Yankee Group White Paper Sip Trunking Uc
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This document discusses how unified communications (UC) can accelerate business transformation by allowing organizations to communicate and collaborate more effectively. It outlines the key benefits of UC, such as lower total cost of ownership through infrastructure simplification and reduced long-distance charges. The document also notes that while early cost savings were a main driver for UC adoption, its true potential is in fundamentally changing business processes and building long-term competitive advantage through improved productivity, collaboration and customer service. SIP trunking can play an important role in UC deployments by further lowering costs and simplifying network design.
Yankee Group White Paper Sip Trunking Uc
- 1. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments by Zeus Kerravala, Senior Vice President | February 2009 Executive Summary Companies today are undergoing a significant transformation to a more global Anywhere Enterprise™. Unified communications (UC) is a crucial component in this evolution and organizations look to collaborate better with an extended enterprise (see Exhibit 1 on the next page). UC has the power to help companies lower the overall cost of communications, bring worker productivity to new levels, enhance corporate green initiatives and completely redefine the way we work by becoming part of our application infrastructure. However, the deployment of UC is not without its challenges. Too often, organizations go down the path of deploying new technology with old technology principles in mind and UC is no different. Many of the early adopter deployments of VoIP and UC were designed exactly the same as the old systems, severely limiting the overall value of UC, which is a highly flexible, IP-based solution. Migrating from traditional trunk lines to SIP trunking is a very simple, cost-effective change to open doors to other advanced services that can enhance a UC deployment. SIP trunking will allow companies to recognize the following benefits: • Dramatically lower the overall cost of communications • Extends UC to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and other cloud-based options • Accelerates UC deployments through the simplification of network design • Easier migration to other advanced services such as mobile integration and MPLS networks This report introduces the reader to UC, outlines the benefits of UC and highlights some of the challenges in deployment. The report also introduces the reader to SIP trunking and how it can play a key role in accelerating the deployment of UC as well as provides recommendations on how to evaluate SIP trunking providers and some thoughts for initial deployment. This custom publication has been sponsored by Sprint and Nortel. © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 2. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 Unified Communications Defined 3 II. The Business Benefits of Unified Communications 4 Lower Total Cost of Ownership 5 Increased Worker Productivity 6 UC Is Creating Communications-Enabled Business Processes 6 III. Adoption of Unified Communications 7 IV. Overview of SIP Trunking 9 Understanding SIP Trunking 9 What to Consider in a Solutions Provider 9 V. Sprint Nextel + Microsoft + Nortel = A Case Study in Success 10 Benefits to Sprint 11 VI. Conclusions and Recommendations 12 Exhibit 1. Communications in the Anywhere Enterprise Source: Yankee Group, 2009 E-Mail Pager Mobile Phone Desktop Video Audio Conferencing Your Business Web Conferencing Suppliers Back Front Customers Fax SCM ERP CRM Office Office Employees Collaboration Voice Mail Software Messaging Software Laptop 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 9 W E R T Y U I O 0 Q P + - = : ' " * / D F G H J K @ A S L ; ? , $ $ . — X C V B N M CAP Z SYMBOL PDA Phone Room-Based Video 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 9 W E R T Y U I O 0 Q P + - = : ' " * / D F G H J K @ A S L ; ? , $ $ . — X C V B N M CAP Z SYMBOL 2 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 3. February 2009 I. Introduction UC consists of the following communications tools: Organizations have torn down their corporate walls and are • IP telephony/VoIP: VoIP enables companies to use the moving toward Yankee Group’s vision of becoming an Anywhere corporate data network for phone calls rather than having Enterprise. That is a global company that is networked together and a dedicated network just for telephone service. Historically, comprises a variety of constituents. Employees, partners, suppliers VoIP was considered by many organizations as the foundation and customers are all important components of an Anywhere of UC. However, during the past year presence and desktop Enterprise for virtually anytime, virtually anywhere access to people integration have been elevated to being critical to the success and information. And their need to communicate faster and more of UC. collaboratively over a variety of devices or mediums is greater than ever. • Presence: This is the ability for users to understand another Over time, organizations have deployed a myriad of communications user’s availability and willingness to communicate over a tools and devices to help people communicate better with variety of devices. This is common today for instant messaging one another. These include telephony systems, conferencing, applications, but it will quickly be used to understand a user’s collaboration tools and e-mail. Although these devices address the status on phones, wireless devices, video conferencing and need for faster communications, few of them are linked together. other collaborative tools. Additionally, presence can be This creates a manageability headache for the worker and prohibits extended to objects such as alarm systems, medical devices the organization from reaching its full potential. and even documents. To achieve their full potential, organizations require the ability to • Mobile client: Enterprise mobility is rapidly becoming a key communicate and collaborate better. Competitive advantage is driver for UC. A mobile client will be what mobilizes a UC no longer about any single person or core capability. The entire platform and puts the desktop in the hands of mobile users, extended enterprise and the ability of each of its constituents to which makes up 40 percent of the workforce. The holy grail communicate and collaborate with other in real time forms the of mobility will be when a worker can seamlessly access UC basis of competitive advantage today. This presents a challenge for applications anytime, on any device. workers to reach more people in shorter periods of time with the • Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC): FMC enables a worker right information at their fingertips. Organizations have turned to to seamlessly move calls between the desktop and the mobile unified communications (UC) as a method of meeting this challenge. phone for voice call continuity. As the mobile workforce Those UC enterprise customers with carriers who have deployed IP grows, the ability to provide mobile integration will become a multimedia subsystems (IMS) services will find additional savings in key decision point for organizations evaluating UC solutions. call routing and PSTN access reduction. Also, UC is now the vehicle upon which integrated wireless solutions can attach. Up to this • Integrated multimedia conferencing: Conferencing point, wireless integration was often a stand-alone and sometimes applications have existed for a number of years, but only expensive adjunct to an IP PBX. recently have the solutions become integrated into UC solutions. Within the Yankee Group taxonomy, the following Unified Communications Defined services are included: UC brings all of a company’s communications and collaborative • Video conferencing: Long known as a nice-to-have, video tools together. It is the convergence of all forms of audio, video, has become one of the main applications driving UC Web and desktop communications that is built on an IP network deployments. Quality and ease of use have improved dramatically that breaks down all distance, time and media barriers. This enables allowing more users to take advantage of video communications. people to communicate with each other virtually anywhere, any time, over any device. UC improves the manageability and effectiveness of the ecosystem and makes the enterprise more responsive and agile, which enables it to ultimately gain an advantage over the competition. © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 3
- 4. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments • Web conferencing: This form of conferencing has become II. The Business Benefits of Unified popular within the last five years, due largely in part to ease Communications of use and accessibility. Audio and Web conferencing have been the most widely adopted forms of converged conferencing. UC is valuable on many levels. It is one of the few technologies that can fulfill on the promise of any IT project. Specifically, UC can: • Audio conferencing: The more mature form of conferencing, audio conferencing through the use of bridge lines is still the • Lower total cost of ownership most widely adopted form of conferencing. However, as this • Increase worker productivity space evolves, we will see audio become more integrated into other forms of conferencing. Deploying an audio • Create new efficient business processes conferencing system that is integrated into a UC solution • Improve customer satisfaction instead of using a telco-based bridge service has been one of the most widely adopted components of UC. Yankee Group Each of these is described in greater detail further in this section. research has seen companies recoup the investment in as little as six months by shedding expensive bridge services. Over time, the focus of the value proposition has changed. A few years ago the primary driver for VoIP and UC revolved around cost • IP network: An IP network is required to deliver the savings. Though cost savings still remains a big part of the decision information and communications to users. IP is the only to move to UC, especially in a tough economic climate like we protocol that is scalable and simple enough to make the have today, the real potential is as a foundation for fundamentally vision of UC a reality; it will be the common network for changing business and building long-term competitive advantage the deployment of all communications systems. Although IP (see Exhibit 2). is a dynamic, scalable technology it does require on going optimization. Management of a network life cycle is critical As described earlier, organizations will get value from UC in the now as more applications are running on the network. following ways. Exhibit 2. The All-Around Value of UC Source: Yankee Group, 2009 Unified Communications Competitive Advantage Unified Messaging Streamline Business Processes Voice over IP IT Process Improvement Instant Messaging Enterprise Audio Conferencing TCO Benefits 4 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 5. February 2009 Lower Total Cost of Ownership • Reduction of network costs: Historically, when organizations deploy voice technology it is done on a node- Over the years, companies have added to the portfolio of by-node basis. This means each office or branch locations corporate communications by deploying silo applications that needs its own PBX equipment as well as its own trunk to address one specific method of communicating. The traditional the public switch telephone network (PSTN), no matter desk phone, e-mail platform, mobile phone, video system and how small the office is. This can be a terribly expensive way other communications tools provide great value, but each of these to deploy communications to an organization with multiple systems exists on its own and does not interoperate with any offices. IP-based communications, such as UC, allows the other corporate application. Obviously, having to manage each services to be deployed centrally in the corporate data one of these tools discretely drives up the cost of the tool because center and then distributed over the companies private of redundant networks and hardware, separate management WAN allowing for reduced cost and greater efficiency of the tools and expensive support contracts for maintenance, and infrastructure. Additionally, the ability to repurpose and reuse administration of the voice systems. existing networks adds to the costs savings as well. Because of this, cost savings remains the No. 1 driver for UC • Lower maintenance costs: PBX maintenance is typically rollouts (see Exhibit 3). very expensive and comprises many factors. Maintaining the hardware itself normally requires periodic upgrades, The Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 U.S. Fixed- which often require a field technician to perform. Also, user Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey revealed that 41 management is often done by the PBX vendor or a local percent of respondents cited lower costs as the No. 1 reason to interconnect. Unlike a PC or IP phone, a user cannot simply deploy UC. The main methods of lowering costs using UC are pick up the phone and move it to a new location and have it the following: work. A third party must come in and reconfigure the PBX when a user moves, is added or removed from the system. In an IP environment, most of the maintenance costs go away. In fact, with a software-based approach even the hardware Exhibit 3. maintenance would be completely eliminated. UC Deployment Drivers Source: Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 US Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey What are the top three reasons why you would implement new mobility and IP communications technologies and services? Lower Costs 41 Provide Access to Information 27 Improve Customer Relationship 27 Modernize Communication Systems 26 Better Manage Communication Services 25 Increase Collaboration 24 Improve Customer Service 22 Support Remote Workers 22 Enhance Security 16 Enable More Remote Workers 16 Create/Automate New Business Processes 14 Improve Work/Life Balance 11 No Near-Term Plans to Implement 3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Percent of Respondents n=344 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 5
- 6. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments • Reduced long-distance calls: In a typical deployment on multiple systems. The worker then must retrieve information model of traditional communications, most companies spent from all of these systems, which can waste a significant amount of a fortune in long-distance calls between offices for employee- time. Most workers waste a huge amount of time trying to manage to-employee communications. An IP-based system deployed information to and from other workers. A series of one-on-one over a corporate WAN makes these on-net calls essentially interviews with employees that spend more than 20 percent of free. Aside from the monthly fees for the core services, these their time away from their primary workplace revealed that mobile calls do not incur any additional costs since the corporate workers spend about 25 percent of their time simply retrieving WAN is usually a fixed recurring cost for the bandwidth and or leaving information using the various communications tools—a voice calls are treated as data similar to any other data need. huge time waster that most workers cannot afford. UC creates Additionally, when making a call to a person off the network, a single interface into all of a worker’s communications tools and companies can design the system to automatically route the users can set preference to inform others which is the best way to call from the cheapest possible location. For example, if a communicate with them. US based worker were placing a call to a UK number, the Overall, UC can help workers be more productive by reducing the call would traverse the private corporate network to the net amount of “human latency” involved in communicating with company’s UK office where it would be routed as a local call. each other. Yankee Group studies have seen companies reduce long- distance costs significantly by using VoIP. An IT manager from UC Is Creating Communications-Enabled a large global law firm stated, “We began our VoIP rollout last Business Processes year and we saw about a 70 percent reduction in long-distance toll charges. Instead of using the PSTN for calls, the calls have Over time, UC components will be embedded into applications been replaced with a combination of VoIP calls and instant rather than being stand-alone applications. This will give rise to messenger.” a new way of working utilizing communications-enabled business processes (CEBP) to provide increased customer satisfaction. These are the three main categories of cost savings for companies A CEBP is a process in which much of the communications flow who choose to deploy UC. Depending on how the deploying has been optimized or fully automated removing all of the human organization wants to change the way people work, there are latency that exists today for immediate access to resolve customer other cost savings to be gained such as reduction in office space issues. For example, in a typical hospital environment a patient by allowing more workers to telecommute, more efficient use of condition may trigger an alarm. A clinician sitting at a central IT time or even a reduction in IT staff and savings related to green monitoring station would then see the alarm and look through initiatives. However, even the most conservative of companies will some papers that would indicate who the responsible doctor or find significant cost savings through the deployment of UC. nurse is. Then that doctor or nurse would need to be located or paged to respond to the issue. If the person is not available then Increased Worker Productivity the individual who is at the monitoring station would then need to As mentioned earlier, the historical focus of UC was to help manually look through a skills database to identify who the best companies reduce the overall cost of communications. During the individuals are, determine which ones are available and then begin past few years though, the value proposition for UC has shifted to the process all over again. Obviously, this kind of human delay in a increasing worker productivity. Much of this is through being able hospital could have life-or-death consequences. to make finding and communicating with someone a much simpler task by having a single interface to all of a worker’s communications tools. In today’s environment, it’s common for a worker to have a mobile phone, e-mail application, multiple instant messaging clients, desk phone, home office phone and other communications tools such as audio or Web conferencing. Someone trying to locate this person would often have no idea which is the best way to reach this worker and leaves multiple messages for the worker 6 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 7. February 2009 Using a CEBP built on UC, the monitoring system would III. Adoption of Unified Communications automatically trigger an alert that is sent to a nurse’s or doctor’s mobile handheld devices. If there is no response in a defined period Despite the excitement of UC, adoption remains spotty for a of time, the system would look through the skills database and variety of reasons. Many companies perceive UC to be the next identify the best person whose presence status is set to “available” step after VoIP, which means that the UC rollout will come after and then contact that individual with a text message, automated VoIP. The Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 U.S. voice message, instant message, e-mail or any other medium that is Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey showed that set as a preference. In this particular example there was no human while approximately 85 percent of organizations have VoIP deployed interaction needed to find and engage the best person, meaning the somewhere in the organization, only about 10 percent have it patient gets the best possible care in as short a time as possible. deployed across the organization. This means UC is still to come for many companies. Companies heading down this path should actually Organizations that are willing to streamline or create new rethink this decision and make VoIP part of the UC rollout instead business process with UC at the center will find that workers can of a separate implementation. reach new levels of productivity by having faster access to more information and more people. CEBPs not only boost individual Another reason why UC adoption has been slow to date is that employee productivity, but also streamline an entire organization’s the definition of UC is very broad so almost all companies have day-to-day operations. deployed one or more of the components of UC without having a formal UC rollout under way. Exhibit 4 shows that the majority of applications that would fall under the UC umbrella are related to conferencing. In-house audio, Web and room-based video conferencing all show very high penetration rates, and unified messaging also shows a deployment of more than half the install base. Exhibit 4. UC Adoption Current Revolves Around Conferencing Source: Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 U.S. Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey Which of the following UC applications have you deployed? In-House Audio Conferencing 74 Web Conferencing 71 Room-Based Video Conferencing 59 Unified Messaging 53 (One Inbox for E-Mail, Voice Mail, Fax, etc.) Corporate Instant Messenger 48 Telecommuter Solutions 47 VoIP Applications Running on an IP Phone 44 (e.g., a Trader’s Application in the Financial Services) Soft Phones (PC-Based Phones) 41 Desktop Video Conferencing 41 Location-Based Services 40 Mobile Phone Integration 38 Desktop Application with Voice or 32 Communications Integrated into It Telepresence 28 Other Presence-Based Applications 23 (Other than IM) Speech Recognition Applications 19 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Percent of Respondents n=145 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 7
- 8. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments Questions related to total cost of ownership (TCO) and return One final reason that organizations have not aggressively rolled out on investment (ROI) are also reasons that companies haven’t UC is the complexity of the overall deployment. VoIP and UC aren’t aggressively rolled out UC because the value for both cost savings difficult to deploy if the right network services are in place and and increased productivity have been hard to quantify. Some of determining ahead of time which services a company would want to the cost savings are relatively easy to calculate if corporations support prior to the deployment of UC. The reasons deployments understand the calling patterns of the worker, understand how can get complex is that often many of the decisions around what workers collaborate and have kept good records of mobile usage. to do with the network, how to support mobile workers and However, without a solid baseline, few companies have the ability how to manage quality are all made after production deployment. to calculate the overall costs savings. The same can be true for Therefore, any changes need to be made in a “live” environment—a productivity benefits. Without a good understanding of how risky endeavor. Network managers should keep two main points in workers use communications as part of their everyday job, it’s mind when designing a network to support VoIP and UC. difficult to help those workers alter current business process or • A holistic approach to the network is required. That even augment it with UC to help boost productivity. However, more means the network manager needs to consider not only case studies and best practices are being developed every day, and the local-area network (LAN), but also the choice of WAN we believe that within the next 24 months companies deploying UC protocols, the last mile that is used to connect to the local will gain a significant advantage over competition. Not deploying UC phone system to the corporate network will create much greater risk to the organization than any risk or cost associate with deploying it. • Wireless integration need to be considered prior to deployment and not be an afterthought. With more and more workers becoming mobile, integration with mobile phones will be one of the keys to a successful deployment. Exhibit 5 shows that respondents believed that mobile phone integration will be one of the top three applications that create the biggest productivity boost. Exhibit 5. Productivity Benefits of UC Source: Yankee Group Anywhere Enterprise—Large: 2008 U.S. Fixed-Mobile Convergence/IP Communications Survey Which of the following unified communications applications do you feel will provide the most productivity improvement? Unified Messaging (One Inbox for E-Mail, Voice Mail, Fax, etc.) 30 Mobile Phone Integration 24 Telecommuter Solutions 24 Desktop Application with Voice or 18 Communications Integrated into it Desktop Video Conferencing 18 Corporate Instant Messenger 18 VoIP Applications Running on an IP Phone 15 (e.g., a Trader’s Application in the Financial Services) Soft Phones (PC-Based Phones) 15 Room-Based Video Conferencing 11 In-House Audio Conferencing 11 Location-Based Services 10 Speech Recognition Applications 8 Telepresence 8 Other Presence-Based Applications 5 (Other than IM) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Percent of Respondents n=344 8 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 9. February 2009 To simplify the deployment of UC, maximize value and increase SIP trunking also allows organizations to extend VoIP past the adoption, network managers should consider Session Initiation physical LAN, where most of the deployments are today. This Protocol (SIP) trunking as a key to connecting to the advanced removes the need for organizations to purchase costly gateways, network services needed to have a successful implementation bridges or other equipment that help connect the corporate UC environment to the PSTN. That connectivity is done in the network IV. Overview of SIP Trunking of the network operator, which means the enterprise does not have SIP trunking services from network operators have been to incur the cost. commercially available on the market since 2005, but deployments Overall SIP trunking is a simple, cost-effective method of increasing have been limited for a couple of reasons. First, the overall the value of the UC rollout. Companies that choose to utilize SIP awareness of SIP trunking is relatively low. Yankee Group trunking will realize the following benefits. SIP trunking will: interviewed 20 network managers on an individual basis during the past year and only three of them fully understood what SIP trunking • Allow organizations to extend UC to the cloud and removes is and how it works. Second, the incumbent network operators the need for expensive gateways have been very passive in articulating the value proposition of SIP • Help companies dramatically lower the overall cost of the trunking to customers since the consolidation of multiple PSTN UC deployment trunks down to one SIP trunk greatly threatens to cannibalize the legacy TDM revenue stream of the incumbent operators. • Allow companies to eventually migrate to a SaaS-based offering if they choose to down the road Once network managers fully understand what SIP trunking is and the value it provides, connecting over this method will be one • Provide a gateway to other advanced services that can enhance of the easiest decisions involved in the deployment. However, UC such as wireless integration and MPLS networks understanding SIP trunking is the first step in overcoming this barrier. What to Consider in a Solutions Provider Understanding SIP Trunking Companies that have done their homework will find that the In traditional telephony, the local phone operator would deliver decision to use SIP trunking as a way to create a scalable, pain-free telephony services over a wire, or a “trunk,” that would connect deployment will find the decision an easy one. SIP trunking is the the corporate PBX to the PSTN. This physical trunk made up of most cost-effective method of doing this and creates scale far past multiple channels would carry the phone calls from the corporation what PSTN trunking can do. The question will then become which to the PSTN allowing the company to have phone service. SIP network operator is best and what should be considered when trunking allows companies to replace these physical cables with making the decision? While every situation is unique, the following “virtual SIP trunks” that are deployed over a data connection. This should be considered when deciding on SIP trunking provider. could be a dedicated line, a shared connection with a data service or companies can even use the Internet for connectivity. Best-in-Class Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Network SIP trunking can deliver much more value to a company than a traditional PSTN trunk. First, there’s no real limit to the number of One of the keys to deploying UC is maintaining quality across the user voice sessions that can be carried over a SIP trunk (other than WAN. SIP trunking can provide an IP-based connection to the bandwidth) where a traditional PSTN trunk limited the number of cloud, but the service provider still needs to maintain the quality calls to the number of channels available (typically 24 per trunk). across the cloud. This can only be done with a service provider SIP trunking scales by bandwidth. Need more calls to go through? that has an MPLS network that was built from an all-IP backbone. Increase the bandwidth of the connection instead of deploying Many network operators claim to have an MPLS network but in another physical one. Also, in addition to voice services, many of practicality it has been partially built on a layer two network or the the UC services can be more efficiently deployed over SIP. Chat deployments are not complete. A best-in-class MPLS network will services, presence, conferencing, application sharing and video can allow more of the critical UC services to be placed in a high-value all be delivered over SIP trunking. “class of service” to ensure quality. © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 9
- 10. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments Ownership of Both Wired and Wireless Assets None of the above criteria are more or less important than the other. All of them must be considered when choosing a SIP Mobile phone integration will be a key component of any UC trunking service provider that can act as a partner for the deploying deployment. An operator that owns only the wired or wireless organization. The right choice will ensure a successful UC rollout network can only provide half of the solution. Ownership of both can that saves money and boosts worker productivity. help minimize most potential issues surrounding mobile integration. V. Sprint Nextel + Microsoft + Nortel = A SIP Compliance and Commercial Availability Case Study in Success Almost every network operator out there will talk about SIP Sprint Nextel Corporation (Sprint), a telecommunications company trunking when asked about it. However, because of the large headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, offers a wide range of revenue stream associated with legacy services, incumbent communications services to consumers, business and government, operators will often try and steer customers away from SIP (e.g., mobile data services, instant national/international push to talk trunking. Often, it may make sense to use an alternate service and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone). Until recently, however, the provider for at least part, if not the majority of the deployment as company’s own internal communications systems were considerably an alternative provider is more likely to have a more robust SIP offering. less dynamic than the ones it offered to its own customers—a classic example of the cobbler’s children going without shoes. Strong Reference Design In Sprint’s case, the company’s aging traditional PBX infrastructure Obviously there is more to a successful deployment than just could not keep up with an increasingly mobile workforce. It turned SIP trunking services. How the SIP trunks connect to the MPLS to a UC solution to reduce the overall cost of ownership as well as network, overall network design and scale are all keys to a increase worker productivity. Sprint’s PBX deployment was a typical successful deployment. Any service provider that is going to be a multisite deployment with nearly 500 offices having their own viable network partner needs to have a strong, proven reference dedicated PBX to provide call control and two dedicated PRI trunks design from which to build the implementation on. to connect to the PSTN. Each location also had a dedicated WAN Broad Set of Managed and Professional Services connection for other corporate IP-based applications and Internet access. Most network managers that are looking at UC will never have been For voice calling, each call went out over one of the two PRI involved with a deployment like this before. To assist the enterprise trunks out to the PSTN, a typical configuration of traditional PBX- in having a successful UC deployment, the service provider needs based calling. All other corporate applications such as e-mail, ERP to have a robust set of managed and professional services than applications and other IP-based applications were centrally located can assist with the deployment across the entire deployment life in the Sprint headquarters and then delivered over the WAN to the cycle. From the initial design, testing, preparation, installation and branch locations. optimization, all need to be areas of expertise for the service provider. When Sprint decided to migrate to UC, it turned to Microsoft and Nortel who through their Innovative Communications Alliance Best-in-Class Partnerships with Premises Vendors (ICA) partnership offer a UC solution with tightly integrated call The focus of this report is how to utilize a set of critical network control, messaging, and productivity and collaboration apps. With services to have a successful UC deployment, but the solution still this set of tools, Sprint chose to deploy UC like any other corporate needs to interoperate with the premises equipment with which the IP-based application with the applications and voice call control service is built upon. The network operator needs to have world- hosted in the corporate data center. Each of the other almost 500 class partnerships with all of the major UC hardware and software offices would access UC from the data center over WAN. This providers to ensure the correct knowledge base and certifications would remove the need for all of the almost 1,000 PRI connections are in place to guarantee a painless implementation. being used to support calling from the offices. 10 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 11. February 2009 Sprint created the solution as follows: Exhibit 6 references only the costs savings that could be measured. In addition to these Sprint also realized the following qualitative • Microsoft OCS was deployed centrally in the Sprint HQ benefits: data center. This provided the users with all of the rich UC functions such as presence, chat, unified messaging and other • Higher overall system uptime: Historically, PBXs have capabilities. been very reliable—five-nines in most cases—so it was a common belief among IT executives in the industry that • Nortel Communication Server (CS) 2100 provided the moving to an IP-based system would only threaten that call control for voice dialing. Sprint also deployed Nortel’s reliability. By designing the network to be fully redundant multimedia conferencing server for conferencing services and through a combination of MPLS and wireless networking, Sprint a new corporate dialer for external users. Again, these servers can achieve six-nines of uptime, for virtually nonstop operations. were centrally located in the data center. • Better work/life balance: This is achieved by allowing • Sprint-based SIP trunking for connecting the nearly 500 offices workers to telecommute and create flexible work hours. A to the MPLS based WAN with the bandwidth of the SIP trunks centralized UC deployment would ensure that all employees being based upon the traffic needs. have access to the same applications and information no • Sprint-based MPLS network for connecting the branches to matter where they are located. Additionally, Sprint will be able the cloud to access the call control and to provide redundancy. to reduce office occupancy and space and lower commute times—two activities that can lower carbon emissions, making Benefits to Sprint UC a very “green” technology. Sprint realized many current and future benefits to this By deploying UC, Sprint was able to recognize significant cost implementation in both cost savings and productivity gains. Exhibit 6 savings, improve worker productivity and employee morale through outlines many of the main benefits to Sprint. the use of flexible work time and make Sprint an overall more green organization. Exhibit 6. UC Combined with SIP Trunking Benefits to Sprint Source: Yankee Group and Sprint, 2009 Amount Benefit Detail (per year) Savings Elimination of PBX Maintenance $1 Million Savings Travel Reduction $15 Million Savings Reduction in Project Completion Time $15 Million Savings Shortened Sales Cycle $5 Million Savings Reduced Toll and Conferencing Costs $1.8 Million Savings Removal of PRI with SIP Trunks $6 Million Improved Individual and Workgroup Improvement $20 Million Productivity* Through Collaboration *$20 million is an estimate from Sprint based on process improvement through the removal of human latency © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 11
- 12. SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments VI. Conclusions and Recommendations • Look to deploy a multivendor environment. There is no one single vendor that can deliver all things UC, and heading Deploying UC can help organizations lower cost as well as down the deployment path with a single vendor will probably improve worker productivity. If deployed strategically, it can also lead to problems down the road. Evaluators of UC solutions help companies redefine business processes and leapfrog the should look for vendor partnerships such as the Microsoft and competition. However, the deployment of UC should be a well Nortel Innovative Communications Alliance as a way to deliver thought out, strategically planned initiative that involves breaking best-of-breed functionality from multiple vendors. the status quo on traditional deployment models for communication services. With that in mind, companies looking to deploy UC should • Use managed and professional services to augment consider the following guidelines: the current skill set. Few companies have the necessary skills internally to complete a UC implementation. IT • Break the status quo and migrate to SIP trunking. organizations can augment their skill set by utilizing a partner- SIP trunking is a simple, cost-effective method of increasing managed or professional services offerings. This will help the value of the data network and leveraging any investment deliver the whole life cycle of UC while minimizing the risk already made in VoIP. SIP trunking can provide a simpler of having a new infrastructure that cannot be adequately migration path to UC and open the door to mobile integration supported by internal IT staff. and hosted services. • Think client/server when deploying UC. As companies plan their UC deployments, network managers should plan to eventually migrate the deployment to a client/server architecture. This means eventually the servers that enabled UC should be located in the corporate data center alongside all the other mission-critical applications such as ERP systems and databases. This type of architecture should be kept in mind whether it’s a greenfield deployment, the organization chooses to upgrade its existing PBXs as an interim step or in a “rip and replace” deployment model. • Start deploying UC immediately. Although many think that UC should be layered on top of VoIP, UC can be run with or without VoIP. Do not pass up on such benefits as presence, advanced messaging and collaboration applications, which can be recognized today with a hybrid (i.e., non-VoIP) UC deployment. Organizations should create a budget line item for UC where it is funded partially from the areas of mobility, telecom and voice and network infrastructure. This will allow companies to create a UC budget without having to commit new money to it. 12 © Copyright 2009. Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.
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