Transcript VoIP: Implementing Scalable, Flexible and Cost Effective Solutions

Copyright Deke Kassabian and Criss Keating
2010. This work is the intellectual property of the
authors. Permission is granted for this material to
be shared for non-commercial, educational
purposes, provided that this copyright statement
appears on the reproduced materials and notice is
given that the copying is by permission of the
authors. To disseminate otherwise or to republish
requires written permission from the authors.
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
VoIP: Implementing Scalable, Flexible
and Cost Effective Solutions at Emory
and Penn
Deke Kassabian and Criss Keating
University of Pennsylvania
Educause Conference 2010
October 2010
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Penn Background
History of Telephony at Penn
Open Source and Penn
PennNet Phone Concept
Current Status of PennNet Phone Service
Challenges and Solutions
Opportunities
Staffing and Resources
Future
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Penn Background
• An Ivy League university in Philadelphia, PA founded
in 1740 by Ben Franklin
• 40,000 faculty, staff and students
• 20,000 phone lines/10,000 voicemail users
• 50,000 IP addresses in use
• 9,000 analog video connections
• Over 2 Gbps external IP capacity
• Operates the MAGPI Internet2 GigaPop
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Organization
• Networking, Telecommunications and Video Groups
merged in 2000
• Approximately 100 full time staff members and
contractors today, after substantial churn
• 100% direct charge budget
• Organization is fully integrated and increasingly well
cross-trained
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Voice Services at Penn Today
• Most users still have Centrex service
– Local Exchange Carrier -provided business
telephone service
– Long list of available features
– Switch at Telco Central Office
– On-campus copper cabling
• Some departments have PBXs and small
key systems
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Telecommunications Infrastructure
• Local Exchange Carrier brings copper loop infrastructure
to campus Rate Demarcation Points (RDPs)
• Penn maintains in-ground and in-building copper cable
infrastructure from RDP to building, building to closet,
closet to wallplate
• This infrastructure is very old, and in some cases is
failing resulting in outages and requiring expensive
repairs
• Replacement of these cables would be $3-5M
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Business Drivers
• High costs associated with the existing cabling
infrastructure.
• Lack of redundancy
• Moves, adds and changes are time consuming and
costly (3000/yr @ $125= $375k)
• Limited application integration/flexibility
• Legacy voice mail and Centrex Services are
business critical, but sometimes fragile and costly
• Prefer vendor independence, open standards and
open source
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Voice Services Goals
• Generally:
– Cost–effective, reliable voice communications
with flexibility to meet evolving demands
– Vendor independence
– Single integrated network infrastructure
• Specifically: Convert 20,000 analog voice
customers to 17,000 VoIP on a converged
IP network with added functionality and
lower costs
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
History of VoIP at Penn
• Protocol investigation dates back to late 1990s
• Worked first with H.323-based VoIP, and later with
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
• Worked with a range of applications:
– Cisco Call Manager, an enterprise solution (2001-2002)
– BroadSoft’s Broadworks, a carrier-class VoIP software
solution, piloted on campus (2001-2003)
– Externally hosted IP Centrex solutions (2003-2004)
– Verizon HIPC Service (2007-2009)
– Open-source SIP Express Router with Digium’s Asterisk
Voice Mail (2003-Present)
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
The Case for Open Source Technology
• Does IP Telephony lend itself to open source server
software?
– Can it be reliable enough?
• Four nines or better for every aspect of the service, measured
over the last quarter.
– Will we have the feature set we need?
• Actual feature needs are less than expected but more technically
challenging than expected
– Will we be able to maintain it well?
• Open Source VoIP can be well maintained if the proper
resources are committed to the work. That’s not always easy.
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
The Case for Open Source Technology
• We have an IT staff experienced in the 24x7
operation of key services based on open
standards and open source
• Positive experience with open source server
software encouraged us
• Would such a service be useful to others in
the Higher Ed Community?
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Open Source Strategy
• Select open source tools written in programming
languages in which we have expertise
• Assure that multiple staff members are familiar
with each open source tool
• Avoid the over-customization trap
– Use existing functionality where possible
– Maintain active relationship with developers
– Try to get any essential changes of general
interest built back into mainline code
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
VoIP Building Blocks
•
•
•
•
SIP Clients or User Agents
SIP Proxy Servers
Media & Feature Servers
Gateways and ITSP
services
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
SIP User Agents (UAs)
• Hardware SIP phone, in the
familiar desk set form factor.
Penn currently uses Polycom
phones.
• Software that acts as a SIP
client or user agent and runs
on a desktop, laptop or
handheld. Shown here is
eyeBeam from Counterpath.
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
SIP Proxy Servers
• Server that accepts “registration” from valid
users
• Allows client to signal their call information
• Handles call set up and gets out of the way
• Penn uses SER (iptel.org)
and OpenSER (openser.org)
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Media & Feature Servers
• Server that handles “media” such as voice
mail and music on hold
• Provides for some additional call features
• Co-exists with provisioning services
• Penn currently uses Asterisk
(www.digium.com)
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Gateway
IP
Gateway
• Interconnect between campus network and PSTN
• Penn currently uses Cisco 3845 routers
Campus
Network
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
ISDN PRIs
PSTN
Educause 2010
SIP Trunking
• Penn will also use ITSP services, sending calls via IP to a
national network of gateways for completion
IP
ITSP
Network
Campus
Network
PST
N
• There are significant cost saving from using ITSP services to
connect to the PSTN and paying for bandwidth vs using PRI’s
and paying per call
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Current State of Service
• Substantial Deployment (over 6000 phones)
• Production-grade
– Redundant servers, gateways and PRIs
– Single-line features, email/voicemail integration
– Some multi-line features (ring groups, multi line
appearance)
– 911 support equal to legacy system
• Bridged Line Appearances (BLA) required but not
yet working reliably
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Managing PennNet Phone
• Web “provisioning interface” to allow
– Installation staff to configure phones for
deployment
– Support staff to provide local support
– End-users to select and maintain configuration
options and features
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
PennNet Phone Web Services
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Emergency Services & Location
• Ability to route 511/911 calls, including
support for location information
• Three phases towards improvement
– Originally - Fixed location phones
– Today - VoIP phones movable by IT Staff, with
web form location reporting
– Future - Dynamic location updates
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Emergency Services & Location
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Security & Privacy
• Key project elements for S&P
– Configuration security - protecting phone
configuration and user details
– Gateway security - securing gateways so
only authorized users make calls
– Call privacy - minimizing the eavesdrop
risks through securing the signaling and
media
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Current Development Projects
• Using ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service
Providers) for off campus calls
• Addressing missing features like BLA and
Intercom
• Handset diversity
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Flexible Support Model
• Support model includes Campus IT and traditional telephone
support providers (TSP)
– Monthly training sessions offered for telephone support providers and
end users at http://knowledgelink.upenn.edu
– New web service offered for all telephone support providers
http://www.upenn.edu/computing/voice/help/repair.html
– New ordering web services offered at
http://www.upenn.edu/computing/isc/networking/
• Launched OMS, a new web based order management
application that guides customers through the order process
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Collaboration within Higher-Ed
• A few U.S. universities, most notably
Columbia are using a very similar approach
• Sharing plans, code and best practices
• Open to participation by other groups
seriously engaged in similar efforts
• Reference implementation might be more
easily deployable by others
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
A Few Key Challenges
• Supporting a few of the most advanced features
• Recognizing and dealing with the vastly different
work processes people have around their telephones
• Service complexity leads to extreme testing
challenges
• In a vendor neutral environment complex issues
require work with several vendors
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Lessons & Recommendations
• Make VoIP a priority across the organization
• Create/maintain a voice development environment
• Try new features in your own department first, as a
pre-pilot
• Pilot not only the technology, but full support and
communications process. Involve all service
delivery and support personnel
• Pilot with a diverse group of users – not just “IT
Folks”
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010
Looking To The Future
• With the elimination of legacy services and
networks, we anticipate:
–
–
–
–
–
Increased reliability
Improved functionality and integration
Higher levels of operational efficiencies
Telecommunications cost reductions of 10-30%
Better customer service
ISC Networking &
Telecommunications
Educause 2010