about the

purpose of Communications

Server (and Microsoft Com-

municator, for that matter),

perhaps you are stuck in the

past a bit. You see, Exchange

2000 included an instant mes-

saging app that was dropped

in 2003 and moved into a

separate product called Live

Communications Server. Thus,

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: MAYBE IT’S TIME TO THROW OUT YOUR PBX

Even if telephony scares you, it’s time to get serious about unified communications

EXPERT ADVICE

By J. Peter Bruzzese, InfoWorld




Sponsored by


OPEN SOURCES





you might think of Commu-

nicator and Communications

Server as an IM-only tool with

presence functionality. You

might even regard it as an in-

house Skype solution. How-

ever, its feature set is evolv-

ing to include full enterprise

telephony.

Communicator is a “soft”

phone that’s becoming sleek-

er with each release, but it

isn’t the only way to work with

Communications Server. There

are a ton of great IP-based

phones that bring you into the

21st century.

Presence awareness is

a big topic with IM-oriented

products. Being able to locate

a colleague and see her avail-

ability status is an important

part of collaboration. To sup-

port that, the new features

in Communications Server

include a new skill search

where you can find colleagues

based on a certain level of

expertise. There is also a new

location-awareness feature

where a user’s whereabouts

can be automatically detected

from the subnet to which the

user is connected or from the

nearest wireless access point.

(Users can establish custom-

ized locations and control

the publishing of this informa-

tion, so there is a modicum

of privacy.)

Gurdeep predicts the rise

of more connected commu-

nications, saying that in three

years, 75 percent of new busi-

ness applications will include

natively embedded commu-

nications. Obviously, decision

makers and IT personnel need

to keep that in mind. Three

years ago, Microsoft shared its

vision for the future of busi-

ness communications with

desire to establish a unified-

communication-, software-

centric solution. Given how

that future is shaping up, I

have no doubt that Gurdeep’s

prediction will come true.

What do you think? Are you

ready to donate your PBX to

a local museum? Or do you

believe that too much con-

nectivity will hurt, rather than

enhance, collaboration within

your environment?

“In three years, 75 percent of new business applications will include natively embedded communications.”—Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president Unified Communications Group, Microsoft

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS




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Contention and biases among

technology and business fac-

tions can derail the deploy-

ment of unified communica-

tions (UC) systems that are

efficient, cost-effective and

simple enough to use so they

actually get adopted by end

users, according to a Forrester

Research study.

The report even identifies

the vendors that six factions

within corporations might

favor based on their job tasks

and past experience, accord-

ing to “The Unified Communi-

cations Civil War,” by Forrester

analyst Art Schoeller.

Many businesses fragment

the decision making for the

components that make up UC

— voice, video, conferencing,

messaging, email — and so

wind up with less than optimal

systems, Schoeller says. “This

has resulted in an installed

base of best-of-breed solu-

tions, with each deployment

having unique sets of ineffi-

ciencies,” he says in the report.

He describes six factions

that enter into UC decisions

and names their vendor bias-

es, with Cisco benefitting from

bias in three of the six areas:

Telecom workers: Avaya,

Alcaltel-Lucent, Cisco,

other IP PBX vendors.

Data networking teams:

Cisco.

Facilities managers (for

outfitting teleconference

rooms): Polycom, Cisco

(Tandberg).

Collaboration profession-

als: IBM, Microsoft.

End users employing

consumer conferencing:

Skype, GoToMeeting.

To get around this problem,

he recommends an overarch-

ing team that sets a unified

roadmap for the project and

that includes representatives

of business units. Schoeller

outlines a seven-step checklist

for successfully carrying out

a UC project:

Assign a diverse UC proj-

ect team.

Inventory current UC assets.

Assess relevant in-house

skills.

Develop a comprehensive

management plan including

personnel and platforms.

Create templates of what

UC features are needed by

defined categories of users.

Draw up a three- to five-

year roadmap that will

streamline critical integra-

tion points and reduce SIP

session managers.

Enlist UC champions to

identify and herald UC suc-

cesses.

STUDY: BIAS, RIVALRIES CAN THREATEN UC DEPLOYMENTSMARKET STUDY

Contention and biases among technology and business factions can derail the deployment of unified communications systems, according to a study. By Tim Greene, Network World




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In the current economic

climate, the education sector

continues to face budget un-

certainty, teacher layoffs and

cuts in services.

In my home state, California,

the situation is quite dire. School

administrators face unprec-

edented pressures to increase

efficiency, cut costs, yet still

deliver educational services that

prepare the next generation for

the modern, global workplace.

To meet the challenges of

our changing world and to

ensure the successful deliv-

ery of a modern curriculum

across an institution, teachers

and staff must be able to col-

laborate effectively with peers,

students, and parents.

The methods for collecting

and distributing information

have changed dramatically

since I was in school. For in-

stance, alerts and updates to

schedules or curricula can be

quickly disseminated across

entire communities on mobile

devices; classes can be taught

remotely as extension programs

in strip malls; and virtual cours-

es now exist using online and

Web conferencing technology.

Unified communications not

only supports all these chang-

es, but drive their success,

helping schools improve ser-

vices across remote locations,

reduce costs through cheaper

calls and become more effi-

cient by streamlining outreach.

They also foster an edu-

cational environment where

students can explore the use

of modern technology tools

to interact with teachers and

staff: instantly turn a study

call into a document sharing

session for instance, or use

self-service features to quickly

apply for tuition assistance.

Furthermore, innovations

in the classroom lead to in-

novations in the outside world.

Students who know how to col-

laborate and communicate ef-

fectively are better positioned to

be productive in the workplace.

In addition to budget cuts,

however, schools face a num-

ber of challenges in adopting

new IP-based communications.

Deploying and managing

unified communications in

education institutions has to

be easy. Many schools lack

the resources required to

manage complex IT systems,

and need technology that will

easily integrate with what they

already have simply because

they don’t have the budget

for a costly rip and replace.

Schools should not be spend-

ing more to empower and

manage communications than

they spend on empowering

and managing our kids.

Unified communications also

must be intuitive for teachers,

staff, students and even par-

ents to understand and use.

When I was in school, leaving

a note or hanging around a

TEACHABLE MOMENTS WITH UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONSINDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

The education sector continues to face budget uncertainty, teacher layoffs and cuts in services. By Dale Tonogai, Computerworld




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OPEN SOURCES





crowded corridor were the only

ways of talking to a teacher

outside the classroom.

Modern, IP-based systems

mean that teachers can have

voicemail and even have it

linked to their email. Few

teachers will set up this useful

feature, however, if they have

spend hours pouring over a

massive manual.

Unified communications also

offers many important efficien-

cy benefits to school adminis-

tration processes.

Sophisticated contact center

capabilities can help increase

efficiency with separate menus

that route calls appropriately,

and optimize call queues. For

impacted colleges this can

mean more students enrolled

faster, and free up time spent

on the telephone.

Campus safety can also be

greatly enhanced with so-

phisticated applications for

emergency notification and

preparedness, directing first re-

sponders to the exact scene of

an event, and notifying multiple

personnel at once.

As communication channels

continue to merge with media

channels, and tools such as

video, instant messaging and

Web conferencing bring impor-

tant learning opportunities into

the classroom, schools need

flexible and affordable UC solu-

tions that give them, and our

children, a powerful connec-

tion to the future.

Unified communications is not

a panacea for the budget woes

faced by many educational insti-

tutes today, but it can help.

Dale Tonogai is VP of Engineer-

ing at ShoreTel.

As communication channels continue to merge with media channels, schools need flexible and affordable UC solutions that give them, and our children, a powerful connection to the future.

UNIFYING THE FUTURE AND THE NOW




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While telephony is, of course,

a core component of any busi-

ness communications system,

one of the biggest drivers for

unified communications (UC)

adoption to date has been

the promise of high resolution

video communications. With

high definition video play-

ing an increasingly important

role in corporate UC projects,

the issue of network capacity

takes centre stage.

“There are more than 2 mil-

lion Aussies with less than a

2Mbps broadband connection;

those users frankly can’t join a

high definition video call,” says

Microsoft Australia Lync mar-

keting manager, Jaron Cohen.

“UC is quite mature. At the

moment it is waiting for the

network.”

Graham Williams, CEO

of Australian Cisco partner

and UC specialists, iVision,

feels that Australia’s National

Broadband Network (NBN) will

act as a catalyst for greater UC

deployment in Australia.

“The NBN is helping to

create certainty around UC

deployments in Australia,” he

says. “Higher bandwidth avail-

ability, reach and better pric-

ing is going to make the [UC]

market more competitive.”

iVision recently completed

a detailed survey of its exist-

ing clients’ experiences and

future plans around UC, re-

porting that most had realized

tangible benefits and were

therefore keen to make further

investments in the technology,

especially around video con-

ferencing.

Cisco predicts that by 2014,

some 90 percent of all net-

work traffic will be video.

According to Cisco chief

technology officer for Australia

and New Zealand, Kevin Bloch,

organizations will need more

than just bandwidth to man-

age the transition.

“To support 1080p video on

the fly you need decent soft-

ware as well as hardware,” he

says, stressing that organiza-

tions will need “a richness of

intelligence” to handle high

resolution video content.

In the early days of UC de-

ployment it was accepted that

key to a successful solution

were detailed session initiated

protocol (SIP) libraries in order

for people to be tracked and

contacted over the network.

However, in another, al-

beit subtle, example of how

the cloud is influencing UC,

this function is increasingly

expected to be provided by

social networking sites such

as LinkedIn and Facebook.

Over the next few years, UC

solutions will inevitably be-

come increasingly commod-

itized, predicts Gartner Aus-

tralia research vice-president,

Geoff Johnson.

“Most big companies are

scared because they’ve spent

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS MARKET TREND

Cloud computing may be the savior of true unified communications By David Binning, CIO




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capex, and here’s the big

names offering to do this as

opex for cheap,” he says.

Fonality Australia managing

director Marc Englaro agrees,

noting that many organizations

are now beginning to view

instant messaging (IM), of the

kind which is freely available

via services such as Yahoo!,

Windows Live, Google Talk and

Skype, as a core component of

their overall UC strategy.

“We are starting to see the

value of IM in the corporate en-

vironment, whereby the tech-

nology is actually ‘endorsed’,

rather than merely ‘tolerated’,”

he says, adding that “IM and

presence in particular are

emerging as two of the most

salient parts of UC”.

And the harsh reality for or-

ganizations that have invested

heavily in upgrading their PBX

and other communication sys-

tems, is that this stuff is virtu-

ally free.

“The piece of plastic on your

desktop will probably one day

go away altogether,” Englaro

predicts. “It’s certainly the

iVision chief executive officer,

Graham Williams direction we

see things going.”

“We are starting to see the value of IM in the corporate environment, where-by the technology is actually ‘endorsed’, rather than merely ‘tolerated’.”

— Marc Englaro, managing director, Fonality Australia

TEXTING BY ANOTHER NAME



maybe it’s time to throw out your pbx study: bias, rivalries

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