Unified Communications Summary of Manufacturer Technical Evaluations 1
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms 1 ShoreTel 2 Avaya 3 Cisco 4 Siemens (Unify) 5 2
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms Auto Attendant (AA) Allows callers to automatically be transferred to an extension without the intervention of an operator or receptionist. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) A device or system that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals that agents use. H.323 An older signaling protocol for multimedia communications used in VoIP systems. Consult/Whisper The ability for a supervisor to speak only to the agent of an active call between an agent and a customer. Barge-In The ability for a supervisor to join an active call between an agent and a customer Screen Capture The ability to record an agent s screen during a call. 3
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms High Availability (HA) Refers to a system or component that is continuously operational. Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) A text based signaling and call control communications standard protocol used in VoIP systems. N+1 Redundancy Having one more module, component or system than required to maintain the necessary level of performance. Private Branch Exchange (PBX) A legacy telephone system within an enterprise that switches calls between enterprise users on local lines while allowing all users to share a limited number of external phone lines. Firmware Software that is installed on an integrated circuit within a hardware device. Call Grading The ability to grade or evaluate a call recording. 4
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms Microsoft Lync Microsoft s instant messaging and collaboration platform. Presence The ability to detect the electronic presence of users connected to the network and whether they are available in real time. Dual Registration The ability of a device to register with more than one server at the same time. Local Survivability Processor (LSP) Avaya terminology used for remote office survivability based on H.323 signaling. Enterprise Survivable Server (ESS) Avaya terminology used for enterprise survivability based on H.323 signaling. Call Management System (CMS) Avaya terminology, CMS collects call-traffic data, formats management reports, and interfaces with the ACD feature on the Communication Manager system. 5
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms Collaboration The ability to collaborate with others in real time from a network attached device. Instant Messaging The exchange of text based messages with one or more individuals on a network in real time. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Standard protocol for initiating an interactive user session that involves multimedia elements such as video, voice, chat, gaming, and virtual reality Session Border Controller (SBC) A dedicated hardware device or software application that governs the manner in which phone calls are initiated, conducted and terminated on a VoIP network. SIP Redirect Server Redirects SIP traffic to the appropriate destination, thereby removing itself from further messaging while still aiding in locating the target of the request. Trunk A line or link designed to handle many signals simultaneously, and that connects major switching centers or nodes in a communications system 6
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms 1 ShoreTel 2 Avaya 3 Cisco 4 Siemens (Unify) 5 7
Overview ShoreTel was the first VoIP manufacturer to be evaluated in the Palm Beach County lab. All equipment, hardware and software, were shipped to the lab from the manufacturer and installed and made operational during the first week of the evaluation. The system that was setup and evaluated was the ShoreTel System 13 Unified Communication platform; which is capable of supporting up to 20k users in a single system image with additional hardware. 8
Platform/Architecture The ShoreTel platform does not perform the function of a SIP redirect server. Inbound SIP Calls are routed to its destination via the first Shore Gear switch that receives the call from the Session Border Controller (SBC). ShoreTel does not manufacture its own SBC; the platform is only certified to work with the Ingate SBC. Not all Ingate SBCs are certified to work on the ShoreTel platform. The largest model Ingate SBC that ShoreTel is certified on can only support 150 sessions (calls). Palm Beach County s current session s requirement is 2,000 sessions per data center. The models that ShoreTel is certified with do not support High Availability (HA); therefore we could not test this function in the lab. The phones that were available for testing in the lab did not support SIP protocol. Only MGCP protocol was supported; also, the phones do not support dual registrations to two difference data center; fail-over strategy in N+1 which increases the hardware requirement. Fail-over testing within the same site or data center was seamless. However, fail-over testing between data centers utilizing ShoreTel s N+1 strategy takes up to four (4) minutes to complete. 9
Collaboration The ShoreTel platform architecture is a distributed topology; hardware footprint needed to accommodate or mirror the size of Palm Beach County system could not be tested in our lab setting. Tested the ShoreTel Soft Client. We were able to Text, Instant Message, detect Presence and make Outbound Calls. Tested the plugin for Microsoft Lync. The ShoreTel Client connects to the SA 100 server provided by ShoreTel. This server can only support 2,000 users. Only five (5) SA100 Servers can be deployed in a single image, bringing our total to 10,000 users. There is no redundancy from one server to the next. Desktop Collaboration can only be supported via the ShoreTel Conference Server on a first come, first serve basis. ShoreTel s Collaboration platform does not integrate with the County s Tandberg Video Conference solution. 10
Contact Center Some reports in the Contact Center were not accurate because the system could not track the status of the agent when they were making outbound calls; an agent was placed in a Not Ready state instead. The call recording solution does not support Call Grading or Screen Capture of the Agent s desktop. The Consult/Barge-in feature is not available on the ShoreTel Contact Center. Contact Center Server fail-over testing was seamless with no down time or interruption in service. This system did not support a URL or web client, a hard client had to be loaded on the desktop. 11
Evaluation Summary - ShoreTel Based on PBC ISS requirements and as tested within the PBC ISS Lab Strengths Weaknesses Platform/" Architecture Distributed platform topology which can be centralized. Platform can be centrally managed. SBC cannot support PBC requirements on a single SBC. HW footprint increases routing complexity. Data Center Failover strategy. Collaboration Client supported most features. Plug-in integrated seamlessly with MS Lync. Did not test integration with Tandberg solution. Desktop sharing is ad hoc via conferencing solution. Contact Center All-in-one solution. Failover was seamless. PBX-centric. Inaccurate and unavailable reports. 3 rd party call grading and screen capture. Bargein not supported. 12
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms 1 ShoreTel 2 Avaya 3 Cisco 4 Siemens (Unify) 5 13
Overview Avaya was the second VoIP Manufacturer to be evaluated in the Palm Beach County lab. All equipment, hardware and software, were shipped to the lab from the manufacturer and received the second week of the lab evaluation. All equipment, hardware and software, were installed and operational by the end of the second week of the evaluation. Testing could not begin until the third week of the evaluation. The system that was used for the evaluation was the Avaya Aura platform; which is capable of supporting up to 40k users in a single enterprise platform. 14
Platform/Architecture Architect testing did not begin until the fourth week of the lab. The Avaya design discussed in the technical planning session was different than the Avaya design tested in the lab; however each proposal required both SIP firmware and H.323 firmware to be loaded on the phones. The decision of whether to load SIP or H.323 firmware on the phone will be based on the requirement of the user. For example, all contact center users would require the H.323 firmware load; all sites that had LSP or ESS would require H.323 firmware load; all other sites could use either SIP or H.323 firmware loads. Only the SIP firmware load supports dual registrations to two (2) different data centers via the Avaya Session Manager server. H.323 firmware loads do not support dual registrations and register with the Avaya Communication Manager, which does not have direct access to SIP trunks. Access to SIP trunks is through a link through Communication Manager and Session Manager to get to the SBC. Phones that are loaded with the H.323 firmware can only register to one (1) data center at a time. Failover from one data center (LSP or ESS) to the other data center for the H.323 phones takes 3-20 minutes to complete. 15
Platform/Architecture (cont.) H.323 phones, in the failover modes, that register with a LSP or ESS do not have access to the centralized SIP trunk core. H.323 phones will not register with the second data center/lsp or ESS if the ESS is registered with the primary data center. The SIP phones do support dual registrations with two separate data centers via the Avaya Session Manager. Failover for SIP phones is seamless. The solution that was recommended by Avaya requires PBC to manage both SIP and H.323 firmware loads. Lab design did not have an Enterprise Survivable Server (ESS) programmed, therefore could not test failover to an ESS server. The lab design did have LSP installed to support failover of H.323 phones; however the LSP could not make or receive SIP calls because SIP trunks are not supported on a LSP. 16
Collaboration Collaboration testing did not begin until the fourth week of the lab. Avaya s proposed One X Communicator client and the Flare client were tested in the lab. The One X Communicator does not support desktop collaboration. The Flare client does not support a tight integration back to the platform for call control. Avaya s recommendation to this issue was to use Microsoft Lync. Testing of Avaya s plugin for Microsoft Lync call control worked via the Avaya platform. Presence and IM worked. The Avaya One X Communicator client is H.323 and registers back with Communication Manager. Avaya s collaboration platform does not integrate with the County s Tandberg Video Conference solution. 17
Contact Center Contact Center testing did not begin until the third week of the lab. The Contact Center proposed was the Avaya Elite Multichannel Contact Center platform. All Contact Center phones for this solution must be H.323. The Elite Multichannel Contact Center is a PBX-centric call center. All agents, phones, call routing, etc. are programmed via Communication Manager, which is H.323. Other media channels, like chat and email, are add-on applications; as well as CMS and Call Recording. Failover of the Elite platform did not work. H.323 phones, which make up the platform, re-registered to the LSP server in the lab; however a LSP server cannot access SIP trunks. Inbound and outbound calls to the Contact Center failed. Scheduling and email delivery of reports is not available; professional services or a third party must be purchased to achieve this function. 18
Evaluation Summary - Avaya Based on PBC ISS requirements and as tested within the PBC ISS lab Strengths Weaknesses Platform/" Architecture Centralized platform topology. Manufacture own SBC as well as function with 3 rd party SBCs. Failover strategy for H.323. Dual firmware requirement. Platform manageability. Collaboration Plug-in integrated seamlessly with MS Lync. Required 2 different clients (One X and Flare) to meet PBC requirements. Did not test integration with Tandberg solution. Contact Center Feature rich solution with advanced call routing capabilities under normal operations. PBX-centric. H.323. Not all-in-one solution. Failover strategy does not support SIP trunks. 19
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms 1 ShoreTel 2 Avaya 3 Cisco 4 Siemens (Unify) 5 20
Overview Cisco was the third VoIP Manufacturer to be evaluated in the Palm Beach County lab. All equipment, hardware and software, were shipped to the lab from the manufacturer and installed and operational by the first week of the evaluation. The system that was used for the evaluation was the Cisco Unified Communication Manager platform, which is capable of supporting up to 40k users in a single system cluster. 21
Platform/Architecture All testing was completed successfully with the exception of the manual fallback to primary server test. Cisco does not support this feature, only automatic fallback is supported. The SBC/Cube software tested in the lab was loaded on the Cisco 2800 and 2900 ISR Routers. These smaller routers experienced some performance issues when running de-bug. The Cisco SBC/Cube software is certified to work on the larger ISR and any ASR router. 22
Collaboration Tested the Cisco Jabber Soft Client. We were able to Text, Instant Message (IM), detect Presence and make Outbound Calls. Tested the plugin for Microsoft Lync. Presence detection did not work; also, call control did not work 23
Contact Center The Cisco Contact Center Express proposed is only capable of supporting 400 Agents. The call recording solution does not support Call Grading or Screen Capture of the Agent s desktop. The Consult/Barge-in feature is not available on the Cisco Contact Center. Contact Center Server fail-over testing was seamless with no down time or interruption in service. The Voice Mail with Email delivery and Web Chat features were not programmed by Cisco in the Lab and were not tested. Therefore we were not able to verify reporting capabilities for all media types. This system did not support a URL or web client, a hard client had to be loaded on the desktop. Report graphs are accomplished by using Google code. 24
Evaluation Summary - Cisco Based on PBC ISS requirements and as tested within the PBC ISS lab Platform/" Architecture Strengths Centralized platform topology. Manufacture own SBC/CUBE, and can function with 3 rd party SBCs. Seamless Failover. Manageability. Reliability. Availability. Weaknesses Performance of SBC/CUBE varies depending on the HW platform of the ISR/ASR routers. Collaboration Jabber client supported all PBC requirements and integrated with Tandberg solution. MS Lync integration issues. Contact Center Feature rich, All-in-one solution with seamless Failover. Does not scale to PBC requirements. PBX-centric. Report graphs via Google code. Was not able to test all features. 25
Terminology Definitions of commonly used terms and acronyms 1 ShoreTel 2 Avaya 3 Cisco 4 Siemens (Unify) 5 26
Overview Unify was the fourth VoIP Manufacturer to be evaluated in the Palm Beach County lab. All equipment, hardware and software, were shipped to the lab from the manufacturer and installed and operational by the first week of the evaluation. The system that was used for the evaluation was the Siemens OpenScape System v7; which is capable of supporting up to 100k users in a single system cluster. 27
Platform/Architecture All testing was completed successfully. This was the only pure SIP based system that we tested. 28
Collaboration Tested the Siemens UC Client. We were able to Text, Instant Message (IM), detect Presence and make Outbound Calls. There was also a web version of the UC Client available for testing which performed all the functions above. Tested the plugin for Microsoft Lync. Siemens UC Client Collaboration platform does not integrate with the County s older model Tandberg Video Conference solution, but was able to integrate with the newer Tandberg model. 29
Contact Center Contact Center server fail-over testing was not seamless. It takes 5 minutes for fail-over to complete. This is equivalent to a five-minute outage during which all Contact Center processing is down. The Redundancy for the Contact Center is warm stand by. The platform does not come with a Call Recording solution. The solution must be purchased from a third party. The third party solution was provided by Siemens and tested in the lab. Skill based routing is not available in the base package. Agent-to-Agent chat is not supported. The Barge-in feature is available, but Consult/Whisper is not. This system did not support a URL or web client, a hard client had to be loaded on the desktop. All reports requested by the customer were not available. 30
Evaluation Summary Siemens (Unify) Based on PBC ISS requirements and as tested within the PBC ISS lab Platform/" Architecture Collaboration Strengths Centralized SIP platform solution. Manufacture own SBC, and can function with 3 rd party SBCs. Seamless Failover. Manageability. Reliability. Availability. Siemens client supported all PBC requirements and integrated with newer Tandberg solution. Web client. Weaknesses Integration with legacy Nortel using beta product. Integration with older Tandberg solution. Contact Center Feature rich solution with advanced call routing capabilities under normal operations. PBX-centric. 3 rd party Call Recording. Warm standby Failover. 31
Projected Project Cost Based upon staff analysis of available piggyback contracts Does not included additional discounts for trade-in of existing equipment or additional discounts due to the scale of the project Capital" Operating (3 year total)" Total" ShoreTel" $4,792,489" $762,610" $5,555,099" Avaya" Not available" Not available" Not available" Cisco" $6,429,102" $1,723,661" $8,152,763" Siemens" $4,757,976" $1,231,242" $5,989,218" 32
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