Enterprise Phone Systems: How to Build in Reliablity

TellyComm — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:26 +0000

Before VoIP technology, legacy phone systems had a reputation for being stable and reliable. Although comprised of many parts (station cards, trunk cards, application cards, shelves,cabinets,etc) these systems had no internal moving parts in their core and as a result lasted for many years. CPU’s and sub processors were hardware based and had a reputation for rock solid reliability. However, the trade off was a difficult and often times expensive upgrade path. In many cases the upgrade of a system required the expensive replacement of a hardware based CPU. This resulted in either high upgrade costs or aging telephone systems that did not recieve upgrades due to expense. In many cases companies owned reliable phone systems that, over time, became very outdated.

The Advent of Voice over IP

As VoIP technology emerged it was easy to see that server based phone systems would be easy to upgrade. Downloading the latest software release onto the phone system server is relatively easy (but not always inexpensive). Easy upgrades can equate to lower costs. However, servers pose another concern. Although servers are easy to update they contain a hard drive that will eventually fail. Many VoIP phone systems require multiple servers to support multiple applications such as unified messaging, voicemail, presense, paging, receptionist console, contact center, Outlook/Exchange Integration, T-1 connectivity and more.

Many buyers fail to take note of how many servers comprise their voice solution and therefore don’t realize how many points of failure they have in their voice network. In an enterprise voice deployment this situation is compounded as mutliple servers are added at each site. Servers can be made more reliable by being hardened or RAIDed but at a cost.

LONG TERM COST CONSIDERATIONS

Voice solution providers realize that servers have a reliable life span of three to four years and require customers to replace these servers as a condition of support. Replacing 3-4 servers at each of your organizations sites can be an unexpected expense that drives up the overall cost of ownership of the voice solution. Additionally some vendors don’t allow the customer to provide their own server charging a higher price for a dedicated server.

Determine the following information to determine the reliability and overall cost of purchasing and owning your enterprise voice solution:

How many servers comprise the solution?

In how many years will the manufacturer require a server refresh?

How much will these servers cost when replaced?

Understand the impact to your organization in the event any one of the server fails.

If any one server fails at one site what is the resulting impact on the other sites?

What is the cost of a redundant solution?

Can you virtulize your servers?

Does support cover break fix of ALL compnents?

Does support include all software patches, revisions and major upgrades.

Wrap Up- The less decentralized your solution and the fewer servers deployed across your enterprise the more reliable and less expensive your voice solution will be to maintain/own.

Enterprise Phone Systems: How to Build in Reliablity is a post from: Americom Inc.

VoIP or Traditional Phone System: Which is right for your company?

TellyComm — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:57:31 +0000

Prior to VoIP technology, choosing the right business telephone system for your company was a much simpler task. You could choose a Nortel or Avaya system based on name recognition or research further to review lesser known products such as NEC, Mitel, Siemens, etc. to see if there might be a better solution for a lower price.

Things Have Changed

Today researching a new phone system means sifting through multiple quotes that reflect different technology. Hybrid (Legacy and VoIP in one system), Proprietary VoIP, Open Source VoIP (the Linux of phone systems) and Hosted VoIP are all examples of different PBX solutions that are avaiable. So, how does one choose between digital and IP phones? Here are just a few points to consider.

Price?

First, determine your buying criteria. Is price the number one concern? A Digital PBX with digital phones just might be your least expensive short term choice. The technology has been available for years making the manufacturing economies of scale favorable. Be careful here. As technology advances digital/legacy technology is fading. Consider the not-so-distant future cost of converting your digital system and phones to IP should the manufacturer determine they no longer want to support legacy technology. Voice over IP systems may cost a bit more to purchase but ultimately could prove the least expensive to own over time.

Network Costs

What if your data network won’t support VoIP? Is a non VoIP phone system the least expensive choice? Again, determine if this a short or long term decision. The long term concern here is what happens if the manufacturer chooses not to support legacy technology in the future. Decision path: Determine the price to upgrade your network now and compare it against the cost of purchasing digital phones and converting them to IP at a later date. Remember to include the cost of the network upgrades in this calculation.

Taking Advantage of New Technology

Most new VoIP phone systems include capabilities quite similar to todays smart phones. A smart phone is an excellent example of unified communications. A device that condenses multiple applications (e-mail, voice mail, calling, browsing), databases (contacts) all on a single device. This is the true advantage of todays VoIP phone systems. Providing smart phone capability on employees desktops via software that is, in most cases, included with the cost of the phone.

Wrap up

Before receiving quotes on a new phone solution determine if you will place IP phones or Legacy Digital phones on employee desks. This will greatly simplify your research and reduce the time and confusion associated with a phone system purchase

VoIP or Traditional Phone System: Which is right for your company? is a post from: Americom Inc.