Like thousands of other businesses, your organization may be considering a migration to IP telephony, a technology that allows voice, data and video to be transmitted in an integrated fashion across your company's data network. IP telephony could save your company thousands of dollars a year in telecommunications expenses, while dramatically improving the ability to share information across the enterprise.
Deploying IP telephony, though, means more than making a few simple changes to the average network. Most organizations find that their existing data networks require greater bandwidth, reliability and availability in order to support voice and video than is generally deployed for data. So where can a company start on the road to a robust IP telephony network? A network readiness assessment is the best place to begin.
The IP telephony challenge
Several years ago, organizations began to deploy IP telephony in substantial numbers. Many, however, hit snags along the way. They often lacked the in-house expertise to plan properly for the deployment. Some companies had tremendous experience in data networks, while others primarily had knowledge of voice networks. But few possessed the know-how and skill to build a converged network that would reliably transport both data and voice.
Because of this knowledge gap, deployment plans often were insufficient and incomplete. Projects went ahead without a realistic understanding of the bandwidth, traffic prioritization and other requirements needed to support such an advanced network. Stressed IT staff often were asked to learn about, plan for and implement projects during their "downtime" or after work or during weekends. To further complicate matters, they lacked the full commitment of executive staff, who themselves had little understanding of the project's magnitude.
Unfortunately, many companies considering IP telephony face the same situation today. Without a comprehensive network communications plan, organizations run the real risk of trying to implement the technology on a network that cannot support it. They end up wasting untold time and money, a situation made even worse by the need to start all over again.
Based on our customers' experiences, Cisco Systems realizes that many companies have difficulty readily determine if their networks can support high-quality IP telephony. Furthermore, they cannot ascertain, in a systematic and quantifiable way, how to redesign and upgrade their networks to ensure the smooth flow of data and voice.
A network readiness assessment can remedy that problem. It should be part of the planning stage of your IP telephony deployment. It sets the stage for success during the subsequent design, implementation, operation and optimization phases.
Readying the network
The Cisco IP Telephony Network Readiness Assessment takes companies from initial assessment to analysis to recommendations. We've based our program on hundreds of successful IP telephony deployments over many years. So, our best practices, outlined below, should prove invaluable to any organization, whether or not they participate in the program.
Assembling the team
It's vital, right at the onset, to identify a primary business sponsor, such as a CIO, who will defend the project before top management, shepherd it to success and facilitate communication among all stakeholders. A principal IT contact also should be identified, and a team must be assembled. Team members should include representatives from both the data networking and the voice networking sides of the organization, since the expertise of both is required. The business sponsor, in fact, must impress upon these traditionally separate parts of the company that they now have to work together for a common goal. Afterward, it's important to set expectations appropriately. All participants should know exactly what this assessment will achieve and what it ultimately will deliver.
Understanding business requirements
Next, team members have to gain a solid understanding of the organization's business requirements. For instance, what are the purpose and goals of this project? What does the company wish to achieve through its converged network? What applications does the company plan to operate? The team must have a clear grasp of these requirements because they will play a major role in determining the eventual design and capacity of the network. Perhaps, during this exercise, the team will discover that the ultimate business rationale for the project is unclear or has been poorly articulated to them. In this case, team members must halt the assessment until the organization's business objectives are clarified.
Gathering the data
After business requirements are established, the team can begin collecting data on the state of the organization's current network -- from Layer 1 (the physical layer) through Layers 3 and 4 (the network and transport layers, respectively). In the process, the team will inventory every device and process on the network, including hardware, software, network design, IP addressing, quality of service (QoS), power, links and cabling, and existing network services, such as DNS and DHCP. Careful attention should be paid to current bandwidth allocation, to device configuration and to operational processes. This data-gathering step is generally regarded as the most tedious part of the assessment and, thus, requires sustained vigilance to detail and accuracy. If everything proceeds smoothly, it should be completed in less than two weeks.
Conducting the analysis
An analysis of the organization's current, and future, network follows. Knowledgeable about detailed data, team members will carefully identify and document gaps between which devices, processes and services the network has and what it must have to accommodate or enable robust, dependable IP telephony. In a written report, changes will be proposed and explained. These changes may involve alterations to the network design, the network hardware, the network software, the power and environmental elements and the LAN and WAN bandwidth, among others. In our experience, some of the most frequent, and vital, change recommendations that arise from the analysis include:
- QoS -- Some organizations assume that, with enough bandwidth, they can support almost any application, including telephony. That's not true. Even in high-bandwidth networks, QoS mechanisms, which prioritize traffic traveling on the network, are essential to relieve network congestion, ensure priority for and preserve the integrity of voice transmissions.
- Network Resiliency -- The network design and associated network services must guarantee optimal resiliency, which ensures that a network is able to recover or adjust after a failure or change. In the data-only world, resiliency is not quite so urgent because information eventually will get transferred, even if a fault interrupts packet transmission for a short time. Not so in the voice world. A voice, or converged, network needs to heal itself within seconds at most. Greater delay is not tolerable since the message may be lost forever.
- Power requirements -- IP telephony brings new power requirements that were unheard of in data-only networks. In short, power must be supplied to IP telephony-based clients, such as IP phones. Companies thus have two options. They can supply enough direct power to support the connection of these devices, frequently an expensive option. More affordably, they can turn to in-line power, which delivers power from an Ethernet switch port. In any case, it's vital that companies understand that IP telephony will increase their power requirements and that they must plan accordingly.
The team should submit its readiness assessment in a formal, detailed report. The project sponsor also should consider making a formal presentation to everyone involved, including management and the IT team that will carry out the deployment. These communication measures will help solidify executive support and provide momentum as the project moves from planning to implementation.
Planning for deployment
The network readiness assessment will provide an essential jumping-off point as the project proceeds from concept to actual deployment. Even more importantly, this initial phase will prove invaluable as the IP telephony network goes into production and is actually employed by the company. The assessment will help:
- Speed migration and implementation of the new network
- Accelerate planning cycles by identifying potential risks and gaps
- Improve network resiliency and availability
- Reduce downtime and possible network security breaches
- Help ensure that the network meets business requirements and functional expectations
In Cisco's experience working with companies of all sizes worldwide, one benefit ultimately rises above all others. The network readiness assessment gives peace of mind to the CIO, company executives and others involved in the project. The scope and complexity of IP telephony projects mean that improper planning can result in an enormous waste of resources. The network readiness assessment significantly increases the odds that the IP telephony project will stay on course and within budget, allowing all involved do their work confidently, then sleep peacefully at night.
There are many factors to consider when redesigning and re-launching a network to accommodate IP telephony. Organizations must take into account network complexity, bandwidth needs, user demands, and requirements for reliability, scalability, availability and QoS, among others. The network readiness assessment is a way to review, absorb and evaluate all these issues in a comprehensive, systematic fashion, making it the first indispensable step in the successful deployment of IP telephony.
About the author:
Since March 2000, Parvesh Sethi has been a member of Cisco's Customer Advocacy (CA) team and is currently serving in the capacity of VP, Advanced Services. In this role, he has worked with the various lines of businesses, Sales, Strategic Alliances and CA to help develop and drive the Professional Services competency in key technology areas for both service provider and enterprise market segments. He leveraged his background in the wireless and service povider arena to seed a number of new practice areas including Security, OSS/BSS, Voice, Data Center Networking and Application Oriented Networking Services. Parvesh has also led various initiatives related to deployment partner delivery model for Cisco and most recently led the creation and implementation of the next generation technology services practice model.
Parvesh brings a solid background in service providers and knowledge of ennterprise operations and network deployments. Before joining Cisco, Parvesh was Vice President of Ericsson's Professional Services and Consulting in the US. His organization focused on addressing the evolution of service providers to converged voice and data services.
