Five Steps to Removing. Cost and Complexity

Transcription

1 Complimentary E-Book Five Steps to Removing Communications Infrastructure Cost and Complexity A Short Guide to Streamlining Operations and Accelerating Innovation

2 2 Table Of Contents A Short Guide to Streamlining Operations and Accelerating Innovation...3 Juggling Priorities and Mitigating Risk...4 Legacy Communications Networks Inhibit Innovation...5 Five-Step Blueprint for Modernizing Enterprise Communications Infrastructure...5 Step 1 Move to a Layered Network Architecture with Centralized Control...6 Step 2 Implement Network Function Virtualization to Contain Costs...7 Step 3 Introduce Unified Management to Simplify Monitoring and Troubleshooting...8 Step 4 Boost Security and Compliance...9 Step 5 Layer in Resiliency to Ensure High Service Availability...10 The Endgame A More Agile and Extensible Network Accelerate Your Success with Oracle...12 Oracle Solutions in Action: Global Pharmaceutical...13 Abbreviations...15

3 3 FIVE STEPS TO REMOVING COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE COST AND COMPLEXITY As digital transformation disrupts entire industries and organizations, enterprise communications managers find themselves under constant pressure to accelerate the pace of innovation. Digital transformation projects are demanding new communications services to help improve customer experiences, increase enterprise reach and boost organizational productivity. Business managers are demanding flexible, feature-rich collaboration tools; they want to modernize the contact center and mobilize the workforce. But legacy enterprise communications networks can stand in the way of progress. Many organizations are held back by their previous investments. Over time, they ve knitted together an array of communications systems that have become too complex and fragile. And for most businesses a total rip-andreplace strategy is simply not a viable option. There has to be a better way. A Short Guide to Streamlining Operations and Accelerating Innovation This E-Book explains how to create a vendor-agnostic network that efficiently supports contemporary collaboration capabilities, while protecting previous technology investments. Intended for UC and contact center network planners and managers, this easy-to-follow guide provides a simple five-step blueprint for transforming enterprise communications infrastructure. You will learn how to: Eliminate complexity and accelerate the pace of innovation by introducing a layered network architecture Achieve cloud economics and elasticity by adopting virtualization Boost user satisfaction with end-to-end network monitoring and troubleshooting Mitigate risks by beefing up security and regulatory compliance Ensure high availability by eliminating single points of failure

4 4 JUGGLING PRIORITIES AND MITIGATING RISK If you are like most network professionals, you are busy juggling a variety of priorities mobility initiatives, next-gen contact center programs, comms-enabled application projects trying to respond to the needs of the business as quickly as you can. But at the same time, you need to: Mitigate security and compliance risks Control staffing and infrastructure costs Ensure high availability and service quality At times it can all feel a bit overwhelming. Many businesses are constrained by fractured enterprise communications networks independent technology silos originally built to support individual sites or business units. Many corporate networks are hanging together by a thread, cobbled together over the years through mergers and acquisitions. MITIGATE SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE RISKS CONTROL STAFFING AND INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS ENSURE HIGH AVAILABILITY AND SERVICE QUALITY

5 5 + Mouse Over to Learn More LEGACY COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS INHIBIT INNOVATION Disjointed multi-vendor communications networks are inherently costly and complex to maintain and extend. Each silo supports different communications protocols and administrative interfaces. Introducing new communications services across the enterprise integrating different systems, implementing common policies, troubleshooting problems is fraught with challenges. And to make matters worse, many organizations still rely on legacy communications platforms that were originally designed to support stationary office workers and desk phones, and aren t well suited for today s virtual workplace. FIVE-STEP BLUEPRINT FOR MODERNIZING ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE To be more responsive to the needs of the business you need a more agile and extensible network. But decommissioning legacy systems and creating a new network from scratch is a luxury most IT planners simply can t afford. What if there was a way to modernize your network infrastructure while preserving your existing assets? Use our five-step blueprint to create a vendor-neutral architecture that delivers uniform communications and collaboration capabilities across your siloed infrastructure. Follow the fivestep plan to centralize control, eliminate inefficiencies and spur innovation.

6 6 Step 1: Move to a Layered Network Architecture with Centralized Control Introduce a vendor-neutral architecture with a centralized control layer to eliminate complexity and streamline operations. By centralizing session control, dial plan management and policy enforcement functions, you can eliminate inefficiencies, improve service agility and ensure consistent services and seamless user experiences across the enterprise. Best-of-breed session managers overcome multi-vendor interoperability challenges and multi-protocol interworking issues helping you transform independent islands of technology into a cohesive enterprise communications network. Once you ve implemented a centralized control layer you can swap out legacy platforms or introduce new systems at your own pace with minimal disruption. You can decommission outdated systems over time to get out of expensive maintenance contracts. Or you can deliver new capabilities like web-based voice or video services to existing platforms, extending previous investments.

7 7 Step 2: Implement Network Function Virtualization to Contain Costs As you re upgrading network infrastructure take advantage of virtualization to enable cloud-like elasticity, scalability and economics. The latest enterprise communications solutions are available as software-based applications virtual appliances that run on industry-standard servers, operating systems and hypervisors. With network function virtualization you can consolidate hardware and pool processor, memory and disk resources to avoid overprovisioning and to tightly align equipment and operating expenses with usage. NFV also helps you avoid vendor lock-in and accelerate time-to-market. For maximum flexibility be sure to choose solutions that support a wide range of hypervisors Oracle VM VMware ESXi Microsoft Hyper V KVM Xen

8 8 Step 3: Introduce Unified Management to Simplify Monitoring and Troubleshooting As you re tying together your multi-vendor network, introduce an end-toend IP communications management platform to efficiently monitor service quality and troubleshoot problems across vendors and service providers. Unified monitoring platforms eliminate swivel-chair management and fingerpointing, helping you accelerate problem detection and resolution, reduce operations expenses and improve user satisfaction. A Nemertes Research report reveals businesses using end-to-end management platforms enjoy a 65% reduction in mean time to repair, a 35% reduction in human capital costs, and as much as a 627% return on investment over a three-year period. 65 % reduction in mean time to repair 35 % reduction in human capital costs Nearly 627 % return on investment

9 9 Step 4: Boost Security and Compliance Introduce strong border control and policy enforcement mechanisms to safeguard against malicious attacks, fraud and other risks. Best-of-breed enterprise session border controllers (E-SBCs) and session managers support call blacklisting/whitelisting, rate limiting and redirection capabilities to protect against fraud and abuse, and to ensure compliance with regulations such as do-not-call lists. They also support DTMF suppression and other capabilities required for payment card industry compliance. Look for an E-SBC that supports standards-based trunk-side recording to simplify compliance with government regulations or corporate policies. In many industries, by law certain customer interactions such as financial transactions must be recorded and archived. Connecting a call recording server using traditional ACD and PBX interfaces can be costly and difficult to scale. A centralized approach helps eliminate expense and complexity. Leading E-SBCs also offer extensive security features to protect against denial of service attacks, eavesdropping, hijacking and other threats. If you plan to encrypt traffic, look for an E-SBC that supports bullet-proof cryptography standards like Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) The U.S. Department of Defense and other security-conscious organizations use FIPS because it is virtually unbreakable.

10 10 Step 5: Layer in Resiliency to Ensure High Service Availability Implement a fully redundant network, with no single point of failure, to ensure continuous availability in the event of hardware problems, service provider outages or connectivity failures. Consider distributing session managers and other critical network elements across data centers for disaster recovery and business continuity. Install redundant network elements, trunks and service providers in each data center for ultimate resiliency. Look for E-SBCs and session managers that support advanced capabilities like: Stateful failover Fallback to TDM circuits (for SIP trunking) QoS-based routing to maximize service availability and quality.

11 11 THE ENDGAME: A MORE AGILE AND EXTENSIBLE NETWORK By following our five-step blueprint you ll end up with a simpler, more flexible network that lets you respond to the needs of the business more quickly and cost-effectively. You ll take on new digital transformation projects with confidence, giving users the rich collaboration tools they need to succeed in today s hyperconnected world. A next-generation, vendor-neutral enterprise communications network will help you: Click + to Learn More

12 12 ACCELERATE YOUR SUCCESS WITH ORACLE Oracle has the complete set of solutions and professional services you need to transform your legacy communications environment into a platform for innovation. We can help you build a more agile and extensible network that delivers state-of-the-art communications and collaboration capabilities, while protecting previous investments. You can take full advantage of all the benefits of modern IP communications infrastructure better economics, greater choice and increased service agility without sacrificing reliability, security or service quality. The Oracle Enterprise Communications portfolio includes: Oracle Enterprise Communications Broker a session manager that acts as central control layer connecting dissimilar network elements (e.g. IP-PBXs, UC servers) and core service components (e.g. AAA servers). ECB dynamically polices and routes sessions based on policy to ensure compliance, enforce SLAs and prevent fraud. Oracle Enterprise Session Border Controller a real-time communications services controller that secures connections between trusted and untrusted networks, including SIP trunks and the internet. Oracle E-SBCs protect against security threats, and normalize protocol differences and adapt to variations in media encoding to eliminate interoperability and interworking barriers. They also support IETF SIPREC for standards-based trunk-side recording. Oracle Enterprise Operations Monitor a unified VoIP/ UC monitoring and analysis tool that simplifies multi-vendor network management. EOM provides end-to-end visibility into key performance and service quality metrics, helping support teams improve customer satisfaction while reducing operations expenses. Oracle Communications Interactive Session Recorder an open, scalable and easy-to-deploy centralized SIP session recording solution. ISR features open APIs that enable easy integration with IVRs, external applications and third-party business analytics tools.

13 13 ORACLE SOLUTIONS IN ACTION: GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICAL A multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical firm uses Oracle Enterprise Communications solutions to reduce costs and improve collaboration across its employee workforce. The solutions helped the global firm add Skype for Business and SIP trunking services to its legacy Cisco UC environment with minimal disruption. Oracle ECB Centralized Session Management The company uses Oracle ECB to enable seamless interoperability between Skype for Business and the incumbent Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM) implementation. The product centralizes dial plan management, call control and session routing functions and mitigates multi-vendor interoperability issues. With ECB, calls are now efficiently routed across the company s multinational WAN for better economics. Thanks to ECB the firm was able to roll out Skype without disrupting user productivity; ECB simultaneously forks sessions to Cisco UCM and Skype endpoints allowing users to migrate to the new system at their own pace. Oracle Communications vendor-agnostic solutions made our network easier to manage and gave us the flexibility to migrate to Skype for Business and SIP trunking at our own pace. Senior Director of It Multinational Pharmaceutical Oracle E-SBCs Secure WAN and SIP Trunking Services Deployed at the edge of the corporate network, Oracle E-SBCs protect against denial of service attacks and other threats, and adapt to variations in media encoding, ensuring secure and seamless inter-working between UCM, Skype and various SIP trunking service providers. Oracle EOM Simplifies Multi-Vendor Management Oracle EOM s end-to-end monitoring and analysis tools help the network operations team efficiently troubleshoot and resolve problems across vendors and service providers, ensuring superior user experiences.

14 14 NEXT STEPS A vendor-neutral enterprise communications network can help you eliminate cost and complexity, increase business agility and accelerate your digital transformation. To learn how Oracle can help you transform your legacy communications environment into a platform for innovation, visit:

15 15 ABBREVIATIONS AAA Authentication, Authorization and Accounting IVR Interactive Voice Response ACD Automatic Call Distributor NFV Network Function Virtualization API Application Programming Interface PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network CPU Central Processor Unit QoS Quality of Service DTMF ECB EOM Dual Tone Multi Frequency Enterprise Communications Broker Enterprise Operations Monitor SIP SIPREC SLA Session Initiation Protocol SIP Recording Service Level Agreement E-SBC Enterprise Session Border Controller TDM Time-Division Multiplexing IETF Internet Engineering Task Force UC Unified Communications IP Internet Protocol VM Virtual Machine IP PBX IP Private Branch Exchange VoIP Voice over IP ISR Interactive Session Recorder WAN Wide Area Network