Previous | Table of Contents | Next |
While the general population of users is being migrated, the organization should also begin to deploy more advanced applications in the original testbed workgroups. These applications can be tightly integrated with networked data applications (as opposed to desktop applications). Among the client/server applications that can be deployed in this final stage include:
One of the biggest advantages of deploying voiceLAN is the integration of voice and data network support teams and the eventual reduction in support costs. Many organizations have already begun consolidating their support organizations for voice and data without deployment of a voiceLAN architecture. Migrating to voiceLAN and to a server-based telephony architecture forces organizational consolidation between personnel from the voice and data environments.
The first operational element that needs to be integrated is the maintenance and support of the network infrastructure. In many organizations, these teams function separately. Initially, the voice team continues to maintain the legacy voice infrastructure, but that task should gradually disappear as users/workgroups move to the voiceLAN infrastructure.
The lighter burden for infrastructural maintenance allows personnel previously dedicated to supporting voice systems to be placed into applications development teams with members from both the data and voice environments. This blending of organizations mitigates some of the potential conflicts between groups of people from the voice and data environments. The consolidation of staff from the voice and data environments is also necessary to develop applications that tightly integrate voice and data. Furthermore, it may also reduce worries about job security on the part of voice-only staff, who may fear they have become expendable. Above all, a consolidated organization that supports all forms of network communications in the enterprise is better able to deliver increasingly sophisticated network services and applications to users.
Achieving the end goal of voiceLAN implementation requires a series of logical steps. Individual organizations may start the migration at different points, depending on their installed base of equipment, economic issues, or other decisions made to meet customer service demands and strategic business goals. The course of implementation may take three to five years. During that time, many technology hurdles will be overcome with standards development. Other issues, such as bandwidth congestion and the need for cost-efficiencies, are causing organizations to take a close look at convergent technologies that can solve problems today.
Various compelling events may precipitate these voiceLAN migration steps. Examples of such events, often designed to simplify management, satisfy growth, or save money, may include:
Exhibit 5 summarizes, in table format, the key decision points in the migration to a voiceLAN network. The table is a broad road map for organizations that wish to begin factoring voiceLAN into their network architecture planning today. Decisions about information technology or services investments, and their implications, are grouped in four areas IT strategy, enterprise requirements, workgroup requirements, and desktop applications.
VoiceLAN in the backbone is the first logical step that can be implemented now to satisfy immediate business goals notably, cost-efficiency and network management and lay the framework for a converged network in the future. Implementing voiceLAN in the workgroup and at the desktop are steps that will be taken in the medium- to longer-term time frame.
When selecting a vendor to work with as a business partner in the development of a voiceLAN implementation, corporate network managers should evaluate the vendors:
Voice system vendors or those vendors providing the call servers, telephony sets, and voice software components must meet additional criteria, including:
Exhibit 5. Decision Points/Recommendations for VoiceLAN Migration.
Previous | Table of Contents | Next |