1 / 25

IPT Implementation and the RFP Process

IPT Implementation and the RFP Process. Dean Leung Director of Information Technology Davis LLP Warren Jones Chief Information Officer Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. <File No.>. Agenda. Firm Background ROI: Financial & Productivity Central vs Distributed Architecture

prisca
Download Presentation

IPT Implementation and the RFP Process

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. IPT Implementation and the RFP Process Dean Leung Director of Information Technology Davis LLP Warren Jones Chief Information Officer Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP <File No.>

  2. Agenda • Firm Background • ROI: Financial & Productivity • Central vs Distributed Architecture • Phone System Design • Core, switches, power, & remote offices • WAN Design & Implementation • Consultant vs In-house Resources • Training • Current & Future Use of Technology • Lessons Learned

  3. Background

  4. Background

  5. ROI Financial • Expansion beyond Vancouver implementation • Financial: • Significant recurring cost savings over leased and Centrex systems • Elimination of long distance toll charges between cities • Ease of moves, adds, changes saving time and technician call-in • Standardize routers, phones, dialling procedures, & training • Office renovations would only require ½ the cabling as phones and network share the same infrastructure • Cost effective DR • Reduction in the number and complexity of RightFax servers

  6. ROI Productivity • Productivity: • Extension mobility • 4-digit dialling between offices • Single voicemail system • Multiple area code numbers per phone set • Standardize phones, dialling procedures, & training • Simplified foundation for future initiatives

  7. Centralized versus Decentralized • CallManager Express (CME) & Unity Express • Fully independent phone system in each office • expense of additional features • Good option for firms not yet ready to implement a voice quality WAN • Future implementation of a centralized system with no loss of initial investment

  8. Centralized Versus Decentralized • SRST vs CME • Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) mode = CallManager Express (CME) • Unavailable features in SRST/CME mode • Conferencing • Extension mobility • Call forwarding • Call parking • Call accounting • One touch voicemail access

  9. Centralized versus Decentralized • Centralize system with full CallManager and Unity Voicemail: • Capital Preservation: The existing Vancouver-based CallManager and Unity hardware was capable of supporting all users. • Business Continuity (BC): It was more cost effective to implement a BC strategy in a centralized environment. • Integration: In a decentralized model you would not have features such as extension mobility and voicemail forwarding between offices.

  10. Phone System Design - Core • “PBX” • 2 Cisco Unified CallManagers - HP DL360 • Voicemail • Cisco Unity - HP DL360 • DR Site: • CallManager • Virtualized Unity • Network: • VLAN voice and data on switches with QoS • Other vendors or Open Source Asterisk

  11. Phone Power • Switches with Power over Ethernet (PoE) • major offices • enough for phones only • re-use old switches at edge • UPS upgraded to match CallManager to maintain phone operation • Power bricks • smaller offices • UPS added for key phones

  12. Phone System Design - Remote Office • Utilized central CallManager’s and voicemail servers • phone set, switch, and UPS requirements identical to the Vancouver office. • Each office require local phone and fax DIDs. • Ensure that phone service un-interrupted if there was a WAN outage • Cisco router (2800 – 3800 series) in each remote office: • Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) • Phone and V-mail failover • VPN tunnel between offices • Private WAN to Internet VPN failover and failback • QoS tagging for voice priority • PRI voice and fax termination • Analogue modem gateway

  13. WAN Design • Cost and availability limited scope of design • MPLS mesh between 5 major offices • Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Tokyo via internet VPN • Mesh VPN for redundancy & low time sensitive traffic: e-mail, intranet, printing • Award contracts to those with different physical infrastructure to minimize single point of failure - last mile issue

  14. Quality of Service (QoS) • Ensure voice and video have carpool lane over WAN • VPN links without QoS during failover • QoS Design and Overflow to PSTN • 1 MBps=10 concurrent calls • Overflow 11th and subsequent calls to PSTN

  15. WAN Implementation • Largely invisible to user • Provisioning times best guess only • Static routes to cut over and back as required • MPLS first then VPN to Tokyo, Yellowkinfe, & Whitehorse via Cisco routers with seamless failover to backup VPN site • Finally mesh VPN links and route low priority traffic over VPN - use what you have

  16. Consultant Implementation • Managed every aspect of the deployment • Leverage the expertise of our integrators • Not able to take ownership of the new system - black box • typically in traditional PBX based systems • No touch maintenance clauses • longer diagnostic and repair times as we would have to call in the integrators for issues and installation of patches which could otherwise be handled in-house. • new Cisco switches were running IOS • CallManager and Unity servers were running Windows 2000 Server as the OS and Microsoft Exchange 2000 for voicemail.

  17. Hip-to-Hip: Firm Ownership • Hip-to-hip deployment • integrators worked closely with Cisco certified in-house IT staff • Integrators implemented, optimized, and documented first remote office • IT team took ownership of the project and deployed the balance of the offices with the integrators monitoring and assisting as required. • Model of the router and number of phone in each office being the only variables this process was largely a cut and paste operation

  18. Install Workflow At a high level the steps were as follows: • Install new switches in each office • Deploy phones to each user • Configure Cisco router • SRST functionality • Fax routing • Voice routing • Long distance routing • Analog lines • Test failover and failback of WAN • Train users and provide hands on testing - KEY • Port lines over or move PRI to new system once users are comfortable • Retire old system and collect phones

  19. User Training • Boardroom demos • Pre-recorded WebEx sessions • Quick reference cards • Pre-train secretaries to support lawyers • Phones already deployed for inter and intra-office use and v-mail setup • Minimized support after cutover

  20. Leverage New Infrastructure • Fax server consolidation (3:1) • Inbound DID Faxing • Consolidation of RightFax Servers • Local office PRIs for Fax DIDs • Routing faxes back to Vancouver & e-mailed to user

  21. Leverage New Infrastructure • Cost Recovery • Centralized cost recovery of fax and phone calls • Standardization across the firm • Video Conferencing (VC) • QoS tagging • Voice, video (codec better), other • 4-digit dialing between Tandberg systems and phones • Webcam and software turns desktop into VC station

  22. Future Telephony Possibility • 3rd party applications • IP Phones are XML browsers – endless possibilities • Cisco’s IP Softphone • Hands-free Outlook contact dialling • File voicemail into the DMS • Firmwide or targeted broadcast messages (e.g. outages, weather, bulletins, stock quotes) on phone displays • Paging system • WiFi Phones for meeting areas

  23. Lessons Learned • Find a good implementer with extensive experience and knowledge of both voice and data systems • Ensure you have provisions with the implementer and train techs to avoid “black box” systems • Buy support directly from the vendor, not the implementer • Stick with the local incumbent Telco to reduce delays and complexity for phone services • Track WAN uptime to ensure Service Level Agreements are met

  24. Lessons Learned 2 • Get physical data paths from your WAN provider and perform periodic audits to ensure traffic takes the most direct route • Setup one office first and wait until everything matures before expanding • Patch Cisco products only if there is an identified fix as features and functionality can be removed between patches • Telco install/provisioning dates are best guesses • ILTA Voice and Data Communications Whitepaper - http://www.iltanet.org/communications/pub_detail.aspx?nvID=000000011205&h4ID=000000872605

  25. IPT Implementation and the RFP Process Dean Leung Director of Information Technology Davis LLP Warren Jones Chief Information Officer Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP <File No.>

More Related