Options for your legacy Nortel estate

An insight guide

A chance to update, innovate and collaborate

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IntroductionCommunication technology trends are without doubt moving towards a growing reliance on richer, smarter, more contextual channels used by any person on any device at any time.

Technology has moved through IP and SIP, and discussions now revolve around Unified Communications (UC), mobility, customer service and collaboration. The growing presence of smartphones, tablets and mobile devices within a business context is well established. Employees, partners, suppliers and customers must connect and collaborate with ease if your organisation is to be relevant and successful.

So where does that leave organisations that are still running and maintaining legacy (standalone) telephony platforms?

In 2010, Avaya set out a comprehensive roadmap for legacy Nortel customers that ensured six years of support, following any end-of-sale product announcement.

But depending on the product, end of life may come at different times. So doing your homework, exploring the options that are right for your business (now and in the longer term) plus planning ahead are vital.

Take the Nortel CS1000 PBX whose current release 7.6 (2013) is the final version; although it remains supported it will leave businesses exposed to lack of (easy or cost effective) integration and the inability to future proof their telephony system. Estimates show that there are over 6,000 CS1000 (CS1K) systems active in the UK, with around half of these still on release 4.

With telephony lifecycles becoming shorter – the norm is now less than 10 years – rather than the more traditional 20+ years of old – the key is to have a telephony (or rather a UC) strategy that reaches beyond the lifecycle of your PBX – with a view to building upon your core system to meet future business objectives as technology advances.

In our experience there are three main options open to those businesses that operate a Nortel legacy estate:

• Upgrade to final release (seek support from third parties if outside of Avaya end of life) and sweat your investment further until its inevitable decline – with inherent limitations

• Integrate with third parties to meet your line of business (LOB) needs – requiring additional investment in order to make these connections work (take Microsoft Lync for example) and/or steadily transition to a VOIP model

• Rip and replace and opt for a supported platform that meets your business’ entire Unified Communications needs now and in the future – with associated investment required

Incentives exist (including monetary) for all options – but the key here is to understand what is in line with your business objectives.

Evolution or revolution?

Our workforce is expected to be thoroughly informed while simultaneously producing faster results with betterinformation to make better decisions.

- Paul Daugherty, CTO, Accenture

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Preserving your CS1K investment for longer

The CS1K system will be supported beyond 2020 and would provide an easier, eventual pathway to the Avaya Aura platform. Tactically, organisations could continue to add phones and features to their existing system but strategically look to SIP based systems such as Aura for centralising call and management control.

Meanwhile patches/upgrades exist if you are within the right succession path and support deal – but again these are finite. The good news is that the latest (and last) release of CS1000 (7.6) provides a crossing point towards SIP; with improved web-based management and security plus survivable SIP media gateways that support more branch locations.

For those keeping CS1K indefinitely and “protecting your existing investment”, add-ons such as Avaya Session Manager and System Manager allow for VOIP needs.

The main benefits of “staying where you are” would be less disruption to users, less upfront cost of hardware, and the investment in resource (time and labour) of considering and deploying other routes.

But bear in mind the shortcomings of managing legacy architecture such as CS1K with a plethora of bolt on boxes, its limitations (particularly prior to release 5 – geographic redundancy, the support of line side SIP and number of users) and complexity to quote. All this compared to the comparative ease of a scalable end to end IP telephony system with broad and deep interoperability.

Have you considered in real terms how much in overheads and maintenance it costs to maintain such a system? Consider the smaller pool of suppliers who can assist with this maintenance too. Think also about cost in licence fees of external conferencing systems and the WAN trunking capacity you need to service this model.

For IT teams consider also the personal professional risk of becoming less relevant; left behind as their experience (eg Meridian PBX) lies outside of where the industry is heading (fully integrated SIP-based architecture).

Our experience shows that even for those organisations who opt to stay with their legacy system for now (even with bolt ons or upgrades), there needs to be conversations taking place now around what the future holds for their business longer term and what needs to be put in place to support that. It’s not “if” but “when”.

Businesses continuing to rely on CS1K are effectively restricting their ability to engage with customers and partners across the right channels. Our best advice is as a minimum, upgrade to 7.6 in order to maximise support, gain increased security, control and speed of delivery (over previous versions).

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Integration andtransitioningThere are a plethora of options within the choice of keeping (some or all of) your Nortel estate, particularly with those organisations who wish to keep hold of their hardware for that bit longer.

Those establishments such as hospitals (who have analogue ward phones) may choose to keep Nortel handsets for the patients and choose a third party VOIP system (such as Aura or Cisco Unified Communications Manager) for their administration and place PRIs between the two systems.

Organisations can also transition to a better collaboration experience using options such as the Avaya Collaboration Pack or running Avaya Communication Manager and CS1K side by side.

For those establishments that wish to carry on to the path of Avaya Aura but would prefer to take a slower pace, by upgrading to 7.6 – they will minimise disruption when eventually switching but in meantime lower OPEX though SIP consolidation.

However, there are third party solutions – such as Microsoft Lync – that appear attractive to legacy users to integrate with, rather than switch over to a complete new system. By leveraging their existing Microsoft licence investment, IT teams can switch on solutions such as video conferencing, IM and voicemail.

How right this is for your business depends on many factors, including network and infrastructure suitability, whether Microsoft Sharepoint or CRM is installed across the estate, what versions of Windows and Exchange are being used – in addition of course to the financial implications depending on which Lync licence is sought.

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Full replacement A wholescale removal of existing hardware and software needn’t mean higher costs; particularly in the

medium to long run.

For example, SMBs rather than enterprises could see a better return straightaway with choosing Avaya

IP Office with new phones – rather than upgrading their legacy CS1K (or indeed Meridian Option 11s) -

processors, software and voicemail - with no new handsets. Collaboration and Unified Communications are

not limited to enterprise level organisations; platforms such as Avaya IP Office deliver unified communications,

mobility, IM and presence in a flexible and scalable solution.

In our experience those customers who initially considered just expanding the IP side of CS1K have eventually

opted for “forklifting” their estate into an end to end solution – whose architecture is built around IP. Why?

Firstly, around the complexity of procurement and on-going management costs. Strategically this is also

about needing a natural integration of rich media and UC applications such as video conferencing, unified

messaging and collaboration tools.

Alternatives which also support H.323 and SIP protocols such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager

and Avaya Aura communications platform offer such end to end scalability and interoperability.

Considerations when replacing your telephony estate include:

• How long will the rip and replace take?

• What are the implications for staff training?

• What levels of investment are required?

• What existing hardware can I re-use (eg handsets)?

• What financial incentives exist to support this business case?

• Is there any trade-in on my existing equipment?

When putting a business case forward for wholesale replacement of your legacy estate, focus on four main

benefit areas:

• Improved business agility, continuity and productivity with a UC solution with built-in video

collaboration tools (no need to outsource and incur licence fees)

• Operating and maintenance costs are reduced and easier to manage (so compare with your Total

Cost of Ownership when looking at handset replacements etc)

• Avoidance of complex and messy partial integration of old and new technologies (functionality is

compromised as well as a drain on IT resource)

• Delivering a fully supported and future proof system beyond the next few years that supports

business objectives and meets customer needs

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Next stepsWith our experience of customer contact and voice telephony solutions, Intrinsic is ideally placed to provide Nortel legacy users with the insights they need to decide on the right choice for their organisations. Our consultants can help IT decision makers with Return on Investment modelling and Network Readiness Audits to help them understand what is appropriate for the short, medium and long term.

We can assist organisations with any of the three choices set out in this Insight Guide and through our partnerships with Avaya, Cisco and Microsoft can help select the best solution; delivering a best of breed infrastructure.

As an Avaya Platinum Partner, we’ve achieved the highest medal level in the Avaya Connect global partner programme. It means we have a high number of Avaya-mandated associates and demonstrates our technical expertise in delivering complex projects, involving multi-vendor integration for large organisations.

We’re a Gold Certified Cisco partner, with tier 1 access, which provides us with the highest level of technical support, productivity tools and training resources. To achieve this certification, we’ve proven that Cisco’s Lifecycle Services expertise is deeply integrated into our offerings and demonstrated a consistent and measurably high standard of customer satisfaction.

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About IntrinsicIntrinsic is a next generation managed services provider. It enables organisations to become operationally and culturally agile through smart, adaptive technology strategies that respond effectively to everyday challenges. As the UK’s leading provider of Hybrid IT Managed Services, Intrinsic enables organisations to transition, flex and integrate between on-premise and cloud-based service ways of working. It provides a unique blend of expertise with a hand-picked suite of emerging and established technology solutions. Intrinsic is a market leader in developing solutions that enable mid-market sized organisations to address specific challenges, from organisational growth and operational transformation to cost management and market differentiation.