WHITEPAPER. Migrating Legacy Applications

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1 Migrating Legacy Applications

2 Migrating Legacy Applications Introduction Many enterprises, both large and small, find themselves in a position where their IVR platform is described as end of life. The IVR platform and applications often represent a considerable investment, and have probably been modified or extended to meet evolving business needs over several years. PSS is noted for its ability to support so-called end-of-life IVRs well beyond the end of vendor support options, but even so, at some point it will be necessary to migrate to a new IVR platform. Modern developments in social media and hosting platforms are presenting businesses with possibilities to improve the customer experience and increase the efficiency of their contact centre, so there may be compelling reasons to migrate to an IVR platform that provides a step up in performance for your customers. IVR platforms are also affected by the recent consolidation within the IVR industry. Some platforms are still supported but are not on the roadmap for the new technology that IVR vendors are supplying. Older IVR systems are no longer able to deliver the highest value customer service, because they do not support new contact channels or new types of data integration, and are therefore failing to maximise the success of your business. Upgrading the IVR platform almost inevitably means upgrading the IVR applications which interact with your customers. Modern standards-based IVR platforms generally do not support the proprietary applications which were written for their predecessors, so a complete rewrite is usually required. This is not only time consuming and costly, but is a high-risk project for any business. So what is the ideal solution for businesses that require a refresh of their IVR platform to improve customer satisfaction and operating efficiency, but do not want to incur the risks and costs of rewriting those vital IVR applications? The answer is an automated conversion of your applications to VXML. Vendor consolidation is the act of using one vendor to help reduce the need to speak to multiple vendors for one product. Vendor consolidation can have operational and financial benefits for your company. VXML is the current open standard for IVR applications, and is supported by all major IVR platforms. However, migrating to VXML usually entails a complete rewrite too. That s why PSS has developed a conversion process that provides the support that companies need to migrate their existing IVR applications to VXML without incurring the high risks and high costs of a manual rewrite. The PSS conversion methodology also allows your existing platform to remain supported and functional while the new generation platform is bedding in. Consolidation in the IVR market: Problematic for Enterprises Vendor consolidation can be beneficial for enterprises. However, there are serious pitfalls with the current changes in the IVR market. Recent consolidation has led to individual vendors supporting several IVR platforms: Avaya, Aspect, Enghouse and others have acquired competing platforms and have continued to support these to a greater or lesser extent. Realistically in today s economic climate there is no space for multiple platforms in a vendor s product suite, and so the announcement of end of life was inevitable for some IVR platforms. therefore the consolidation of IVR platforms is inevitable. Logically, vendors are bound to converge on a single IVR platform, reducing or removing support for the others, and crucially stopping development of new patches or features. This puts enterprises under pressure to migrate to a new platform before their current IVR becomes unsupported and inflexible for business and customers alike. These enterprises need to consider how much longer the platform can be maintained in a competitive environment: Has the quality of vendor support declined? Or been assigned elsewhere, perhaps offshore? Does it represent value for money? 1

3 How long are the periods between version releases and patches? Are these longer than usual? Is non-vendor support by a third party such as PSS a viable option? Are new IVR platforms available that feature business and operational benefits? Is there sufficient incentive to move to a more competitive platform, perhaps provided by another vendor? If you decide that a platform change is required, there is still a broad IVR marketplace to match the needs of most enterprises. Modern IVR platforms offer many advantages to compensate for the loss of proprietary tools and features, and the new open standards invariably include VXML. VXML: An Open Standard Computing platforms are becoming more open to handle real-time communication from an everincreasing number of devices. Open standards allow any hardware, any operating system, any channel to support communication with the rest of the world. The ability to run the same software on a wide range of devices demonstrates the success of open standards in allowing us to become increasingly connected. VXML is the open standard for IVR applications, providing an interface which allows integration of web and voice applications, using the same architecture as web servers and internet browsers. The status of VXML as the IVR development standard means these skills are less scarce than proprietary IVR skills, giving enterprises more flexibility in hiring or outsourcing for IVR application development August 2013 When VXML emerged in the 1990s it was viewed by vendors and their clients with a mixture of apprehension and enthusiastic curiosity. Today, VXML has secured itself as an invaluable part of the web standards world, alongside established standards such as HTML and newcomers like WebRTC. Open standards free businesses from the constraints of proprietary IVR applications: they provide ease of portability between platforms, ease of maintenance and upgrade, and access to a whole community of developers who can create new The acceleration of technology in today s world demands flexibility in computing platforms, and VXML-based IVR solutions will allow enterprises to integrate new services into existing systems rather than redesigning or re-implementing. Change is the only constant in the technology landscape: VXML will help the IVR and telephony environment to keep up with technological change and business needs. Different Platform: Same Vendor? Several questions must be considered before deciding to move to another platform that is provided by the same vendor: VXML gives you more flexibility and control, with the security of full W3C standards support. Build inbound and outbound applications, integrate seamlessly with your existing telephony and web-based infrastructure, while supporting traditional touch-tone (DTMF) IVR, speech recognition, CTI, call control and recording, conferencing, ISDN, SIP VoIP and more. VXML solutions fit into the familiar operations and IT processes which most enterprises now use to manage their web interactions. With web servers doubling up as voice application servers, and voice applications sharing an architecture with web applications, one set of industry standards enables both channels, and IVR applications can be managed with fewer risks, fewer specialized skills and at a lower cost. Does the current vendor offer full support for open standards? In particular, does it support the relevant versions of VXML and CCXML? Does the current vendor regard IVR technology as its primary business? What does the vendor offer in terms of a migration package or strategy? Does the new platform provide flexible reporting and analytics, for example allowing you to add new contact channels? What is the cost of the new platform training for your staff? Does the current vendor use any proprietary components which could cause lock-in? Does the new platform cut costs, either TCO or support costs? Is the vendor financially stable and aligned with your corporate direction? 2

4 As an aside, the new platform and applications may not require all the legacy and proprietary interfaces which the old platform needed. Some vendors charge heavily for each integration point, and there are also recurring support costs for these licenses. Don t make the mistake of continuing to pay vendors for support of interfaces that are no longer required. Application Conversion One of the major benefits of VXML is its platform independence. VXML applications can be run on any VXML platform, and can be transferred between platforms with relative ease. This represents a significant saving in operational costs. Applications running on legacy IVR platforms are much less portable as they are usually tied to proprietary scripting languages and are only able to run on proprietary systems. Converting applications to VXML therefore provides flexibility and future-proofing as long as VXML remains the acknowledged standard for IVR However, in order to reap the benefits of VML, proprietary IVR applications must be converted. Some vendors provide conversion within their own platforms, but this often results in VXML applications which still use proprietary platform-specific extensions (XML stands for extensible Markup Language, after all) and will therefore not compatible with other vendors platforms. As an independent IVR integrator, PSS has developed a semi-automated process to migrate applications from several legacy IVR scripting languages to a platformindependent version of VXML. This process converts up to 80% of the application, leaving as little as 20% to be rewritten by hand. The areas of the application which cannot be converted automatically, and must therefore be dealt with by hand, are primarily the sections of code that represent less risk in terms of application performance and testing. For example, data access components and speech engine grammars: these can usually be ported easily from the legacy application, and are easily tested. The conversion of these sections is largely independent of the call-flow or customer experience. An additional benefit of an automated application conversion process is that it avoids the need to redocument the Rewriting an application requires a complete specification of the application behavior. Enterprises face serious challenges in terms of IVR application specification, as applications tend to evolve over the course of business operations. Additions, adaptations and modifications from the original design are almost inevitable, as the needs of business are always changing. With an automated conversion process, applications are converted from the current version, and behaviours are preserved in the vast majority of cases. The new application can be tested against the current live version, and any differences can be quickly identified, avoiding the need to change documentation. When savings on documentation, testing and other tasks are taken into account, a semi-automated migration can save up to 75% of the time required by a manual redevelopment project, a very significant figure in terms of project cost and timeline. Managing Risk It is not only time and cost that is significantly reduced by automated conversion. The risks are also much less. Disruption to daily business is much more likely with manual conversion. How long did it take to iron out all the wrinkles when the IVR was originally deployed? A complete rewrite carries almost the same risk as the initial implementation. However, migration using automated conversion on applications means that only perhaps 20% of the code is rewritten, reducing the risk factor proportionately. It is not only time and cost that is significantly reduced by automated conversion. The risks are also much less. Disruption to daily business is much more likely with manual conversion. Automation offers considerable time and cost savings. Conversion to a new platform may take the same time as you might realistically need just to plan a manual redevelopment project. For busy enterprises, the migration from outdated IVR platforms to open standards platforms, improving existing services and enabling new ones, is much more achievable if it can be automated. However, deploying a new platform or converting existing IVR applications application conversion should not be undertaken hastily. The nature of successful enterprises in today s competitive business climate is to act quickly, and sometimes to repent at leisure. Enterprises are under increasing pressure to deliver change quickly and effectively. Yet resources are scarce, and this places limits on how quickly a major project can be delivered. 3

5 How PSS Can Help Your Business 24 hours a day 7 days a week all over the world from the US & Europe to Asia & Australia millions of customers and hundreds of companies use platforms and applications designed and managed by PSS. PSS does everything from delivering their complete customer interactions and experiences to supporting individual website & contact center platforms and Keeping legacy IVR platforms and applications running efficiently, until the customer decides it is time for transition. PSS is able to help ensure the success of IVR projects as a trusted independent provider of bespoke services. Helping customers integrate complex technologies and advise them on how to make the most of the full life cycle of the technology they operate to deliver their customer experiences. For further information contact Tony Porter EVP Marketing tporter@psshelp.com PSS - Product Support Solutions Inc. Corporate Headquarters 7172 Regional Street #431, Dublin, CA T: or Fax: UK Headquarters The Old Saw Mill, Harvest Hill Lane, Coventry, CV5 9DD So if you are looking to re develop or migrate your applications, try our App Centre online VXML conversion tool to see how easily this can be achieved Click here. To understand how App Centre can help your business Click Here 4