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UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS
As 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.

An interactive eGuide

Tips on SIP trunking and managing virtual performance

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Mobile applications lay bare the IT/telephony divide

MAYBE ITS TIME TO THROW OUT YOUR PBX

Even if telephony scares you, its time to get serious about unified communications

STUDY: BIAS, RIVALRIES CAN THREATEN UC DEPLOYMENTS

Contention and biases among technology and business factions can derail the deployment 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. Cloud computing may be the savior of true unified communications

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

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EXPERT ADVICE

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Tips on SIP trunking and managing virtual performance
While weve 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-sponsored papers. These papers focus on some tips from Integrated Research, and are called Managing Multi-Vendor UC and Collaboration in a Virtual World and from Verizon Business and Cisco SIP Trunking Addressing the Hidden Costs of Telephony Networks. Cisco and Verizon Business have partnered on a white paper discussing SIP trunking, beginning with the premise that some of the hidden costs of traditional TDM (time division multiplexing) phone networks are becoming apparent because these traditional networks are location-oriented, need physical provisioning, maintenance, and management at the site of the voice access lines thus making TDM systems inefficient and costly. A more efficient solution in the form of SIP trunking takes advantage of IP broadband connectivity, combining multiple voice circuits with data networks. According to the paper, a recent study estimates companies that adopt SIP trunking 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 locations. SIP trunking also provides a platform and protocol that can add a variety of business-enhancing applica-

By Larry Hettick, Network World

tions and services to boost employee efficiency. SIP trunking has become increasingly important as a natural part of the evolution of VoIP networks. A free copy of the SIP Trunking paper is available at www.webtorials.com/content/2011/06/hidden-coststelephony-networks.html. Integrated Research has provided some advice on how to manage unified communications 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, its critical to know that its up to the job. When a guest running a continuity-critical application 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-

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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 indicators 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 resources and to Webtorials for making them available. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.

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MARKET TREND

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Mobile applications lay bare the IT/telephony divide
The growing demand for mobile applications is set to challenge the apprehension that enterprise telephony buyers have toward open source telephony offerings. As IT departments strive to meet new mobile application requirements, they will play a role in driving open source and cloud telephony adoption within enterprises. enterprise. This historical separation 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 Ive since seen this reality play out. Open source telephony solutions are not new. However, for enterprise telephony buyers, 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 its 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 sympathize with enterprise telephony buyers risk aversion, their decisions end up restricting how IT departments can respond to user demands for innovative applications around communications.

By Savio Rodrigues, InfoWorld

browsers. In time, the majority of enterprises will follow suit. These mobile applications will be communicationsenabled from the start. Thus, well see a couple kinds of applications 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 personalization information, and jointly browse through the

NEXT -GENERATION MOBILE APPLICATIONS DEMAND COMMUNICATIONS ENABLEMENT

As mobile Web application usage grows, the first step for most businesses will be to deliver todays desktop browser application on a mobile browser. But forward-thinking IT departments and enterprises will look instead to deliver a class of applications beyond those currently available on desktop

THE IT -VERSUSTELEPHONY DIVIDE

IT and telephony departments are often separate departments, if not fiefdoms, within an

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sales lead data online while speaking over the phone. A mobile retailer application that lets buyers coshop 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 applications will require a degree of telephony flexibility that enterprise telephony buyers arent likely to be comfortable delivering based on their risk-adverse nature. So whats an IT department to do?

OPEN SOURCE AND CLOUD TELEPHONE TO THE RESCUE

An 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 dont have to trouble themselves with keeping a telephony infrastructure 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 enterprises existing telephony infrastructure without actually having to involve the telephony department in the ap-

plication development process. I am not proposing that IT circumvent the telephony department in the long run. However, I am suggesting IT departments consider applying the lessons of grassroots open source adoption: Its 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 enterprise telephony products; that would be a fools 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 communicationsenabled application generating revenue for the enterprise will go a long way toward convincing telephony departments to augment their telephony infrastructures with open source and cloud offerings. As a user, I can hardly wait. This column doesnt necessarily represent IBMs positions, strategies, or opinions.

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EXPERT ADVICE

ENTERPRISE WINDOWS: MAYBE ITS TIME TO THROW OUT YOUR PBX

Even if telephony scares you, its time to get serious about unified communications
By J. Peter Bruzzese, InfoWorld
Im 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 its worth considering, even if it means purchasing additional telephony hardware. However, going to the next level beyond unified messaging and into unified communications involves deploying Microsoft Communications Server. Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Microsofts Unified Communications Group, made some predictions about the future of communications 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 client will enable [unified communications] with more than 1 billion people. Its hard for folks to break with traditional hardwarebased phone systems that include desktop phones and legacy PBXes. Plus, many IT administrators are leery of implementing new communication technologies when they arent comfortable with the telephony side. I always encourage Exchange administrators to seek out their telephony guru or team of gurus before implementing unified messaging, 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 todays PBXes belong in a museum; they are already artifacts of the past. When you think about the purpose of Communications Server (and Microsoft Communicator, for that matter), perhaps you are stuck in the past a bit. You see, Exchange 2000 included an instant messaging app that was dropped in 2003 and moved into a separate product called Live Communications Server. Thus,

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WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

you might think of Communicator and Communications Server as an IM-only tool with presence functionality. You might even regard it as an inhouse Skype solution. However, its feature set is evolving to include full enterprise telephony. Communicator is a soft phone thats becoming sleeker with each release, but it isnt the only way to work with

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

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 availability status is an important part of collaboration. To support 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 users whereabouts can be automatically detected from the subnet to which the user is connected or from the nearest wireless access point. (Users can establish customized locations and control the publishing of this information, so there is a modicum

of privacy.) Gurdeep predicts the rise of more connected communications, saying that in three years, 75 percent of new business applications will include natively embedded communications. Obviously, decision makers and IT personnel need to keep that in mind. Three years ago, Microsoft shared its vision for the future of business communications with

desire to establish a unifiedcommunication-, softwarecentric solution. Given how that future is shaping up, I have no doubt that Gurdeeps 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 connectivity will hurt, rather than enhance, collaboration within your environment?

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MARKET STUDY

STUDY: BIAS, RIVALRIES CAN THREATEN UC DEPLOYMENTS

Contention and biases among technology and business factions can derail the deployment of unified communications systems, according to a study.
Contention and biases among technology and business factions can derail the deployment of unified communications (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, according to The Unified Communications 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 solutions, with each deployment having unique sets of inefficiencies, he says in the report. He describes six factions that enter into UC decisions and names their vendor biases, 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 professionals: IBM, Microsoft. End users employing consumer conferencing: Skype, GoToMeeting. To get around this problem, he recommends an overarching 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 project team. Inventory current UC assets.

By Tim Greene, Network World

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 fiveyear roadmap that will streamline critical integration points and reduce SIP session managers. Enlist UC champions to identify and herald UC successes.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

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The education sector continues to face budget uncertainty, teacher layoffs and cuts in services.
In the current economic climate, the education sector continues to face budget uncertainty, teacher layoffs and cuts in services. In my home state, California, the situation is quite dire. School administrators face unprecedented 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 delivery of a modern curriculum across an institution, teachers and staff must be able to collaborate effectively with peers, students, and parents. The methods for collecting and distributing information have changed dramatically since I was in school. For instance, 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 courses now exist using online and Web conferencing technology. Unified communications not only supports all these changes, but drive their success, helping schools improve services across remote locations, reduce costs through cheaper calls and become more efficient by streamlining outreach. They also foster an educational 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

By Dale Tonogai, Computerworld

manage complex IT systems, and need technology that will easily integrate with what they already have simply because they dont have the budget for a costly rip and replace. Schools should not be spending 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 parents to understand and use. When I was in school, leaving a note or hanging around a

apply for tuition assistance. Furthermore, innovations in the classroom lead to innovations in the outside world. Students who know how to collaborate and communicate effectively are better positioned to be productive in the workplace. In addition to budget cuts, however, schools face a number 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

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UNIFYING THE FUTURE AND THE NOW

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

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.

massive manual. Unified communications also offers many important efficiency benefits to school administration 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 sophisticated applications for emergency notification and preparedness, directing first responders to the exact scene of

an event, and notifying multiple tions that give them, and our personnel at once. children, a powerful connecAs communication channels tion to the future. continue to merge with media Unified communications is not channels, and tools such as a panacea for the budget woes video, instant messaging and faced by many educational instiWeb conferencing bring impor- tutes today, but it can help. tant learning opportunities into the classroom, schools need Dale Tonogai is VP of Engineerflexible and affordable UC solu- ing at ShoreTel.

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MARKET TREND

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS
While telephony is, of course, a core component of any business 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 playing an increasingly important role in corporate UC projects, the issue of network capacity takes centre stage. There are more than 2 million Aussies with less than a 2Mbps broadband connection; those users frankly cant join a high definition video call, says Microsoft Australia Lync marketing 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 Australias 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-

Cloud computing may be the savior of true unified communications

ability, reach and better pricing is going to make the [UC] market more competitive. iVision recently completed a detailed survey of its existing clients experiences and future plans around UC, reporting that most had realized tangible benefits and were therefore keen to make further investments in the technology, especially around video conferencing. Cisco predicts that by 2014, some 90 percent of all network 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 manage the transition. To support 1080p video on the fly you need decent software as well as hardware, he says, stressing that organizations will need a richness of intelligence to handle high resolution video content. In the early days of UC deployment it was accepted that key to a successful solution were detailed session initiated protocol (SIP) libraries in order

By David Binning, CIO

for people to be tracked and contacted over the network. However, in another, albeit 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 become increasingly commoditized, predicts Gartner Australia research vice-president, Geoff Johnson. Most big companies are scared because theyve spent

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TEXTING BY ANOTHER NAME

capex, and heres 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

We are starting to see the value of IM in the corporate environment, whereby the technology is actually endorsed, rather than merely tolerated.
Marc Englaro, managing director, Fonality Australia

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 environment, whereby the technology 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 organizations that have invested heavily in upgrading their PBX and other communication systems, is that this stuff is virtually free.

The piece of plastic on your desktop will probably one day go away altogether, Englaro predicts. Its certainly the iVision chief executive officer, Graham Williams direction we see things going.

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