The Collaboration Solution benefits, without any concern! Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) is a next generation unified communication and collaboration platform that allows voice, video, voicemail messaging, instant messaging and presence, and mobility by means of the following Cisco Collaboration products and services: Unified Communications Manager Unity Connection Unified Presence Unified Mobility and Mobile Smartphone Clients IP Multimedia Subsystem Integration Contact Center Italtel s offering for the Hosted Collaboration Solution includes the following key technology elements: Cisco Unified Communications and Collaboration applications for an unparalleled end-user experience An optimized virtualization platform that enables customization, scaling, and simplified operations for improved performance, lower cost of ownership, and increased operational productivity A centralized management system for operational efficiency from zero-touch automation of service fulfillment and administration to proactive system assurance. The virtualization platform is built on Cisco's unique Unified Computing System, which provides scalable, cost-efficient hardware solution for cloud services. The management implementation is based on a framework that takes a system approach to the integration of the numerous tools required to operate a scalable service offering. The management implementation addresses presentation, orchestration, integration, and element management across the functional stack of fulfillment, service assurance, performance management, and billing and accounting. The management framework is scalable to integrate with additional complementary services and customer business support systems (BSS) and operational support systems (OSSs). Finally, the architecture promotes flexible and robust service level agreement (SLA) options, a secure multicustomer environment, and an expandable footprint. A scalable traffic aggregation layer simplifies platform integration as new customers are added, and offers numerous options to provide redundancy throughout the solution at the virtual and application layers.
Management architecture Management architecture referenced in HCS includes components to provide the following capabilities: Service Fulfillment Service Assurance Service fulfillment components Service fulfillment is the ability of the SP to provision new enterprise customers, associated subscribers, and endpoints with voice, video and other collaboration and mobility services, as required. Service fulfillment uses the following components and devices that work together in a defined architecture: CUCDM: Cisco Unified Collaboration Domain Manager. This is an OEM of Vision OSS (Voss) product, that provides the fulfillment Domain Manager function HCM-F: Hosted Collaboration Mediator. Centralized Data repository for HCS solution with 3 key functions: Platform manager Service inventory Infrastructure Manager Service assurance components The HCS service assurance subsystem defines a framework to provide device and service monitoring and assurance functions for components and services in HCS. The following are the components considered in the reference architecture and included in the framework: Prime Central for HCS assurance: responsible for central dashboard, event enrichment and normalization Cisco Unified Operations Manager/Service Manager: Device fault, availability and performance, UC resource utilization, diagnostics and tests, reporting for UC applications, service performance and voice quality, call analysis CDR reporting Cisco UCS Manager. Device fault, availability and performance for UCS system. It runs in Fabric
Interconnect component (6248) Vmware vcenter: Device fault, availability and performance reporting for ESXi, VM and Nexus 1000v. Managed Services To provide managed services for Cisco HCS, Italtel leverages on its own support organization and on a tight cooperation with a selected number of Service partners to guarantee a multicountry coverage. A typical approach is based on: remote centralized Front Desk which provides the entry point for the Customer with a local on site support - Level 1 (TAC1) remote Network Operation Center (NOC) for centralized operation and monitoring activities, 24h x 7d operating. remote Back Office functions : if a technical escalation is needed, it will be done to TAC2 remote support and for complex and critical cases, the vendor TAC3 Support will be activated. In case of outage, TAC 3 is immediately involved Network services are compliant to ISO 27001 standard, while IT services are compliant to ITIL v3. Within managed service for Cisco HCS, Italtel distinguishes the Planned Activities from the Fault Management Activities. Planned Activities are defined and agreed with the customer. Periodic checks of the progress of the activities are performed to monitor the implementation of the agreed plan and to schedule new activities. The second type of activity (Fault Management: incident and reactive problem management), by their unplanned characteristic, are managed with a view to minimize the impact of incidents and problems on the business, to prevent recurrence and restore service in shortest possible time within predetermined Service Levels Agreement (SLA). These activities are recorded through a Trouble Ticketing system, which ensures full traceability of the times and work through proper documentation. Any kind of managed service is provided in compliance with the SLA, as defined by contract. Usually Italtel guarantees the following Time to notify SLA. The Time to notify SLA is the time measured from initial system detection of an event to customer notification by e- mail or phone. Type of activity Time to Notify SLA Working hours 8 hours x 5 days - 8x5 Round the clock 24 hours x 7 days - H24 Planned activities 20 minutes 20 minutes Fault Management 20 minutes 20 minutes
The Time to Restore Service is depending on severity/priority as defined by contract. It is the time measured from the point of failure until the service is fully restored and it delivers its normal functionality to end users (by temporary or permanent fix). Italtel can usually guarantees the following Time to Restore Service (for example on a priority scale from high level P1 to low level P4): Priority level P1 P2 P3 P4 Time to Restore Service target 4 hours 8 hours 24 hours 2 business days Italtel s Managed Services for Cisco HCS cover the following tasks: Configuration Changes management: is the process responsible for controlling the lifecycle of all the change. The primary objective of Change Management is to enable beneficial Change to be made, with minimum disruption of the IPT Services. The purpose of the Change Management is to standardize methods and procedures for handling all changes, assure that all changes to service assets and CIs (Configuration Item) are recorded in the CMDB (Configuration Management DB) and the overall business risk is optimized. Preventive maintenance: Real time and proactive supervision of telephony infrastructure and service will be managed by the NOC. Italtel will notify customer of detected events and escalate both calls and events based on agreed notification and escalation procedures. The proactive supervision will be accomplished through log analysis on specific network element or module and verifying the database synchronization with its backup replication. The real-time supervision is the normal alarm monitoring activity. The NOC will notify and activate the escalation procedure proposed after an alarm is detected on the network by the monitoring tools. Monitoring: NOC operator detects (in real time) performance changes of the monitored devices towards appropriate pre-set thresholds. Degradation (decrease in performance of network devices below those thresholds) is recorded before it becomes a failure to alert the customer by providing information in a "proactive" and not just reactive (when the failure occurred) way. With this information, preventive action can be taken, preventing malfunctions and ensuring service quality. Faults resolution: Italtel provides the full process to solve any fault since its detection as an incident (incident management process activation) till its resolution and possible repetitive incidents minimization (problem management process implementation). Reporting Italtel provides customer with reports according to current functionality level provided by Cisco Operation Manager and Service Monitoring platform included into HCS framework. Reports comes in electronic form or accessible on a collaboration site.