Unifying Communications

Businesses can revolutionize employee communications, boost productivity and cut IT costs by combining voice, video and data onto the same network.

72 The long-anticipated trend of unified communications is senior consultant Bob Gaughan. now a reality. For most employees, it takes several days to set up conference calls For nearly a decade, network equipment manufacturers because it takes time for everyone to respond to voice or e-mail have touted the concept of convergence, in which voice, messages, according to a study by analyst firm Forrester Research, in video and data travel on the same corporate network. Cambridge, Mass. Unified communications allows employees to set Voice over IP (VoIP) has seen the most rapid adoption up audio or video conferences much faster because the technology is as IP telephony products have matured in recent years. connected to calendaring software, allowing employees to quickly check Now, networking companies believe video conferencing people’s schedules. People can now set up conference calls with just a and other unified communications applications are few mouse clicks. poised to take off. Unified communications also saves money. By using softphones, PC The goal is to seamlessly integrate all forms of communication and software that allows users to make calls using their office phone number, collaboration with phones, PCs and PDAs (personal digital assistants). traveling employees save an average of $1,727 a month because they That way, employees can turn their PCs into their office phone, or use don’t have to depend on cell phones or hotel phones to make calls, the their PCs and IP phones to conduct video conferences. The find-me/ Sage study shows. In addition, companies can reduce conference-call follow-me feature allows workers to route calls from their office phones costs by 30 percent because they no longer need to subscribe to third- to their cell or home phones, while unified messaging allows them to party service providers, the study finds. listen to their voice mails or check through their e-mail software. A third cost savings comes from the fact that a unified network is easier With instant-messaging (IM) software, employees can check their and less expensive to manage, says Imran Abbas, CDW’s manager for coworkers’ “presence,” meaning they can check their availability, solutions architecting. location and phone status, making it easier to reach them. Employees who instant message each other can quickly turn the online chat into a Bandwidth Requirements phone call with a click of a button. Video conferencing is starting to gain traction because video quality has improved and because it allows employees in different offices, “Unified communications is about making the user experience as particularly those in international companies, to see each other during consistent as possible across multiple devices and across various conference calls, Abbas says. networks,” says Christian Stegh, ’s practice leader for the North America Region in IP telephony and emerging technologies. “Our goal But because video and IP telephony are bandwidth-intensive applications, is to give people the same access to communication features no matter companies may need to upgrade or redesign their corporate networks to where they are or what device they are on — an office desk phone ensure Quality of Service (QoS) and uptime, says Anthony Annexy, CDW’s connected to the LAN, a notebook connected to a DSL (digital subscriber LAN/WAN specialist. line) in a hotel room or a cell phone in an airport.” “Networks require switches that support the QoS and 802.1p standards Networking companies have spent the last few years fine-tuning their to give voice and video traffic priority over data traffic,” he says. unified communications solutions and say these products are ready for prime time. Recent studies show the technology leads to more “To boost performance and security, many customers also use Layer effective communications between employees, resulting in time savings 3 switches, so they can use subnets or virtual LANs (VLANs) to and cost savings. segment voice and video from the normal data traffic on the network,” Annexy explains. “The technology has progressively become more elegant,” says Rick Moran, Cisco’s vice president of unified communications marketing. While Fast Ethernet (100Mbps) connections may work, upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) switches, which offer 1-gigabit-per-second Benefits of Convergence speeds, can enhance performance. “Voice and video are two applications Unified communications save employees an average of 32 minutes a day that are greatly assisted by having Gigabit Ethernet pipes throughout the because it lets them know the best way to reach coworkers and allows network,” he says. them to reach them on their first attempt, according to a study by Sage Research in Boston. Unified messaging also saves employees an average Networks will also need switches that support Power over Ethernet of 43 minutes a day because it allows them to manage their e-mails, (PoE), which powers desktop IP phones through Ethernet ports, CDW’s voice mails and faxes from one inbox, the study shows. Abbas says. CDW offers network assessment services, where technical specialists go on site to survey and make sure networks can handle the “It facilitates communications and makes people more productive,” says extra workload from a converged network, he says. »

Unified Communications 73 Cisco Solutions • Cisco Unified CallManager: software that handles telephony features and Vendors offer IP desktop phones, softphones and wireless IP phones, which can support telecommuters, mobile workers and multiple office locations. allow employees to roam around the office and stay connected through a The software, available for medium- and large-sized businesses, supports Wi-Fi network. conference calls and integrates with Outlook address books, allowing users to click employees’ names to dial their numbers. ’ product portfolio offers everything needed to deploy unified communications, from networking equipment to Web cams for video • Cisco Unity Unified Messaging: integrates voice mail with e-mail and faxes. For conferencing. Cisco’s products support the Session Initiation Protocol example, users can listen to their e-mail over the phone or check their voice (SIP), a communications standard for IP-based calls and other mail through their e-mail application. multimedia communications. • Cisco Unified MeetingPlace: offers audio, video and Web conferencing. Users can According to Cisco’s Moran, the family of unified communications products easily set up conferences through Cisco Unified IP phones, features four main pieces: software, Web browsers and through and Lotus Notes.

74 • Cisco Unified Contact Center: allows businesses to incorporate call-center documents over the Web. capabilities to its IP telephony and unified communications solutions. The MCS 5100 supports Nortel’s IP phones and any SIP-enabled device including Customers can deploy the four solutions all at once or separately, Moran says. wireless PDAs. The company’s family of IP phones includes the Nortel IP Phone 2007, featuring a touch-screen color display that supports streaming video Avaya Offerings and Web surfing. Nortel also offers PC communications software that allows Avaya offers a comprehensive suite of Internet telephony and unified employees to use MCS 5100’s unified communications features. communications products for businesses of all sizes.

For medium- and large-sized enterprises, Avaya offers Communication Manager, which is the company’s flagship call-processing software. Communication Manager runs on a range of “media servers,” hardware that manages and routes calls, as well as manages IP phones. Supplement The company’s MultiVantage Express, which is aimed at medium-sized businesses, is an all-in-one solution that incorporates Communication Manager along with the firm’s S8500 Media Server, and can support between 100 to 500 your IT capabilities users, says Alan Klein, Avaya’s senior corporate systems engineer. MultiVantage Express includes unified communications features such as find-me/follow-me services, unified messaging and conference calling. with technology

“MultiVantage Express puts everything onto a common hardware platform and is simpler and much quicker to deploy,” Klein explains. “Everything is integrated, services so customers get unified communications as a part of the bundle.” Last summer, Avaya introduced a new set of “one-X” unified communications from CDW products and applications that work with its IP-based equipment, Stegh says.

The one-X Mobile product lets users route their office calls to their cell phones and provides them with enterprise communication features such as transfer, hold and conference calling. The one-X Deskphone edition is Avaya’s next-generation In addition, Nortel has partnered with Microsoft and has integrated its IP telephones featuring improved voice quality and an optimized interface for Communications Server 1000 with Microsoft Office Live Communications Server more intuitive phone navigation. 2005, in an offering that’s called Converged Office for Communication Server 1000. The offering integrates Nortel’s business-grade telephony with Microsoft’s Avaya also introduced one-X Desktop edition, Windows-based PC software that desktop collaboration and communications systems in a SIP. uses SIP to allow users to make phone calls, view the presence of colleagues and send instant messages, Stegh says. CDW’s Role CDW’s team of certified technology specialists can assist customers in choosing The company also sells the H.323-based Avaya IP Softphone for voice calls, and configuring an IP telephony and unified communications system that instant messaging and video conferences. The IP Softphone integrates with best fits their needs and budgets, says Bryan Cohen, a CDW senior Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access solutions specialist. Protocol) directories, allowing users to click and dial from their contact lists. “Customers come to CDW for their telephony and unified communications needs Nortel Products because they trust us and because we’ve proven to them that our service level is Nortel offers a family of IP telephony products that include Business excellent and product knowledge is best of breed,” Cohen says. Communication Manager for mid-sized businesses and the Communication Server 1000 and 2100 for large enterprises. In fact, when talking to customers, Cohen not only guides them through the telephony and unified communications products, but he also conferences in Nortel has a number of approaches to unified communications. One is the a CDW LAN/WAN specialist to make sure customers’ existing networks can Multimedia Communication Server (MCS) 5100, an all-in-one product that handle the extra bandwidth that voice and unified communications requires. features IP telephony, audio and video conferencing, instant messaging and presence, Gaughan says. It also allows Web collaboration, where people “I will bring in a LAN/WAN specialist on a call to assure that the customer has can co-browse Web sites, draw on a whiteboard together or send the LAN infrastructure they need,” he says. ◊

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