Enterprise Communication Solutions

Transcription

1 T E C H N O L O G Y W H I T E P A P E R Enterprise Communication Solutions Desktop Integration In the late 1990s IP-based telephony emerged as a business ready application generating an interest in convergence by traditional data centric vendors, threatening to wipe out the traditional voice vendors market. Instead, it served as a shot-in-the-arm to a relatively flat and stagnating voice communications market. Most CIOs who adopted a converged data and IP telephony solution did so in a pragmatic way - where it made clear business sense, leveraging existing PBX / network investments in traditional voice / data vendors. IP based voice communication is now a mature business application and is ready for another convergence - with desktop applications. Applications such as integrated and unified voice, IM, video, , fax, intelligent routing and document sharing are now coming together under the umbrella of unified communications with intrinsic links to enterprise business processes and applications. There are new desktop application market entrants who will be looking for complementary partnerships based on their existing solution offering until they can exclusively deliver to their customers, end-to-end, mission critical, business ready solutions. This paper discusses new entrants into this competitive market and how Alcatel-Lucent s products and solutions compare as well as works with them.

2

3 Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Communications solutions that evolve your business 2 Exploit rich end-to-end network communications products and experience 3 Customers need to integrate with existing communications infrastructure 4 Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution Suite 5 Alcatel-Lucent desktop integration solutions summary 6 Integration with existing desktop messaging applications 7 Enhancement of Microsoft Office Communicator 12 Enhancement of IBM Lotus Sametime 13 Enabling business applications / portals with communication services 14 Single authentication with other desktop applications 14 Synchronization with existing corporate directories 16 Conclusion

4

5 Introduction Integration of real time communications with every day business processes offers a tremendous benefit for end users in their day-to-day jobs. Whether being easier to contact or quick access to a project team member at the click of the mouse cost savings, time saving efficiencies and improved access to knowledge can all be demonstrated. These unmistakable business / productivity benefits along with market growth through user traction has initiated traditional desktop application players such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Google to emerge as strategic, real-time communication and collaboration players who have introduced some type of offering in this space. Most have embarked on a research and development path with a long-term vision for this market. From a strategic standpoint, the emergence of desktop application vendors and their marketing dollars helps stimulate and expand the existing unified communications market, which will eventually establish voice as an integral part of desktop real time communications. A pragmatic, open choice and flexibility of deployment is of prime importance when integrating communication within a user s personal desktop world. It s too early for these desktop software vendors to claim their place in the traditional voice/unified communication market since it takes time to deliver corporate communications solutions that address mission critical business needs. Their approach, just like network convergence vendors, would not be evolutionary, and would have little or no integration with the existing communication infrastructure. CIOs demand hard ROI and greater investment protection from these new desktop application vendors. Although it will take time for the desktop software vendors to claim a stake in this market, traditional communication vendors have years of experience in delivering scalable, networked, resilient platforms able to interoperate across different connectivity standards, supported by unified management and billing platforms. Customers and vendors will benefit from co-opetition (cooperative and competitive solutions) between communication and desktop software vendors with the first market phase of desktop/ communication convergence. Over the next 2-3 years competition between the incumbent voice/ communication vendors will continue and there will be increased focus on integration and inter working with different business applications and portals. In the long term, technology will change the way challenges and problems are approached enabling new players to compete on a level playing field. 1

6 Communication solutions that evolve your business Exploit rich end-to-end network communications products and experience Communication and collaboration solutions are continuously evolving as various business applications and multimedia are integrated into them. This leads to high productivity with immediate and instantaneous communication, interaction, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. In the near future there will be a global convergence and consolidation of services and networks in enterprise and operator markets. This enables movement from one network to another, from one service to another, from one device to another and one application to another with ease. This frees enterprises to reinvent real time business processes based on team skills with a clear goal of generating more value. These future communication platforms would evolve as a Service Oriented Communication Architecture (SOCA) software solution. It would be open and compliant with Internet standards such as SIP, WSDL, J2EE, and SNMP. These platforms will allow all telephony, real-time communication, messaging, collaboration, distribution, routing, filtering, notification, mobility, and presence to be de-structured and available in Web Service Description Language (WSDL) format software components. This would then permit complete immersion of communication solutions into the business applications, business intelligence software packages, portals and desktop applications allowing business processes to be real-time mobile and collaborative. This platform would also handle seamless mobility functions and multi-media communication and collaborative session management. On the public network side, IMS networks are in an early development stage but will eventually transform the public network architecture as well as enterprise networks. The enterprise network architecture would then be modeled on the layered IMS network architecture of service providers with each layer in separate dialogues (using standard protocols such as SIP and Web Services) with their respective layers in the IMS network. This way, any service provided by an operator or enterprise network would be accessible from any type of device whether or not it is connected to an enterprise or operator network. Alcatel-Lucent plans for the long term (2009 and beyond) is to evolve its solutions to provide customers with a next generation architecture that offers a unified, ubiquitous, rich and seamless user experience across operator and enterprise networks. Our vast experience in service provider network evolution, such as IMS and NGN, and end-to-end rich enterprise communication and network portfolio supports this goal. 2

7 Customers need to integrate with existing communications infrastructure Whether a CIO chooses to invest in a desktop vendors solution or with a traditional communications provider such as Alcatel-Lucent, they still need to be able to integrate their existing communications infrastructure with these new applications. Given this, the market would evolve into two general segments: Those that will continue to invest in traditional communication vendors Those who will invest in desktop application vendors communication solutions CIOs who choose to invest in desktop vendors solutions for their unified communication and collaboration requirements would then need to evaluate whether to take a revolutionary or an evolutionary approach to desktop convergence. In some green field sites, some CIOs might be tempted to take the revolutionary approach and may go for an end-to-end solution from a desktop application vendor. However, once the hype settles, most would take the pragmatic evolutionary approach for the following reasons: Desktop vendors real time communication solutions, especially voice and voice collaboration, are far from being business ready. Businesses don t want to lose their existing core communication benefits. User experience will be greatly disrupted Business-grade reliability is still untested for these solutions Quality of service (QoS) still needs to evolve (for example no CAC feature in OCS 2007 solution) Fewer device choices to match a user s profile with job needs Emergency features and traditional devices such as fax machines, cannot be integrated Even for simple PSTN access, dealing with other vendor gateways creates management nightmares Investment protection of existing infrastructure (PBX, etc.) CIOs, even if they decide to implement communication clients from desktop application players, still need integration and interworking capabilities with their existing communication infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent is committed to offering its customers standards based, open communication solutions that interface with their existing infrastructure. Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in the converged enterprise market space with best-in-class IP telephony, unified communications, network infrastructure, network management solutions, contact center business applications, and collaborative solutions. 3

8 Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution Suite Alcatel-Lucent is a leading provider of unified communications and collaboration solutions to customers across industry verticals such as finance, education, healthcare and defense. Customers who continue to invest in and trust robust, business ready communication solutions from traditional vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, should consider the award winning Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch Unified Communications and Collaboration Application Suite. Featured is the new OmniTouch My Instant Communicator, which is an integrated client offering that provides its users an unparalleled communication and collaboration experience across the vendor spectrum. It is a fully open, standards-based solution that can support future enterprise needs. Figure 1. Varoius examples of the user interface Event summary balloon Incoming call toast Visual control on all simultaneous conversations The My Instant Communicator user client is the world s first easy-to-use, integrated multi-media service (voice, video and data) that is accessible through multiple interface choices and openness via Web services. It provides an innovative, easy-to-use user interface through non-intrusive toasts, balloons and menu options for enhanced accessibility to services, applications and settings. It also provides enterprise users unmatched integration capabilities for their business processes, applications and portals, as well as existing desktop applications. In brief, My Instant Communicator provides customers the basis for a true, unified desktop experience which is fully adaptive to their business needs. It is a unique offering against traditional competitors and new emerging desktop application vendors. Alcatel-Lucent enterprise communication solutions offer customers viable, standards-based, open, and innovative unified desktop experiences. 4

9 Alcatel-Lucent desktop integration solutions summary Alcatel-Lucent offers several communication integration options for desktop-vendor customers who are looking for an evolutionary approach to desktop convergence. Alcatel-Lucent s open and standards-based solutions provide many benefits including: Lower integration and management costs Improved ROI on existing investments by enhanced functionalities Improved productivity Faster business processes leading to greater customer satisfaction Alcatel-Lucent also helps customers enhance existing desktop applications and portals with additional features and functionalities or simply communication enable them. The chart below gives a summary view of our integration options with major desktop applications. Figure 2. 5

10 Integration with existing desktop messaging applications Figure 3 Alcatel-Lucent Unified Communications Application Suite provides the users of Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes access to telephony services, telephony presence, one number services and unified messaging services. These messaging applications can also be fully integrated with My Teamwork to send out invites for the conference along with access numbers and codes. With Alcatel-Lucent Unified Communications Application Suite, unified messaging customers can fully leverage their investment in Microsoft Exchange or Domino Server or any IMAP4 compliant platforms. Similarly, integrated messaging customers can also fully leverage their investments in Microsoft Exchange or Domino Server or any IMAP4 compliant platforms with Alcatel-Lucent voice-messaging platforms. 6

11 Enhancement of Microsoft Office Communicator Figure 4 Alcatel-Lucent provides customers extensive enhancements for the Microsoft Office Communicator (MOC) client for those who have invested in Microsoft desktop clients for real-time collaboration needs. A) Telephony services Microsoft provides two different ways to integrate its Microsoft Office Communicator and Office Communication Server with OmniPCX Enterprise IP PBX: i) SIP trunking with the OmniPCX Enterprise the MOC client is able to call OmniPCX Enterprise extensions and also access the PSTN through the OmniPCX Enterprise.However, telephony services would be limited to SIP16 type of telephony services (For example make/ take/release/hold/retrieve/blind transfer/forward call) provided by the Microsoft Office Communication server. This solution will be available from 2008 onwards. However, due to limited telephony services available for the user, Alcatel-Lucent would not recommend this solution as first option. 7

12 Figure 5. ii) Through Alcatel-Lucent GETS or Remote Call Control This CTI-based solution enables MOC clients to function like an OmniPCX IP-PBX softphone for call control purposes. The voice path however will be through the OmniPCX end point, which is either a desk phone, or a phone emulation plug-in running in the background on the user s computer. The MOC client is thus associated with a monitored desk (or emulated) phone that can be controlled from the MOC client. For example, an incoming call to the MOC client produces a popup on the desktop that allows the user to answer the call and redirect it to the associated phone. This monitored (on-desk or emulated) phone delivers the main OmniPCX features to the user, such as broker call/attended transfer, music on hold/voice guides, call-back request, forward on busy/no response, group /hunting /parallel /rotational /queuing/overflow, barring/billing/performance monitoring, call admission control, routing/lcr/ars, attendant/day and night mode, single call log, call pickup/ parking, boss-assistant /filtering, supervision/mla/distinct ring, call monitoring/recording, choice of handsets: Analog/TDM/IP/SIP and many others. 8

13 Figure 6. OmniPCX Enterprise call server and GETS server Although either of the above solutions ((i) or (ii)) for telephony services can be deployed, Microsoft Office Communicator does not support both solutions simultaneously. The Remote Call Control solution (through GETS) is the Alcatel-Lucent recommended solution, due to the maximum level of service it provides. Beyond telephony services (whether through an OmniPCX SIP trunk or the GETS offer), MOC client users would benefit from the following functionality: Click-to-dial from their PC leveraging Microsoft Active Directory Services View telephony presence with availability information visible to users on buddy lists incorporated within the communicator client. Caller-ID See a caller s name and contact details the moment a call arrives and answers the call with a mouse click. When working away from the office, dynamically grab calls going to their desk phone and answer from their current location. Receive notification of missed calls with accompanying caller contact details. 9

14 For comparison, My Instant Communicator Unified Communications Solution would have many additional telephony services versus Microsoft Office Communicator with Alcatel-Lucent GETS and phone plug-in solution. For example: Call by name in tool bar Call by skill/organization/ and others Media-full ID card Zero-footprint call context Single access to all services Find-me follow me VIP list /filtering list Dynamic phone assignment Always-on event-driven sys-icon Direct-access event dashboard Modular solution, various skins Consistent user experience over all devices options PDA, IP phone or desktop Deeply integrated and innovative ergonomics Answer with any media / device Escalation between devices Notification: conf / IM / call / share And more 10

15 Enhancement of Microsoft Office Communicator Microsoft Office Communicator supports presence-based IM and point-to-point VoIP audio but does not natively provide audio conferencing capabilities. This service is enabled through the My Teamwork integration which offers full audio conferencing functionality with scheduling and management, initiating recordings, and viewing active and scheduled conferences. Microsoft Office Communicator users access these features via an Alcatel-Lucent tab integrated into the client. The solution runs on the Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch Communications Server (ACS), a SIP and software-based server that installs on any common computer hardware resulting in low installation and maintenance costs. My Teamwork for Microsoft Office Communicator supports ad hoc, scheduled, and reservation-less conferencing with dial in and network client access and advanced call control features such as recording, lecture mode, roll call, and mute/unmute. The feature-rich audio conferencing integration eliminates service provider conferencing to guarantee a quick ROI. The support for any PBX and mixed calling environments with both VoIP and PSTN connected participants is also a key differentiator for the Alcatel-Lucent solution. Large enterprise customers benefit from multi-tenancy capabilities, an operator console to manage larger events and scalability of up to 600 calls per server with multiple servers connected to accommodate thousands of users in a single deployment. Figure 7. My Teamwork for Microsoft Office Communicator

16 Figure 8. Enhancement of IBM Lotus Sametime Using IBM desktop for real-time collaboration needs, extensive enhancements can be made to the IBM Lotus Sametime client in more than one way. A) Telephony services, telephony presence and one number services for IBM Lotus Sametime client Via web service APIs, telephony controls for OmniPCX IP-PBX, one number services and telephony presence (available in 2008) are integrated into the Sametime client. The IBM Sametime user can then be enabled to make or take a call, transfer, conference, and hang-up from with their IBM Sametime user interface. They can also access call log, softphone (for advanced telephony) and one number services as shown below. B) Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch My Teamwork for IBM Lotus Sametime Lotus Sametime users benefit from full audio conferencing functionality directly embedded within the Sametime client through the My Teamwork for IBM Lotus Sametime integration. Ad hoc conferencing from the Sametime Connect Client, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Office applications is supported, as well as scheduled dial in/dial out audio conferencing from the Meeting Center Web conferencing portal. The unique recording and playback capability sets the Alcatel-Lucent solution apart while advanced call controls including mute / unmute, drop, and active speech indicators provide feature-rich conferencing. Figure 9. My teamwork for IBM Lotus Sametime 12

17 Figure 10. Enabling business applications / portals with communication services Click to call dial phone number Take call clear call transfer conference Call log Web Softphone My Assistant Telephony services in chat window The solution uses IBM supported APIs so no client side plug-in is required. This, in conjunction with the seamless client access, reduces user barriers to guarantee the cost savings by eliminating service provider conferencing. The support for any PBX is a key differentiator and makes it ideal for mixed network environments combining VoIP and PSTN connected participants. Audio conferences can support up to 600 calls / server with multiple servers connected and running on the SIP and software-based OmniTouch Advanced Communications Server (ACS). Using common computer hardware, ACS easily scales via software-based licensing for low cost of ownership and maintenance. My Teamwork integration provides multi-tenancy and operator console capability for larger events. C) My Instant Communicator enriches user experience of IBM Lotus Sametime addicts Telephony presence is shown on-the-fly in Lotus Sametime. My Instant Communicator fully controls the conversation flows and when the requested action is an instant message - reply to a voice incoming call, it simply hands over to Lotus Sametime the IM activity. This rule also applies to web presentations, start desktop sharing, etc. While this is a common sense approach, it is unique in the industry. Figure 11. Companies with Microsoft and IBM and collaboration applications can augment their experience with My Instant Communicator. Those who use this product for even a short time will find themselves wondering how they lived without it all these years. Miercom Labs 13

18 Figure 12. Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch XML web services application programming interface enables business applications and portals with communication services. This real time communication enablement of applications and portals enables the user to handle and solve exceptions in the business process in an accelerated manner. This helps them improve overall business efficiency, productivity and most importantly customer care. Alcatel-Lucent enables web-based business applications and portals with telephony services, presence, one number services, unified messaging and teamwork services. Please note that this solution requires integration services from Alcatel-Lucent Professional Services or a system integrator. Single authentication with other desktop applications Alcatel-Lucent Unified Communications Solutions (My Instant Communicator client) provides a single login with other desktop applications that support a single signon mechanism through the NT LAN Manager. Synchronization with existing corporate directories Alcatel-Lucent communication solutions directories can be synchronized with a company directory (which can be Microsoft Active Directory or any other standard LDAP directory) to gain operational efficiency. This ensures that all business organization directories reflect the most current information and provide a universal directory service to the user. 14

19 Figure

20 CONCLUSION Alcatel-Lucent is a key unified real-time communication player in the market. As of today, it has a unique offer for the enterprise market, which is the most complete end-to-end solution with rich IP telephony, unified communications, network infrastructure, network management, business applications such as contact centers, and collaborative solutions. Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in evolving service provider networks to a next generation network (NGN) and IMS-based architecture. These technologies play an important role in the evolution of enterprise networks and Alcatel-Lucent is in a unique position to leverage its knowledge and solutions to fully conform to new product generations. Today, Alcatel-Lucent offers its customers a complete end-to-end unified, multi-media user experience with My Instant Communicator and robust, best-in-class desktop integration and interworking options for customers opting for an evolutionary approach to desktop convergence. Alcatel-Lucent continues to grow and develop its existing solution offerings to provide customers with a next generation architecture that su pports a unified, ubiquitous, rich and seamless user experience over public and private networks. 16

21 Alcatel, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent logo are trademarks of Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The information presented is subject to change without notice. Alcatel-Lucent assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies contained herein Alcatel-Lucent. All rights reserved A (04)