Self Service Solutions for IP Telephony and Services Oriented Architectures

Transcription

1 IP Telephony Contact Centers Mobility Services WHITE PAPER Self Service Solutions for IP Telephony and Services Oriented Architectures November 2005

2 avaya.com Table of Contents Section 1: Overview... 1 Section 2: A Short History of the IVR and Voice Self-service... 1 IVRs for Call Centers... 1 New Web Technologies Transforming Information Technology... 1 Section 3: IVR and IT at the Crossroads... 2 Section 4: The Avaya Voice Portal Model... 2 Section 5: Voice Portal Benefits... 4 Section 6: Communications Enabling Web Services... 4 Towards a Communications Service Oriented Architecture... 5 Section 7: Evolving to Open IP based Self Service Futures: Deployment Considerations... 6 Section 8: Conclusion... 7

3 avaya.com 1 Section 1: Overview The Avaya Voice Portal architecture addresses the needs of the Information Technology (IT) purchasers, managers, and implementers by offering the manageability, reliability and scalability of a software-based media processing appliance coupled with the ease of integration and programmability in Web and Service Oriented Architectures. By offering robust Speech and Touch-tone capabilities in a package that is easy to install, maintain, and modify, CIOs can integrate historic Call Center Only capabilities into the IT fabric of enterprises of all sizes. Avaya s approach changes the often difficult decision of Which Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system should I buy? to a simpler question of What applications add the most value within my web applications and Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony environment? Section 2: A Short History of the IVR and Voice Self-service IVRs for Call Centers In the mid-1980 s a class of Self-service capabilities was built for reducing the operating costs of call centers. These Interactive Voice Response (IVR is also known as Voice Response Units or VRUs ) were built on the simple value proposition that getting a customer to respond to audio choices by pressing touchtones was less expensive than having a human being reading those same choices. From the 1980 s into the late 1990 s, all systems had similar characteristics: all were built out of proprietary pieces of technology integrated together; all were primarily limited to touch-tone and basic speech recognition as ways of interacting with the end-user; and all required a custom, proprietary method of programming these systems. New Web Technologies Transforming Information Technology In the last ten years the introduction of Web/Internet and Internet Protocol (IP) technologies for Information Technology (IT) operations has resulted in a marked change in application architectures. For a number of reasons, many business applications have been re-envisioned as thin client implementations. These thin client implementations (where Web-browsers access a business application such as Siebel or SAP) offer a marked total cost of ownership difference from traditional thick client applications. First, maintenance of many custom desktop clients is a much more expensive proposition than using a standard installation of Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Mozilla Firefox. Second, users of the applications receive a ubiquitous access point (being able to use any computer with a web-browser and not just a computer which had installed the application). However, ease of application access was not the only benefit. Instead, the number of people who could program, manage and deploy applications in the web-server paradigm greatly increased, fed by standards such as hyper-text markup language (HTML), Java and Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP). This, in turn, has driven cost of applications lower while simultaneously raising quality. While enterprise applications systems vendors (such as SAP, Siebel and Oracle) have carefully evolved the core of their platforms toward Java or Microsoft programming models for application servers, they have evolved the user interface components more quickly. Web servers, browser-based clients, and lightweight JSP (java server pages)/java Servlet or ASP containers gained broad deployment in both customer and employee self-service environments.

4 COMMUNICATIONS AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS 2 Section 3: IVR and IT at the Crossroads IVR systems and speech-enabled IVRs have, until the last 3-5 years, been focused on proprietary technologies and programming models and have offered limited applications reuse. In recent years a set of standards has emerged for IVR and speech environments that address the use and reuse of IVR and speech services in a web infrastructure. In particular, Voice XML, which addresses the markup or presentation of how a voice-browser (modeled on a Web Browser) should interact with an end user, Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS), which defines the natural language formats that speech resources need to deal with, and Java Servlet/JSP/ASP technologies, which provides a natural management and development bridge from Web Applications, have standardized the core technology in what is often called a voice portal ecosystem. Many customers have settled on the voice portal ecosystem as the mechanism for developing self-service applications which integrate with their existing IT infrastructure. They expect a voice portal to bring the following advantages: Consistently managed and administered application environments Common skill sets and tools for developing and maintaining applications Less expensive application environments as vendor lock is removed Common business logic and integration environments Greater application sophistication as enterprise business applications become integrated more directly into the self-service environment Companies in this space have both common and distinct requirements from traditional, vertically integrated IVR customers. IT customers and traditional customers both wish to provide a rich, valuable customer experience that translates into high automation rates and lowers the overall costs associated with call and contact centers. Both sets of customers wish to have maintainable, extensible, and manageable applications, which can quickly be modified to meet business requirements. Both IT and vertically integrated IVR customers wish to have integration with assisted-service resources for presentation of information to the contact center. On the other hand, customers in this space have distinct requirements related to the reuse of existing Web Application infrastructure, software and development expertise. They also have distinct requirements related to the management of infrastructure and the ability to deliver to constituents such as internal businesses and the CIO. Section 4: The Avaya Voice Portal Model Avaya brings a unique value proposition to the self service market: Powerful software-based solutions that deliver voice self service applications, integrated with Avaya Contact Center offerings and into a customer s existing web infrastructure. Avaya Voice Portal maps to traditional internet architectures but with critical enhancements that couple the power of IP telephony with leverage points into Web Applications that move traditional telephony implementations into a re-envisioned and more accessible architecture.

5 avaya.com 3 Communications Network IT Network IP Telephony H.322/SIP/RTP Calls Enter VoiceXML Browser MPP Databases, Web Services, Persistent Business Logic PBX/ACD IP Telephony H.322/SIP/RTP Web Server Communications Web (Dialog Designer Apps) Services, CTI Voice Portal Management VoiceXML Browser MPP Figure 1. Network view of the Voice Portal IP architecture and software components The simplest diagram of the architecture illustrates the separation of access from presentation and business logic. In the Avaya Voice Portal architecture, access is granted by a converged IP Telephony access point, the Media Processing Platform (or MPP), a software appliance which runs on any Red Hat Linux Enterprise 3.0/4.0 certified platform including Avaya s hardware platforms such as the communication servers for the Avaya Communication Manager. In future releases Communication Manager Software and the Media Processing Platform software will be co-resident capable software solutions. Access The Media Processing Platform (MPP) communicates with the IP Telephony system through standards including H.323 and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). As an access point, the MPP presents Voice Browser interfaces to tens to hundreds of concurrent users. Each browser has full access to a concurrent VoiceXML 2.0 compliant voice browser context and any shared Speech Recognition resources (ASR/TTS) through the industry standard Media Resource Control Protocol (MRCP) interface. Each MPP communicates to up to 16 IP Telephony gatekeepers and hundreds of gateways as registered IP endpoints. In the case of a hardware failure in the MPP, licenses and registrations are automatically moved to spare capacity anywhere within the enterprise. Thus, a call center application receives the benefits of a fault-tolerant architecture without the additional costs of fail-over licenses for the call center or the IVR. Management As multiple MPPs make up a low-cost hardware platform for supporting from a handful to hundreds or even thousands of access points, a Voice Portal Management System (VPMS) manages licenses, registrations, Voice Response Call Detail Records (CDR), Voice Response Session Detail Records (SDR), Application Server Detail Records (ADR), Operations, Administration, Management and Provisioning (OAM&P) and Reporting for this system. The VPMS interfaces to customer s network management systems via industry standard Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP, Web Browser Interfaces and Web Services. Presentation and Business Integration The presentation layer in web applications consists of customization of the customer interactions in order to create the richest and most valuable experience for end customers. In the case of Voice Browsers (as compared with Web Browsers) this means generating Voice XML which reflects the dynamic needs of

6 COMMUNICATIONS AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS 4 end customers. In the Avaya Voice Portal, an integrated design environment (the Dialog Designer) features dynamic generation of Voice XML, speech recognition grammars, and telephony imperatives by using common web technology. Application Design and Deployment From a design perspective, the Dialog Designer takes advantage of the widely accepted Eclipse ( eclipse.org) environment. This environment, built on IBM WebSphere Application Design technology, allows application developers to reuse tools from multiple vendors while maintaining a single, simple interface paradigm. Thus, Avaya s Dialog Designer presents an interface and application model understood by millions of Web developers. At deployment time, Dialog Designer generates Java standard Web Archive Repository (WAR) files which simplify deployment into a customers Java Web environment (Apache Tomcat or IBM WebSphere). These files tie into a customer s Java2 Enterprise Edition Application Server technology and into a customer s Web Services environment for complete compatibility with Microsoft.NET Web Services architecture. In these cases, a customer is able to reuse their enterprise database connections, mainframe connections, and business logic without any custom coding. Section 5: Voice Portal Benefits Enterprises that have adopted IP Telephony and are seeking a solution consistent with their Service Oriented Architecture strategy will benefit in multiple ways: Resiliency and Fault Tolerance A multiplex redundant architecture, dynamic management of MPP servers, and multiple simultaneous registrations of media gateways to MPPs across the network provide additional layers of assurance in the case of 1 or more multiple points of failure. Investment Protection preserves application and platform investments. Software platform licensing transfer, open standards, hybrid mix of existing IR and new Voice Portal in the future co-residency, Cost of Ownership License pooling and dynamic license management helps maximize uptime while it also helps eliminate initial capital costs through reduced over provisioning of software and gateway resources. Leverages existing application server environments wherever they are located within the IP network, leverage staffing and developer skills whether they are onsite or outsourced to skilled subject matter experts. Reusability and Flexibility Encapsulation, Web Services, etc. Designed specifically for integration with existing web applications environments and your Service Oriented Architecture. Customer Experience platform transparency and availability applications are more highly available, management tools allow faster prototyping and versioning of services and redeployment managers can actively modify their customers self service experience more quickly and safely. A common Voice Browser and Dialog Designer environment allows faster prototyping and design and deployment based on active customer experiences. Section 6: Communications Enabling Web Services In the next 2-3 years, the vision of enabling the communications architecture for general use within an Enterprise will be reality and Avaya is leading the way. By introducing the ability to run arbitrary speech applications within a common converged communications and IT environment, the cost and applicability

7 avaya.com 5 of communications applications will drastically be altered. Once a speech capability is purchased for one application, it will be made available for many other applications. Avaya is leading the way by introducing the use of the Communications Web Services architecture for other leading Avaya applications such as Communication Business Process Flow, Voice Messaging, Unified Communications and Call Recording. Many speech capabilities will be usable through other applications such as Supply Chain Management ability to notify managers and interact via speech applications Customer Relationship Management ability to provide key information to Sales, Business Partners and Users through rich Speech Interfaces Dispatch ability to interact and redirect logistics users on the fly Employee productivity applications Web Server (Dialog Designer Apps) SOAP/XML/WSDL Server Communications SOA Bus VoiceXML, ccxml, CSTA PBX/ACD/MPP/Gateway PBX/ACD/MPP/Gateway PBX/ACD/MPP/Gateway Figure 2. Businesses will benefit from a common Communications enabled SOA bus that will increase enterprise agility to respond to market changes with new voice and speech enabled services. Towards a Communications Service Oriented Architecture Avaya Voice Portal is a critical first step towards voice-enabling thousands of enterprise applications. Until now, dedicated deployments, developments and management teams have focused on providing call center cost reduction through traditional IVR architecture. In the next years, voice portal functionality will be embedded directly into the communications architecture, eliminating the indecision around what IVR needs to be configured with the call center. A clear delineation between communications network and IT network (sharing common technology) is provided to the customer.

8 COMMUNICATIONS AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS 6 Communications Network IT Network VoiceXML Browser MPP Databases, Web Services, Persistent Business Logic Calls Enter PBX/ACD Web Server Communications Web (Dialog Designer Apps) Services, CTI Figure 3. Speech and voice self service is a leading area where businesses will benefit from adoption of an integrated VoIP and Web Services based infrastructure. Section 7: Evolving to Open IP based Self Service Futures: Deployment Considerations Avaya s Voice Self Service strategy allows businesses to integrate, manage, and run voice self service applications consistent with their move to VoIP and web-based infrastructures. With large investments in traditional solutions and the ability to address many new kinds of solutions built on web technology, there is ample ability for contact centers to address and bridge the customer self service needs of today while protecting application and network investments in the future. Through the use of open standards and common technology components, Avaya allows businesses to maximize use of existing application and platform investments while expanding support for future services and applications via affordable, easily sourced Linuxbased web servers (including Avaya Communication Manager based platforms) to increase capacity and scalability as needed. Any customer who does this can realize transparent application support between Interactive Response and Voice Portal through; A common Avaya Voice Browser: Interactive Response, Voice Portal and Dialog Designer all share the same VoiceXML browser eliminating browser compatibilities and guaranteeing a consistent Customer Experience A common application development through the web services and web server layer of Dialog Designer which supports VoiceXML compliant and certified platforms like Interactive Response and Voice Portal Common licensing which allows Interactive Response customers to run some or all of their ports on a Voice Portal solution. Interactive Response users on Avaya maintenance support can transfer licenses to Avaya Voice Portal at any time without license charge. The goal of Interactive Response is to provide customers with the necessary elements to make a seamless transition to Avaya s web-based architecture product, Voice Portal, and allow them to make that transition when they are ready. If a customer is not yet prepared for a web-based solution and still needs significant PSTN support, IR affords them the TDM functionality they need, with the ability to easily move into a web-based solution when they are ready. In addition, Avaya Self Service customers can migrate existing Avaya Conversant script applications to the script engine on Interactive Response. This, in turn, allows organizations to transparently mix touchtone script applications with the latest speech recognition and VoiceXML applications. As new services and customer requirements are realized, developers can write applications at the application server layer through the use of any VoiceXML certified ADE including Avaya Dialog Designer.

9 avaya.com 7 Those who implement Voice Portal allow organizations to take full advantage of today s IP Telephony architectures through SIP and Avaya Converged Communication Server support for advanced SIP capabilities such as SIP trunking, SIP interoperability and SIP presence. Avaya s IP Telephony and Contact Center infrastructure and applications for advanced support of dynamic license and IP end point registration (for features such as failover, high availability and bandwidth management) Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) through Web Services integrations for both management of network elements and for data access. Section 8: Conclusion Avaya Voice Portal lowers the costs of applications, simplifies the development, and opens applications to many new and innovative uses. The Voice Portal model introduces speech and self-service applications into environments not reachable with legacy IVR or pure-play systems. The environment does this in 3 key areas: Ubiquity of Infrastructure: By allowing direct integration and support of VoiceXML and speech recognition capabilities within the IP Telephony infrastructure, management simplicity, costs and applications availability are maximized. Reuse of Applications Infrastructure: Businesses have heavily invested in Web-based infrastructure to enable self service via the internet or enterprise intranets. Avaya Voice Portal unlocks that investment to the other 80-90% of an Enterprise s customer and mobile employees who prefer to contact the enterprise via the phone. Web Services: At one time an application was built for a specific task and any integration of that application was sunken investment. With the advent of Web Services, integrations and software assets can be leverage many times across an enterprise in ways not imagined by the originator of that software. With Avaya Self Service, organizations can be assured that they can maximize use of today s IT and contact center investments while protecting them in the future. Avaya customers can take full advantage of transferable software platform licensing, common technologies like the VoiceXML browser, and an extensive ecosystem of partner system integrations, developers, and application experts. Organizations are free to migrate and mix Conversant script and VoiceXML applications on Interactive Response and mix or match IR with Voice Portal with the assurance that their investments will be consistent with their IP and Service Oriented Architecture strategy.

10 About Avaya Avaya enables businesses to achieve superior results by designing, building and managing their communications infrastructure and solutions. For over one million businesses worldwide, including more than 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500, Avaya s embedded solutions help businesses enhance value, improve productivity and create competitive advantage by allowing people to be more productive and create more intelligent processes that satisfy customers. For businesses large and small, Avaya is a world leader in secure, reliable IP telephony systems, communications applications and full life-cycle services. Driving the convergence of embedded voice and data communications with business applications, Avaya is distinguished by its combination of comprehensive, world-class products and services. Avaya helps customers across the globe leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. COMMUNICATIONS AT THE HEART OF BUSINESS avaya.com 2005 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved. Avaya and the Avaya Logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc., with the exception of FORTUNE 500 which is a registered trademark of Time Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 12/05 LB3009