The Role of High Availability Software in Quality of Service Joe McFadden Vice President, Marketing, Nuasis

IP Migration Urban Legends Fact 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 Quiz Mission-critical performance on an IP network Is it…?

Measured in component uptime and service availability CO services were / are hardened o CO was responsible o Distributed network to address outages o CO-based equipment redundancy ACD switches designed for higher uptime performance o Hardware was hardened to meet uptime specifications o Distributed trunking at the switch was / is a standard o Hot standby redundancy o Digital technology led to battery backup TDM World: % Uptime Call Center System Availability Expectations PSTN ACD Call Center Telephony Network

Vendors met % of uptime as a rule But… o Based on business hours of operation o Excluding downtime during maintenance windows o Not measured across the entire network of systems o If more than 25% of trunks were out of service o Does it include other media channels and integration components Did we really deliver % Historical Performance Generally, we’ve slept well at night

ACD PSTN ACD Call Center Telephony Network CTI Hardware and Middleware Third Integration Layer Center Internet WAN Web Collab CRM Database WAN Corporate LAN/WAN DSL WAN CRM Database TDM World: % 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

Internet WAN CRM Database Corporate LAN/WAN DSL WAN IP Contact Center & 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 redundancy o Server hardware configured for fail safe and remote access o Software applications distributed across multiple servers o Redundant servers o UPS power backup Built on a single network – corporate IP network o Fewer components and points of failure Innovations: SIP Gateway with automatic call re-direct

Node Security Appliance Collaboration Server Relay Corp Web Servers DMZ Voice Gateways Server Application Server Voice Server Database Server Hub Application server Voice Server F/W Reports Server Node * * * * n+1 scalable New Metric % Contact Recovery Mission-critical reliability on an IP network On-site Spare Corporate Data Network ACD IVR PBX

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