Transcript How is Enterprise different from SMB?

The Challenges of Hosted IP-PBX
in the Large Enterprise
Huw Rees
VP Business Development
8x8, Inc.
What is Hosted IP-PBX
“Hosted” means:
– The only equipment needed to access the service
is a telephone
– The service is delivered over an IP connection
– The service does not require on-premise gateways
to the PSTN
Benefits of Hosted IP-PBX
• Provides an essential service at a lower cost
with equal or better capabilities than
traditional solutions
• Low startup costs, services scale with usage
needs
• No telephone equipment to maintain,
upgrade or repair
• Phones can be located anywhere, can use an
existing Internet connection
Other Benefits
• A phone service means that you have a service
provider who supports you
– Typically no additional cost
– Hosted PBX service providers provide support for the
entire service, not just the dial tone.
• For example, this means you can get support on how to set up or
use a feature
• Or ..an agent can actually help set up or change an auto attendant
• New services like G.722 wideband codecs (HD Voice)
are deployed automatically with no enterprise/user
upgrades needed
Enterprise Deployments
• The previous slides apply to all businesses but
do not address the unique issues associated
with large enterprise deployments.
• Why are large enterprises not signing up for
hosted IP-PBX services?
• Can we change their mind?
Hosted IP-PBX for Enterprise
• How is Enterprise different from SMB?
– Scalability – does it scale to 1000, 10,000, 100,000+
– Availability – what is the proven availability? 99.99%? 99.999?
– Quality of Service – how does the service provider guarantee QOS? Is
the service a fully converged service?
– Complex network deployments.
– Redundancy and Disaster Recovery – does the solution have
redundancy built in with no single point of failure? What if a server,
cluster or entire data center goes down?
– Security – is the system secure? Is it encrypted? How does it keep up
to date to ensure no known security holes exist?
– Is the provider financially secure such that an enterprise can rely on a
long term contract for services?
Scalability
• Hosted IP-PBX services now serve hundreds of thousands of
phones.
• Typically this is done from clusters of servers in a linearly
scalable model. Enterprise customers can now deploy
unlimited extensions (seats) without the concern that the
solution will not scale.
• The use of complex codecs such as G.729a reduces bandwidth
requirements with very little loss in quality over G.711. Each
active call, including ethernet overhead requires only 30Kbps
of bandwidth
Availability
• Availability for hosted IP-PBX services has consistently
improved year over year and is now better than 99.99%
Availability to the enterprise is
dependent on the availability of
the IP connectivity. For highly
available requirements the use of
redundant links makes sense
QOS
• QOS has advanced significantly over the last few
years.
– Even low end routers now have built in QOS features.
– QOS on the LAN is usually the single biggest issue in
deployment of VoIP
– VLANs, COS tagging can completely eliminate these issues
– If QOS over the WAN is needed, this can be accomplished
by the deployment of an MPLS circuit or even a separate
voice IP circuit if it can be justified on a cost/bandwidth
need
– The service provider needs to private peer with the MPLS
circuit provider
Complex Networks
• Enterprise networks are complicated!
– Adding VoIP must be planned carefully
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Ideally a separate VLAN
Dual redundant access paths, dual routers,dual firewalls etc.
Load balanced
Consideration for all other services on the network like VPNs that
can be broken if VoIP deployments are not planned properly
• The VoIP vendor MUST be an expert in network planning,
deployment and management
• A hosted VoIP provider should also be prepared and able to
provide managed router/firewall services
Example Network Redundancy
Security
• The service should be tested and certified to be
free from all known security vulnerabilities. The
enterprise customer should ask for evidence of
this (and it should be aggressively maintained)
• All users should be authenticated using a secure
encrypted algorithm
• The phones should be capable of secure RTP if
the customer is concerned with LAN sniffing
• There is no reason why a hosted IP-PBX service
should not be sufficiently secure.
• Even the US Government has figured this out!
Case Studies
• Adecco
– A $20B multi-national large enterprise
– Selected a hosted IP-PBX with hosted Call Center
capabilities
– Substantial savings in call center cap-ex (at least $500K
saving per location)
– Realized after deployment that the flexibility paid great
dividends. Adecco location had an H1N1 flu scare, all
employees sent home. All could work from home with a
headset connected to a softphone and web application for
their call center functionality.
Case Study #2
• McKesson
– $106B medical devices corporation
– Has sales people working from home or small offices
throughout the US
– Moving all sales staff to hosted PBX
• Corporate directory
• Extension dialing
• Single (budgetable) bill for all users rather than thousands of
individual expense reports.
• If a sales person quits, McKesson owns the phone number and can
assign it to the new person instantly – no missed sales calls!
Case Study #3
• The federal government (a “special” kind of
large enterprise)!
– Stuck in the ’80s (actually the 1880’s) regarding
telecom services
– Finally realized VoIP works, saves money and
headaches
– Moving rapidly to hosted VoIP services….
Case Study #3 Cont…
– Networx – a $20B program over 10 years with “IPTelS”
services (govt. code for Hosted IP-PBX)
– WITS3, Washington Interagency Telecommunication
Services NVS (Network Voice Services)
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Federal Maritime Commission – 150-200 phones
GSA OCIO – 5000+ phones
Pierce Co. WA, 9000 phones
At least half a dozen other major deployments planned in 2010
Conclusions
• Hosted IP PBX services are ready for enterprise
customers – and they are starting to come – slowly
right now, but we expect an avalanche in the near
future.
• Enterprise customers need to be careful who they
select as a vendor for these services. Incumbent, old
school vendors may not be the best choice either
from a cost perspective or even a viability
perspective (e.g. Nortel).
• Even the US government has figured out that Hosted
IP-PBX is the way to go and they are aggressively
deploying these solutions today