First targets multi-vendor VoIP environments; second puts spotlight on SIP
Today, we’d like to highlight two studies that readers who have already deployed VoIP and UC systems may find valuable.
The first study will be of interest to those who need to support VoIP systems in a multi-vendor environment. The paper, written by Sue Bradshaw, technology writer at Integrated Research, suggests that a single platform used for unified management should offer the flexibility and scalability to report across multiple sites in order to have a significant and favorable impact on total cost of ownership.
Among the considerations needed when selecting a solution, the consolidated management platform should support all core capabilities along with support for vendor-specific metrics and APIs, scalability, flexible management options, and interoperability with other network management tools.
The study, found here, suggests that unified management can reduce overhead and training requirements and that it should provide a consistent and consolidated view of performance, usage and capacity across the entire IP telephony ecosystem.
The second report is titled “SIP-O-Nomics” and was written by our colleague Irwin Lazar, vice president for communications research at Nemertes Research. The study begins with the assumption (and we agree) that as business communications evolve toward a de facto standard of Unified Communications, the “thread” that holds the various parts of the UC fabric together is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
SIP offers the potential to reduce telecom operational cost and complexity, take advantage of new hosted services, and integrate disparate applications via unified communications to improve collaboration. That said, the evolution to SIP requires careful planning because its implementation is not without challenges.
IT architects must leverage solid ROI case studies to build tangible business cases to justify investment. They must also address training and interoperability concerns to ensure a successful deployment. Those organizations that meet these challenges stand to reap the benefits of SIP via delivery of new services and/or reduced operating costs. Lazar points out that given the efforts required, management needs to assure there is a sound financial underpinning before proceeding.
The full paper can be found here.
