Unified Communications
Is it time to ditch your phone?
Vendors are pushing the switch from
legacy systems to UC and VoIP, but options
are available.
by Rob Smithers and Fred Aun
The migration from legacy TDM-based PBXs to
IP PBX platforms has been underway in the
corporate world for some time, but many
companies have yet to make the move. Being
told they should switch to IP-based, unified
communications-capable systems (UC) is often
a tough pill to swallow for businesses with
large investments in legacy telephony
environments, especially during a slow
economy.
The longer a company puts off the
inevitable, however, the more antiquated its
legacy PBX equipment becomes. Meanwhile, the
company stands to fall further behind its
competitors in terms of messaging
efficiency, customer service interactions
and overall, long-term cost savings.
Miercom is currently engaged in an
ongoing study and test review of UC
solutions, including an analysis of how well
each vendor provides migration strategies
from legacy TDM-based systems to full
UC-enabled IP PBX solutions. Highlights and
best practices for migration are included in
this review and the vendors who demonstrated
the best migration paths are featured.
There are numerous benefits to taking the
UC plunge. Modern IP PBXs serve as complete
telephony systems that provide high-end
features such as call switching, routing and
queuing. Meanwhile, the most
productivity-enhancing UC features–such as
presence: being able to see who is available
for communication and via what methods–are
usually unavailable without conversion to
IP. IP telephony allows the use of new
Web-enabled services, including multimedia
contact centers and videoconferencing, as
well as interactive PC-based softphones,
portals and mobile clients.
Switching to packet-based telephony
significantly eases the work of
administrators, particularly when
provisioning new phones and other endpoints.
There can also be some cost reductions, not
only in terms of equipment but also in
staffing, since combining data and telephony
networks should also allow for reduced
staff.
IP PBX systems are also easy to enlarge
as a company grows and current IP PBX
designs are proven secure and reliable, with
various levels of redundancy and failover
built in or readily available.
Major telephony vendors realized years
ago that their legacy PBX systems were going
the way of the horse and buggy. Meanwhile,
some networking giants that never played in
the telephony field, Cisco in particular,
simultaneously saw a market opportunity
emerging as telephony and other forms of
communication found homes in the Internet
protocol.
Technology has improved
Avaya, Nortel and Siemens–all with roots
in legacy PBX system design–as well as the
companies that made their names in
non-telephony IT networking, have been doing
their best to convince businesses to make
the switch. They ensure them it can be done
with minimal disruption and with little or
no risk. While there are certainly
nightmare-scenario stories of migrations
gone awry, lessons were learned from past
mistakes and the technology has improved.
Moves to IP PBX these days generally are
routine and relatively painless.
Customers usually have two basic options
at the outset: They can take a "forklift"
approach by replacing, all at once, their
old TDM equipment and building a parallel
new communications solution to minimize
disruption. Or, they can slowly transition
from legacy to cutting edge by gradually
mixing the two, enabling legacy equipment
with VoIP gateway functionality.
To make the transition as simple as
possible, traditional PBX vendors often
suggest the use of plug-in boards or
gateways that convert TDM-based PBXs into
hybrid IP-enabled PBXs, offering many of the
advantages of IP-based messaging without
necessitating immediate, full-scale
conversion and the discarding of all
existing phone system equipment.
In IP-enabled PBXs, the existing TDM PBX
circuit switch platform is, essentially,
augmented with a voice-over-Internet
protocol (VoIP) module. The TDM and IP
components are interconnected with a gateway
and everything is controlled by a telephony
server.
All three of the legacy vendors
participating in this review demonstrated
concern for the investment protection of
customers’ legacy equipment and the
capability to upgrade. When adding on VoIP
capability, legacy systems with the most
current updates and upgrades were the
easiest.
Also worth noting is the Microsoft
approach. The software vendor urges
companies to leave their old PBX switches in
place and use its Office Communications
Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server
2007 applications to provide UC features.
Even if this route is chosen, legacy PBX
copper wire desk phones will not be
suitable; IP endpoints of one form or
another will need to be purchased if real IP
PBX benefits are to be enjoyed.
The time to fade out TDM-based systems is
when a company’s telephony equipment is
clearly obsolete, when service contracts can
no longer be extended as products reach the
end of their lifecycles for support, when
new buildings are being planned or existing
facilities renovated, during company
mergers, and when the customers, employees
and company profits will benefit from an IP
PBX’s advanced features.
Slow migration or forklift
Migration routes should be decided only
after thorough analysis of the pros and cons
of several approaches. The best approaches
cause the least amount of business
disruption. While a slow migration via a
hybrid system might be the least disruptive
path, there are some TDM
installations–generally those a decade old
or more–that do not lend themselves to
piecemeal migration. Complete replacement,
by implementing a parallel new UC solution,
is actually the less chaotic alternative.
Cisco, in its efforts to displace
competitors’ legacy TDM systems, relies on
its long history as a networking equipment
innovator and its role as an early developer
of VoIP. Avaya, Nortel and Siemens strive to
respect their customer’s investment in TDM
and they leverage that investment in their
efforts to retain them as customers. Not
only do these companies offer incentives for
existing customers to migrate to IP, they
also offer backward-compatible platforms and
provide migration paths to let customers
retain as much of their legacy systems as
possible.
Siemens contends its OpenPath program
allows its customers to make the TDM to UC
migration at their own pace. The company’s
HiPath brand was designed to be a VoIP path
for Siemens’ TDM customers. The HiPath 3000
and 4000 systems were the foundations for
most of these migrations.
Siemens’ HiPath 3000
Siemens notes that while customers can,
if they desire, make TDM-to-IP migrations on
a one-step-at-a-time basis, opting for the
overlay route that involves internetworking
via gateways may be easier. For companies
with Hicom 300 systems, Siemens provides
several upgrade options, including a plan
that calls for consolidating disparate
systems into a single, VoIP system using new
IP phones that differ from those formerly
used on Hicom 300.
Since the biggest hurdle to clear is
network readiness, Siemens offers its legacy
customers comprehensive network assessments
and readiness analysis prior to any VoIP or
UC migrations. Among the aspects tested are
network bandwidth sufficiency, delay and
quality of service (QoS).
Avaya’s S8700-series media server
Many companies still use Avaya’s legacy
Definity systems. The migration path for
these legacy Avaya customers usually entails
replacing old Definity G3r processors with
S8700-series servers and adding C-LAN and
media processor boards.
The company stresses that consolidation
has always been a fundamental benefit of IP
telephony and it contends its Communication
Manager 5.1 IP PBX platform offers more
network consolidation potential than
platforms offered by its competitors because
it embeds session initiation protocol (SIP)
enablement servers (SES) right into the
platform. Doing so eliminates the need for
multiple servers, notes Avaya.
Avaya says the flexibility in its
migration-path options provides companies
with "unique investment protection, allowing
re-use of up to 85 percent of current
infrastructure," including phones, gateways
and servers. Of course, Avaya would like
those hybrid migrations to eventually morph
into full-blown IP PBXs featuring the
company’s line of "one-X" branded IP
endpoints.
Nortel’s Communication Server IP PBX
platform
Nortel says users of its legacy Meridian
systems are able to make "rapid and
seamless" migrations to its Communication
Server IP PBX platform. Nortel customers
might be able to migrate from TDM to IP PBX
without buying a lot of new hardware, says
the company. It notes that software-only
upgrades are possible "depending on upgrade
migration path," but it stresses that
upgrades may require processor hardware
replacement to be most effective.
Nortel says its customers are often able
to see significant cost savings by re-using
existing PBX hardware, including cabinets,
chassis, line/trunk cards, power supplies,
fans and interconnects. As do the other
vendors, Nortel suggests companies work with
accredited channel partners and sales
engineering specialists to ensure smooth
upgrades.
The Cisco option
Companies comfortable with their existing
Cisco networking equipment might be inclined
to consider the vendor when the time comes
to migrate their PBXs, even if the existing
equipment is from a another telephony
company. Cisco’s goal is to remind
businesses, even those that currently have
no Cisco networking products, that voice and
other types of UC messaging are just forms
of data.
While they have focused on helping their
existing customers make painless
switchovers/migrations away from TDM, the
traditional TDM vendors have not been
particularly aggressive when it comes to
seeking new customers. Cisco has gained
market share because of this and because it
is urging companies to leapfrog over a
middle-of-the-road TDM-to-IP stage and go
right to UC. Cisco contends that progressing
right to its UC solutions makes sense if
parts of an organization have already
evolved to UC but others have not.
Cisco’s Unified Communications system
Cisco says individual customer
requirements dictate whether a phased
migration or a parallel cutover–where a new
IP PBX is installed alongside the existing
PBX–is the best choice. The company says the
parallel cutover method "usually works best
in most cases" and it also suggests that
large enterprises use the Q signaling (QSIG)
protocol so that Cisco Unified Communication
Manager can become part of the enterprise
network.
Cisco notes in its guide to PBX
migration, however, that "unless you already
have QSIG enabled on your PBX or have a
specific need for its additional features
and functionality, the cost of upgrading the
PBX might be hard to justify if it will be
retired within a short period of time."
Cisco adds it might be foolish to spend
$30,000 on enabling a PBX for QSIG if a
company plans to retire the old system in
several months.
All four vendors provide professional
analysis of a company’s telephony migration
options. Alternatively, if brand loyalty is
not a factor, a company can hire independent
PBX experts who are well-versed in the
products offered by several vendors.
According
to Miercom evaluations, the four vendors
mentioned in this article demonstrate a
clear migration path for customers and
provide a strong business case for doing so.
Customers, however, should obtain analysis
and opinion from several different experts.
Migrating from TDM to IP is a job that
should not be taken lightly.
Rob Smithers is CEO and Fred Aun is
senior analyst for Miercom network
consultancy and test center for
Communications News.
For more information
(click here)
Four IPT factors to
consider
IP telephony (IPT) offers many advantages
compared to time- division multiplexing PBX
systems, including improved multimodal
connectivity, easier integration with
wireless devices, better business-continuity
capability and support for the virtual
office. IP also supports newer open
protocols such as SIP to support advanced
multimodal capabilities, but vendor
extensions to this protocol limit its
interoperability.
Because of this, IPT systems remain
proprietary–aside from a few exceptions of
open source servers–and operate more
effectively when networked with equipment
from the same vendor. Therefore,
standardizing on one vendor’s solution
should be considered, says Forrester
Research consultant Elizabeth Herrell, to
support a single system image across the
network and to improve the system’s
manageability. "Although IPT provides a
superior architecture for unified
communications (UC) platforms," she adds,
"implementing UC on both legacy PBX systems
and IPT systems is possible.
Herrell says IT infrastructure and
operations managers should also consider the
following factors when evaluating IPT
solutions:
Data requirements. Vendors have
specific guidelines on data network
requirements, and costs to meet these
standards should be included in every
evaluation. Hardware and software versions
of networking products need to support
IPT–security and quality-of-service upgrades
are essential.
Voice requirements. Voice traffic
can affect the network’s operation, and
understanding call volumes and calling
patterns across sites is important.
Additionally, include assessments of all
voice applications such as voice mail,
contact centers, conferencing and video to
determine how they affect bandwidth and
security requirements.
Collaboration requirements.
Consider the integration of voice
applications with collaboration software
from Microsoft and IBM for e-mail, calendars
and instant messaging. Moreover, consider a
plan for integrating voice on PCs and other
devices.
System management. IPT requires
knowledge of both the data network and voice
traffic on the network. Upgrade
network-management applications to support
voice on a 24/7 basis, and monitor voice
traffic. Most vendors support partners that
offer comprehensive network-management
services, so consider their services if
internal expertise in this area is lacking.