Finance and Administration Division

Transcription

1 Millersville University of Pennsylvania Division January 2016

2 Taking our Communications To The Cloud: Why We Did It, Our Challenges and Our Payoffs This presentation provides real-life insight into the factors that motivated Millersville University to move their voice communications from a traditional premises-based PBX system into a cloud hosted Unified Communications environment, what to be prepared for, how to prepare and the resulting benefits of the move.

3 Millersville University One of 14 universities within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Founded in 1855 as the Normal School in PA 8,500 students Student-faculty ratio: 22:1 Over 50 undergraduate programs 61 graduate programs 3 doctoral programs Over 900 faculty, staff and administrators Seven employee unions 96 Buildings over 20 acres in Lancaster County, PA

4 GREAT LOCATION Millersville University is centrally located with easy access to major metropolitan cities. Nearby, historic Lancaster City offers an array of restaurants and cafés, galleries, performing arts venues and shopping. Millersville University s Ware Performing Arts Center in downtown Lancaster City is a short bus ride from campus.

5 Why We Did It, Our Challenges and Our Payoffs

6 Intercom EPBX Installed in ,200 phones Resident Life 800 Old System Main campus 1,200 Misc. elevators, blue phones, etc. Porting phone numbers (871) (224 spares) (872) (74 spares) (871) (541 spares) (871) (308 spares) (871) (138 spares) Over 4,500 lines available to the University

7 PBX Replacement VoIP Decision Cloud or Hybrid? Millersville opted for a cloud solution for the following reasons: Moving more capital expenses to operational expenses Did not need major funding upfront Less Millersville staff to support telephone system Built-in backup support so we no longer need more than one trained on the phone system

8 Decision About Cloud Solution Millersville opted for a dedicated MPLS circuit for the following reasons: This decision was impacted on how we wrote the RFP. Millersville did not specify that vendor partnerships or subcontracting was acceptable so we needed to select a vendor that could supply everything from beginning to end telephones through the circuit. We wanted a single point of contact if there were any problems. With the Aastra (Mitel) and Internet 2 services solution there were multiple points of contact if any issues / problems arose with our VoIP solution. Using commodity internet also got into quality of service (QoS) discussions And committing specific levels of bandwidth to handle VoIP calls. Having a backup/failover solution for any internet or MPLS circuit outage. NOTE Millersville was completing this RFP before we migrated to the Kinber / Level 3 internet connectivity and increased our bandwidth allocations.

9 Decision About Converged Network Or Separate Networks Throughout The Campus? Millersville opted for a separate VoIP network throughout the campus for the following reasons: With a separate VoIP network we do not have QoS configurations / issues. Easier troubleshooting and configuration especially with minimal staff. Would have needed to completely revamp our network infrastructure, but had limited time because PBX contracts will be expiring in the near future. Determined it would be easier to implement separate VoIP for initial implementation and evaluate a converged network as part of next round of upgrades.

10 Questions About Physical Network? Do you have RJ-11 that needs to be replaced with RJ-45 jacks? Do you have enough fiber throughout campus and back to your demark? Do you have enough open ports on PoE switches to accommodate VoIP phones - especially if you are using a separate VoIP network? Do you have enough rack space to accommodate any additional switches needed? Will you incorporate UPS s and generators to keep phones operational during power and network outages?

11 Decisions About Which Phones To Migrate To Voip? With our on-premises PBX we had the culture of a phone in every location: Closets (network, housekeeping, mechanical), classrooms, offices, hallways, break-rooms, conference rooms, prep rooms, etc ) Because there is a monthly cost per phone per number, we reevaluated each location and reduced the number of phones throughout the campus. Millersville needed to decide which locations would keep the Aastra VoIP phones with limited features and which locations would move to NEC s VoIP phones with full features. For example, conference rooms will have Aastra VoIP phones, but faculty and staff will receive new NEC VoIP phones. Note keep safety and security in mind. Do you need phones in every classroom for an emergency? Or higher potential labs / classrooms such as the Chemistry lab and Woodworking shops?

12 Questions About How To Handle 911 Calls? How specific do you need location information with your county 911 and university police? Is the building location street address enough? Specific building names and room numbers needed? Who manages the database that contains this information? And how does county 911 receive updates? Should local university police be contacted about every 911 call? What is university police s role around 911? How will you train the campus about how 911 will work? What information should be specified on the phones about 911? For example : Millersville is adding a label with the specific room, building, street address and county information. What is the vendor s legal obligation around FCC and 911? What is the call back number if some hangs up on 911 or dispatchers can t hear someone on the call? Back to the phone dialed? Back to university police for follow-up? How will you handle emergency calls during network and / or power outages?

13 Questions About How The Migration Will Work? Will the old and new solutions work together? Can you use four digit dialing throughout the campus and between the two solutions? Can you forward voic s between the two solutions? Will caller ID work between the solutions? How will you migrate the DID numbers from current carrier to the new carrier? Will they do one by one or do you need to do them in groups? Or all at once? Can you swap phones throughout the day? Or just outside of working hours? Who will be swapping the phones? Vendor or internal staff? Who will be doing the training on the new phones? Vendor or internal staff?

14 Questions About Call Flows? Do you have a flowchart of how each office handles phone calls? Does the university want uniform call experiences for their customers? Can callers leave messages in voic s? Do multiple people pick up a single extension? Should callers be queued for the next available person to take their call? Should callers hear a call tree (i.e. push 1 for XX, push 2 for XX) at any point?» Does the university have a specific number of options they prefer?» Does the university have a specific number of levels of the call tree?

15 Questions About Calls In General? Does clerical support staff need to see specific extensions? Pick up certain extensions? If so how many? Can all phone numbers be seen in the corporate directory? What is the process of determining which numbers can be seen and which are hidden? Will you be implementing unified communications? Should everyone be able to access their voic s through ?

16 Questions About Analog Devices? How are you going to handle fax machines? Do you have a fax server? How are you going to handle emergency phones? Will you convert emergency phones to VoIP? Do you have any other devices that are analog? Modem lines? Fire alarms? ATM machines? Credit card machines? Etc

17 Questions About Billing? Do you need a billing system? Will you be doing any chargebacks? If so to which departments / areas? At what rate? Will you charge departments for long distance calls? International calls? Will you charge if a department needs a conference phone?

18 Questions About Support? What is the process for getting support outside of standard working hours especially from your vendor? Do you have / want any specific service level agreement (SLA)? What types of calls can be handled by internal staff? Vendor?

19 VoIP on Campus Five year cost $3.8 to $4.5 Million Four companies VoIP in the Cloud Five year cost Bids $2.97 to$4.51 million Four companies Winner: NEC $2.13 million (5 Years)

20 Old Cost vs. New VoIP Old System Annual maintenance $263,060 Five year cost $1,315,300 New System Annual maintenance $367,642 Five year cost $1,838,210 One time cost: DES Support $ 5,000 Porting, Setup 71,446 Prof. Services 66,690 Subtotal $269,732 Grand Total $2,107,942

21 Savings or Cost Avoidance? (Five Year Cost) Old System $1,315,300 New System $2,107,942 Change $ 792,642 Next Lowest $2,970,000 New System $2,107,942 Savings $ 792,642 Highest $5,100,000 New System $2,107,942 Savings $2,992,058

22 Questions?