Cisco Unity Voice Mail Migration

< Day Day Up >

Cisco Unity Voice Mail Migration Program Unity, a joint initiative between the IT organization and the voice technology group, will begin implementing Cisco Unity voice messaging across Cisco in February 2004. The first phase of the global deployment will include the campuses at Sydney, Amsterdam, London, Research Triangle Park (RTP), and San Jose, as well as some sites to be serviced from their data centers. As project sponsors of the Cisco Unity migration, Lance Perry, Cisco vice president of IT, and Don Proctor, Cisco vice president of voice technology group, anticipate that more than 75 percent of the Cisco user population will be migrated to Unity voice messaging by the end of the first phase. Cisco Unity voice messaging will offer advanced networked voice messaging functionality, including the ability to send and receive voice messages from a web browser. Integration between the phone and PC interfaces will provide users with greater flexibility to manage their voice messages. The Cisco Unity program will be the largest global deployment of Unity to date, replacing 160 Avaya Octel systems with 45 Cisco Unity voice messaging systems, eliminating more than U.S. $7 million paid annually to a Cisco competitor. With Unity voice messaging, Cisco users will have the same set of conversation features across all theatres, simplifying the current environment, which consists of two different Avaya Octel systems. This is a voice messaging-only solution. Although Cisco Unity as a product is scaleable to support unified messaging (UM) through integration with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, a corporate-wide UM solution will not be implemented in Cisco in fiscal year 2004. Meanwhile, we continue to demonstrate the use of UM at showcase sites in San Jose, the Americas, and EMEA. Global Implementation Strategy The Cisco Unity voice mail deployment is a phased approach for which every user throughout Cisco will be affected. The following highlights the global implementation strategy used in the deployment. Global Implementation�Phase 1 Build out core infrastructure� alternate mark inversion (AMI), APAC, EMEA, San Jose Migrate clients at small AMI site� Grand Rapids, Michigan (17 clients) Migrate clients at small APAC site� 8 sites in Australia and New Zealand (approximately 200 clients) Migrate clients at medium AMI site� Atlanta, Georgia (250 clients) Migrate clients at a campus� Sydney, Australia (approximately 900 clients) Migrate clients at RTP and San Jose on the same weekend (approximately 20,000 clients) Migrate clients at London, England and Amsterdam, The Netherlands campuses (approximately 8000 clients) Global Implementation�Phase 2 Build remaining infrastructure� AMI, APAC, EMEA Migrate remaining clients� AMI, APAC, EMEA Cisco Unity Architecture Summary Consolidate from 160 current Octel systems to 45 centralized Cisco Unity voice mail systems. Cut the largest populated sites (75 percent of users, high volume network traffic) first. Cut remaining sites (25 percent of users, low volume network traffic) as feasible. These sites will leverage a combination of Octel and Cisco Unity Bridge technology during "hybrid" state. Utilize separate Active Directory Forest and Exchange infrastructure to speed up the deployment process. TIP The key to ensuring that you have the most optimal voice mail design is to pay close attention to the power phone user and not the typical phone user. For those who rarely use e-mail but are constantly on the phone, voice messaging is their primary method of communication, and their usage should help dictate the user feature requirements. This major global deployment of Cisco Unity voice messaging represents a further return on investment (ROI) from our acquisition of Active Voice. We are pleased to be able to offer the benefits of yet another leading Cisco technology to our Cisco users. NOTE You can find Cisco best practices for deploying a Cisco Unity solution at http://www.cisco.com/partner/WWChannels/technologies/Unity/index.html. (A Cisco.com account is required.) Cisco Unity Architecture (Pre/Post) As Cisco prepares for the Cisco Unity deployment, the project team will have to convert more than 160 voice mail solutions located around the world, as illustrated in Figure 7-10. Figure 7-10. Cisco Voice Messaging Environment During Migration [View full size image] When the Cisco Unity deployment is complete, 45 Cisco Unity voice messaging systems will be distributed globally, as illustrated in Figure 7-11. Figure 7-11. Cisco Voice Messaging Environment After Unity Deployment [View full size image]

< Day Day Up >