Unified Communications as a service : Tata Communications with Skype for Business

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1 Unified Communications as a service : END-TO-END SKYPE FOR BUSINESS UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTION FOR GLOBAL ENTERPRISES SEAMLESS, CONSISTENT QoS GLOBALLY

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive summary 3 Getting Unified Communications right 4 Using Solution 5 Assessing the value of a wholly owned end-to-end global infrastructure 7 Conclusion 8 About Tata Communications 8 Our global UC capability 8 Contact Us Share 2016 Tata Communications. All Rights Reserved. TATA COMMUNICATIONS and TATA are trademarks of Tata Sons Limited in certain countries v03

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Out of the hundreds of existing Microsoft Skype for Business service providers and systems integrators, Tata Communications offers a unique wholly-owned, end-to-end international infrastructure to support its Skype for Business solution for global enterprises. With 44 regionally distributed data centers and a subsea cable network that circles the globe, Tata Communications has a unique ability to deal with the dizzying array of regulatory requirements and the most complex corporate requirements. The advantages of using a single provider owning their own global infrastructure are endless, but some of the key benefits include: Consistent QoS/Feature Set: Internationally and while roaming. Disaster Recovery Solutions: Regionally distributed failover and recovery of the complete solution. End-to-End SLAs: Wholly owned infrastructure for the ultimate management visibility and SLAs. Sovereignty/Regulatory Solutions: Flexible solution structure to meet these needs in house. One Bill: Consolidated reporting and billing. As a global company itself with more than 8,000 employees across 38 countries, Tata Communications has vested internally using its own international Skype for Business solution, providing insight to continually increase the Skype for Business value add to its customers. With support for on-premise, hybrid and full cloud solutions, Tata Communications provides future proof and elegant migration options to meet the needs of enterprises at all stages of the unified communications evolution. Tata Communications earned their position in the Leaders quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for global network service providers by being a visionary and through the ability to execute for their customers. 1 1 Gartner Press Release: 3

4 GETTING UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS RIGHT Unified communications in the enterprise is no longer a question, the question has become what is the right unified communications solution to bring global collaboration with achievable and manageable SLAs. Having come out of its infancy and entering the awkward teen years, the state of enterprise unified communications is inconsistent at best and often lacking full functionality due to its current multivendor, piecemeal state where there are often incompatibilities. While the modular design of unified communications is good, the handshake between vendors is often poor and support capabilities can vary which is detrimental to QoS and SLAs. This is where the Skype for Business ecosystem steps in to correct these issues with standards. However, there are still global and regional issues to be addressed. Issues that need to be addressed when building a global unified communications solution include: Global Consistency: Maintaining consistent QoS and SLAs is challenging when using multiple vendors globally with different capabilities. International Regulatory: Different countries and industries have various requirements for sovereignty, telephony, security, etc., that are difficult to manage individually. Global Management: Orchestrating management in a multivendor solution with multiple management systems and without end-to-end network visibility is neither effective nor efficient. Line of Business (LOB)/Workflow Apps: Integrating mission critical business workflow applications with unified communications tools on a massive global scale utilizing multiple vendors with questionable compatibility and varying SLAs is very difficult for the IT department. Business Continuity: Planning for disaster recovery when a disaster strikes at the primary unified communications data center requires geo-failover and backup to be in place for business continuity. This is not an option at many service providers regionally or globally. The answer to all these issues is simple. Use a single provider that can orchestrate all these services on their own infrastructure a provider like Tata Communications. Unified communications can be quite an investment with legacy infrastructure weighing heavily on a company s decision to upgrade services or to change providers. Recognizing this, Tata Communications has a portfolio of modular solutions allowing an elegant migration to the cloud as it makes sense while consolidating and simplifying management and vendors along the way to a unified communications transformation. 4

5 USING TATA COMMUNICATIONS WITH SKYPE FOR BUSINESS SOLUTION Tata Communications has the flexibility to meet the most complex of global enterprise unified communications and regulatory requirements. Ours is an end-to-end complete solution through global infrastructure ownership and is available today. However, recognizing the need for a smooth migration that works with the legacy infrastructure and previous long term contract commitments, the unified communications offerings are modular in design and provide solutions for on premise, hybrid, and cloud configuration to ease the transition from the legacy system. A global company can utilize each of these configurations in part or in full during the migration process as they progress toward a full cloud solution with full mobility of licenses along the way. As shown in Figure 1, the wholly owned global infrastructure includes the ability to manage everything within a single Service Level Agreement (SLA). This includes data centers, applications, transport, and Skype for Business functionality. This integrated SLA provides globally consistent QoS and functionality from the main campus to remote offices, remote workers or even while roaming. The distributed data centers enable flexibility and compliance to provide regional regulatory or sovereignty solutions. With complete infrastructure ownership, Tata Communications is able to streamline management and consolidate billing and reporting. with SINGLE PANE OF GLASS MANAGEMENT MANAGED SERVICES Video Conferencing INTEGRATED SLA DATA CENTRE Monitoring and Reporting Messaging SIP Audio + Web Conferencing Telephony MPLS PHYSICAL TRANSPORT Collaboration Apps TDM/SIP Trunking IM&P Network Integration Cloud Connections Mobility OFFICE 365 CLOUD CONNECTOR EXPRESSROUTE Figure 1: Tata Communications Global Unified Communications Solution Stack 5

6 As seen in Table 1, there are two cloud offerings in addition to the on-premise and the hybrid solutions, one hosted by Microsoft and one hosted by Tata Communications. The Tata Communications hosted cloud solution offers unique capabilities such as providing companies with the ability to manage LOB/work flow applications. MICROSOFT Skype for Business On Premises TATA COMMUNICATIONS Skype for Business Hybrid TATA COMMUNICATIONS Skype for Business UCaaS MICROSOFT Skype for Business/ O365 Online Financial Model IM & Presence Multi Party Collaboration Conferencing Video SIP Trunking Global PTSN PBX Replacement MPLS/ExpressRoute Managed Service LOB/Work Flow Apps Resiliency, Disaster Recovery Capex Opex Opex Full Skype for Business functionality with global/remote/roaming parity Global telephony and bandwidth - consolidated billing Future The power of Tata Communications wholly-owned global infrastructure Partial Opex Future Table 1: Tata Communications Global Unified Communications Solution Offerings While any hosting partner can provide full Skype for Business functionality locally, it requires a company such as Tata Communications with its global reach and infrastructure ownership to provide global functionality and QoS parity even while roaming. Most hosting partners outsource their telephony and connectivity to third party vendors, but with full infrastructure ownership, Tata Communications is able to consolidate customer vendors, reporting, billing, management, and SLAs for a simpler solution. Tata Communications truly shines by providing a full cloud solution. With this, they are able to offer managed services, LOB application integration, and geo-distributed disaster recovery and resiliency. 6

7 ASSESSING THE VALUE OF A WHOLLY OWNED END-TO-END GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE By now, it should be obvious that there is tremendous value gained when working with a global hosting provider with their own wholly owned, end-to-end infrastructure. Below is a short list describing how global enterprises can benefit with a provider like Tata Communications in order to optimize their unified communications strategy: End-to-End SLA: System resiliency, voice quality, disaster recovery. Global QoS: Consistent global QoS and functionality even while roaming. Single Pane of Glass: Visibility across the entire unified communications platform. Disaster Recovery Solutions: Regionally distributed failover and recovery of the complete solution. Global Network Visibility: Unrivaled network management visibility. Interoperability and Modular Solutions: Unified across vendors, protocols, and codec. High Quality Global Support: 24/7 problem resolution, multi-lingual helpdesk, and L1-4 support. Single Point of Accountability: Tata Communications owns the global solution end-to-end. Sovereignty /Regulatory Solutions: Flexible global solution structure with globally distributed data centers to meet regional or regulatory needs. Simplified Billing: Consolidated reporting and billing. Beyond Unified Communications With the complexities removed and unified communications no longer a burden, enterprise IT teams can focus on strategic initiatives to build competitive advantages and work flow efficiencies into its communications solution. Again, owning the end-to-end infrastructure, Tata Communications is in a great position to not only assist in LOB application integration, but to support the stringent SLAs required with mission critical applications. Those SLAs extend to other cloud services too, such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and others through Tata Communications IZO cloud connectivity offerings. Tata Communications works seamlessly with a broad ecosystem of system integrators. White Glove Service By working with Tata Communications as a Skype for Business service provider, there is a single point of contact for all service requests and a single point of accountability. This single vendor support model eliminates multivendor compatibility conflicts that delay and complicate the resolution including service requests and problem fixes. The result of working with Tata Communications as a single service provider is a much smoother working model. 7

8 CONCLUSION Tata Communications unified communications platform enables enterprises to deploy their unified communications strategy at their own pace and in a modular fashion. What is key, however, is that Tata Communications has effectively leveraged their competencies across business units and built propositions which places them in direct control of their customer services. This is something their competitors have not been able to achieve large or small and this is a result of years of leadership in voice wholesale and IP transit. It is these investments that Tata Communications has made over the years that has earned them a leadership position in Gartner s Magic Quadrant where Gartner confirms that Tata communications is one of the few service providers that have the vision and ability to execute on their promises. This is why unlike most service providers, these unified communications service offerings are fully functional and available through Tata Communications today. ABOUT TATA COMMUNICATIONS Tata Communications is a leading global provider of New World Communications to multinational enterprises and service providers, including voice, data, network, collaboration and mobility solutions. Almost a quarter of the world s internet routes travel over the company s network. This 710,000 km fibre network enables truly global unified communications. It also connects four out of the world s five mobile subscribers and carries 53 billion minutes of wholesale voice traffic annually. More than 300 of Fortune 500 companies use Tata Communications state-of-the-art cloud, mobility, and network services. Through Tata Communications pioneering IZO cloud enablement platform, enterprises are able to connect to the giant clouds of Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com, who account for almost 50 percent of cloud computing. Tata Communications systems integrate with 1,600 partners, 785 mobile operators and 700 VoIP (voice over internet protocol) operators. The company is the 2014 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific data communications service provider of the year and featured as a leader in Gartner s Magic Quadrant for global network service providers for 3 years in a row. With connectivity to more than 240 countries and territories across 400 PoPs, Tata Communications provides a modular portfolio of Unified Communications solutions including global SIP, unified conferencing, managed services, UCaaS, cloud contact center, and real time communication APIs. To learn more about Tata Communications and its Skype for Business UCaaS offerings, please visit: Tata-communications-skype-business. OUR GLOBAL UC CAPABILITY OUR UCAAS CAPABILITY & GLOBAL REACH DC & SIP POPs Jamvee POPs Skype for Business POPs InstaCC POPs Contact Us Share 2016 Tata Communications. All Rights Reserved. TATA COMMUNICATIONS and TATA are trademarks of Tata Sons Limited in certain countries v03

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