Successful Unified Communications Implementation

Unified Communications (UC) comprises of many such elements such as Telephony, E-Mail, Chat, Voice Mail, Fax and Web Services. As today enterprises make long term plans to adopt Unified Communications (UC), they are deploying Voice over IP (VoIP) to anchor their strategies. Maintaining a consistent Quality of Experience (QoE) is critical to realizing the benefits of this unified approach.

If you are going to achieve greater business productivity and reduce IT expense then a cohesive management system needs to manage both data applications and Voice Services (IP Telephony). You need visibility into your Unified Communication deployment regardless of its complexity or your choice of technology vendors

Three Phases to ensure a successful deployment of unified Communications

Planning your VoIP Deployment

• VoIP Pre-Assessment Testing
• VoIP Performance Testing

VoIP Management

• Real time Management of your Service

Improve

• Proactively improve Quality of Experience

State of the Network

From virtualization to unified communication, emerging technologies are quickly changing the way you manage networks.   With the economy impacting every facet of society, it wasn’t surprising that the network is not immune from its effect. The need to reduce costs not only means IT staffs are managing leaner and meaner networks, it also generated higher than expected adoption rates for technologies like virtualization and unified communications. Network Instruments queried nearly 450 network professionals, it was clear that cost savings will be the primary driver for technology adoption over the next two years.

Key statistics in the report are:

Virtualization

• 75% of respondents have implemented virtualization
• 75% lacked adequate tools, visibility, or information to troubleshoot problems

Economic Impact

• 73% were being asked to do more with fewer resources
• 65% of IT staffs had not experienced layoffs

Performance Troubleshooting

• 80% cited identifying the problem source as their primary troubleshooting concern
• 40% identified ensuring application performance as their biggest challenge

Unified Communications

• 60% will have implemented video by 2010
• 57% will have implemented unified messaging systems by 2010

You can download the full report here

 

Shaw customer growth continues

Canadian cableco Shaw Communications has posted a slight rise in net income for its fiscal third quarter ended 31 May 2009 to CAD132 million (USD115 million), up from CAD128 million a year earlier, on revenues that climbed by 8.7% to CAD861 million. Basic cable subscribers increased by 9,600 in the three-month period to 2.28 million, including digital TV customers that rose by 111,000 to 1.19 million, whilst broadband internet subscribers and fixed telephony customers grew by 24,600 to 1.651 million and by 54,600 to 774,000, respectively. Satellite TV customers increased 1,500 to 898,000.

MTS Allstream To Use NetIQ AppManager

MTS Allstream is going to use NetIQ AppManager to manage their customers’ Unified Communications applications and infrastructure.  It will be used to manage more than 1 million VoIP phones around the globe.

“We needed a solution to help us measure performance levels and enhance end-user experience,” said Eric Fletcher, senior vice president, Marketing at MTS Allstream. “NetIQ provides us with the ability to report on service levels, diagnose call quality degradation and remediate issues immediately. NetIQ AppManager allows us to scale and manage our customers’ UC components — all from a single console. With NetIQ, we can deliver value by optimizing end-user Quality of Experience (QoE), which is exactly what our customers need and have come to expect.”

According to the company:

MTS Allstream first leveraged NetIQ Vivinet® Assessor to effectively predict the overall expected call quality on customer networks. Now utilizing NetIQ AppManager, MTS Allstream can holistically manage customers’ UC deployments, including application servers and network devices. As a result, MTS Allstream delivers compelling customer value by preventing end-user downtime and proactively enhancing service levels 24×7×365.

“Now managing over one million of the world’s VoIP phones, our proven history in this space is a testament to the value that our comprehensive monitoring and reporting delivers for the additional applications that comprise Unified Communications management,” said Criss Scruggs, senior manager, Product Marketing at NetIQ. “Service providers like MTS Allstream require a heterogeneous management solution like NetIQ AppManager, as it will not only meet their current needs, but also reliably scale to accommodate future growth plans.”