The Role of High Availability Software in Quality of
ServiceJoe McFaddenVice President, Marketing, Nuasis
IP Migration Urban LegendsFact or Fiction?
“VoIP sacrifices voice quality”VoIP on a managed network with QoS is high quality; VoIP on the
open Internet may not be
“My network isn’t ready for VoIP”
Many enterprise routers are enabled with QoS and only need to change configuration settings
“VoIP solutions aren’t reliable”The network needs to be reliable, but some VoIP applications can recover from network failures
“VoIP solutions aren’t secure”Security can be achieved – as part of an overall enterprise network security strategy
Telecom manager sleeping well at night
Call Center manager sleeping well at night
CEO in the box and sleeping well at night
All of the above
Call Center 101 QuizMission-critical performance on an IP
network
Is it…?
• Measured in component uptime and service availability• CO services were / are hardened
o CO was responsibleo Distributed network to address outageso CO-based equipment redundancy
• ACD switches designed for higher uptime performanceo Hardware was hardened to meet uptime specificationso Distributed trunking at the switch was / is a standardo Hot standby redundancyo Digital technology led to battery backup
TDM World: 99.999% UptimeCall Center System Availability
Expectations
PSTN ACD
ACDACD
ACD
Call Center Telephony Network
•Vendors met 99.999% of uptime as a rule•But…
o Based on business hours of operationo Excluding downtime during maintenance windowso Not measured across the entire network of
systemso If more than 25% of trunks were out of serviceo Does it include other media channels and
integration components
•Did we really deliver 99.999%
Historical PerformanceGenerally, we’ve slept well at night
ACD
ACD
ACDPSTN ACD
Call Center Telephony Network
CTI Hardware and Middleware
CTI Hardware and Middleware
CTI Hardware and Middleware
CTI Hardware and Middleware
ThirdIntegration
Layer
E-mail Center
Internet WANWeb Collab
CRMDatabase
WANCorporate LAN/WAN
DSL
WAN
CRMDatabase
TDM World: 99.999% Uptime ???
Call Center System Availability Expectations
•Across a network of sites and systems•That considers multiple media channels•That takes advantage of inherent advantages of the IP infrastructure
New Metric: 100% Contact Recovery
Mission-critical performance on an IP network
InternetWAN
CRMDatabase
Corporate LAN/WAN
DSL
WANIP ContactCenter &IVR
Single Network IP Architecture Software application architecture simplifies the model
WAN
PSTN
• Is IP really that much different than TDM?o Distributed architecture for inherent component redundancyo Server hardware configured for fail safe and remote accesso Software applications distributed across multiple serverso Redundant serverso UPS power backup
• Built on a single network – corporate IP networko Fewer components and points of failure
• Innovations: SIP Gateway with automatic call re-direct
Node
SecurityAppliance
Collaboration Server
EmailRelay
Corp Web Servers
DMZ
Voice Gateways
Email Server
Application Server
Voice Server
Database Server
Hub
Application server
Voice Server
F/W F/W
Reports Server
Node
*
*
*
*n+1 scalable
New Metric -- 100% Contact RecoveryMission-critical reliability on an IP network
On-site Spare
Corporate Data Network
ACDIVRPBX
Design Considerations for an IP Contact Center
Examine each segment of the path
• PSTN component hasn’t changed• Pure IP software (vs. hybrid TDM / IP) can reduce the points of
failure• Distribute the trunking to minimize impact of a single voice
gateway failure• Distribute call center applications across multiple servers
optimizing for voice connections• Provide redundancy for application-critical components• Monitor voice path for interruptions and re-direct