Unified communications: Speeding time to acceptance

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

Unified communications (UC) requires many components, protocols, back-end processes and pieces of communication equipment to work together seamlessly. But users don't care about the complexities involved. If they experience poor voice quality, frozen screens or inconsistent performance, they won't use any solution, no matter how cutting-edge.

To ensure workforce acceptance organizations need an effective UC Assurance Program that offers a methodical, end-to-end approach to performance evaluation. User experience cannot be understood by making a few test calls or sporadically checking video streams. UC solutions must be evaluated under conditions that accurately reflect how -- and how often -- they will be used.

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

Unified communications (UC) requires many components, protocols, back-end processes and pieces of communication equipment to work together seamlessly. But users don't care about the complexities involved. If they experience poor voice quality, frozen screens or inconsistent performance, they won't use any solution, no matter how cutting-edge.

To ensure workforce acceptance organizations need an effective UC Assurance Program that offers a methodical, end-to-end approach to performance evaluation. User experience cannot be understood by making a few test calls or sporadically checking video streams. UC solutions must be evaluated under conditions that accurately reflect how -- and how often -- they will be used.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF UC: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Detecting issues and accurately diagnosing problems in the pre-deployment phase is the single most important thing an organization can do to help keep projects on time and on budget. More important, this step is essential to assure that quality, interoperability and other technical issues get corrected before they impact users.

The complexities inherent in UC solutions dictate a methodical, phased approach to testing. The checklist of best practices includes:

• Phase 1: Network assessment

- Validate foundational elements (carrier to IP network).

- Establish baseline performance metrics.

- Test security vulnerability and Session Border Controller (SBC) configurations.

• Phase 2: Real-time (synchronous) communications

- Validate voice, chat and video quality.

- Assess the performance of contact center applications (IVR, CTI, routing, etc.).

• Phase 3: Non real-time (asynchronous) systems

- Validate messaging, data sources, applications and more.

- Evaluate the effect that each element has the quality of real-time communications.

• Phase 4: End-to-end solution validation

- Load test all applications, services and user behaviors running concurrently.

When designing a UC Assurance Program, it is important that it accurately reflect expected usage patterns. Only by emulating -- and then analyzing -- the correct volume and mix of traffic, can an organization fully validate the proposed solution. For example, if a company expects 40% of employees to utilize the new "notify and respond" application by mobile phone, 15% by text and 60% via the Web, the test traffic needs to be configured accordingly.

When designing a test plan for a proposed UC solution, first create a map of all network elements and applications. Next, evaluate how users will interact with the applications to estimate traffic loads and required bandwidth. Then simulate the environment to clarify how traffic from one service impacts another. This will also provide an understanding of routing requirements. Lastly, it is important to assess the functionality of all user options within the application itself. Use this information to create the complete test plan.