penelope

Hi All,

There are 3 of us who do telecom for our entire company, 9 sites in US, one in Italy, one in Ireland, one in Hong Kong, several in Australia. We are working on an RFP to totally re-work the whole voice communications. The project and budget have already been approved. The kicker is that we were given less than a month to do it in. I'm working on the sections detailing everything about every system we have, voicemail requirements and ACD since I have the most experience in those areas and using the tools to gather the info.

The whole thing is being driven by a couple of executives who are pushing going to VoIP and they seem to be pushing Cisco (one of them is the AVP over network which is Cisco). We have Avaya G3si, Prologix, S8300s with either Octel 250s or IALX. I am feeling out of my depth. Not about the RFP but about the whole potential "new" way of doing everything if Cisco gets chosen. I love what I do and enjoy going to work every day. I've survived going from Siemens?ROLM and Nortels being replaced with 20 Avaya systems and then consolidating back down with office closures.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom? Experience in making the change? Books and training that is especially helpful? Change can be hard and I guess I am afraid of falling behind, not knowing what I'm doing, even being replaced with "network" engineers taking over voice. I've been with this company for 14 years and looking forward to retiring there.

If Avaya is chosen how much of a transition is there going from the Definity and Prologix to the S8700 with full redundancy in two of our major locations? With voicemail being centralized at our data center and LSPs in the field offices? I have no experience on the S8300s or the IALX yet since I was out on medical leave when they were installed in 3 new offices and I've only been back a couple of weeks. I have some limited VoIP experience and I managed to get it working all on my own between two sites (just trying it) by reading the manuals.

Thanks,

Penelope

__________________
Penelope

martinyoung

Sounds like a lot of changes coming your way. This is facing everybody, VoIP is becoming more prevalent. What you need to do is make sure that management knows your value. A phone system is a phone system, regardless of what platform it is on. If the company still segregates data and voice, that will need to change. Work with the data group and get acquainted with them. If they are segregated in your company they will not know voice or how to do it. I would get to know them regardless of the final solution, Cisco or Avaya. If they get to know you, they will begin to rely on you for phone knowledge.

An instructor I had at an Avaya class a few years ago put it rather clearly. If a switch goes down the computers off that switch will still function off the network. This is inconvenient but they will still work. A phone will not thus it becomes an immediate problem that must be fixed now.

All new systems have training and that is usually bundled in with the sale. For Avaya the programming commands will be the same, just more choices and some additional access options. Avaya will have the upper hand now because it is an upgrade of existing equipment. A Cisco solution would cost more because nearly nothing is reusable.

Find someone who does access the S8300 and learn how to do it, it is not hard to do. This will help you in the future.

Good luck!

__________________
Marty
Retired Avaya DSIC tech

PBXtech.info

 

OctelWarrior

How exciting! Your model is actually what the business partner focuses on. Multi-site and multinational distributed and centralized networks. The Boss's pitch is "We like to partner with our customers to bring them a real world total communications solution, Data, Voice and messaging." We have been doing this for quite a while and it's a very exciting process.

I'm sure that your sales guy has gone over all the benefits and whiz-bang new things that'll make your life easier, so I'll go over a few things to help prepare you for your new network, allow you to troubleshoot, and who you need to know.

1) Get to know your data
Telecom now lives in the data world. You will need to know how to get to your endpoints in case of failure. Familiarize yourself with basic data tools such as Ping, Trace route, TFTP, FTP, and the OSI model and subnetting. If these terms throw you for a loop, take a N+ class. Your employer will most likely be happy to pick up the tab and they are offered at many JCs that can conform to your schedule. This will also show your employer that you are on the technology train.

2) Get to know your Data people
No doubt there are a team of people that support various aspects of your data environment. Remember, you're going to be working very closely with them very soon. You are going to be relying on them to not miss any little things and you are going to be adding a lot of additional work for them. If you are working together, you'll get it done much faster than pointing fingers at them.

3) Keep an open mind. It sounds like you already have an open mind moving from one vendor to the next, and now being with Avaya. All things change and it might seem worse in the near future, but over time many customers have learned that the new ways aren't all that bad. Yes you might have to remember these new confusing IP addresses, but you no longer have to dial into the Italy switch. Administration at breakneck speeds.

4) Whichever vendor you go with, make sure to keep your goals in hand, and a list of deliverables. If you have them all written out and work continuously with the project managers to ensure all of them are not only met but complete, you have something tangible to show the bosses when they come around.

__________________
Peronally I'd rather lose phone access than data.

Baellis

Email me. Be Very very careful about large applications based soley on the VOIP solution. Look at the business structure and the ROI for Voip vs legacy solutions and VOIP integration. Are the savings worth the potential outages.

nexSIP

Potential outages? everything has a potential. VoIP is as strong as you build it.

Havening multi locations like you do VoIP will show a ROI fairly fast in cost and productivity increases. The nice thing about Avaya is you can have VoIP and TDM.

__________________
http://www.nexsip.com
Communicate Openly and Freely

penelope

Thanks all,

I'm over the worst of it now and the RFP is about done. I am excited about getting new systems and learning new stuff, especially VoIP. I would prefer that they be Avaya though.

I did get onto the S8300s (looks about the same as the G3s1) and onto the two new Intuity Audix systems. Now that is totally different and it took me awhile to figure out how to get traffic stats.

If we go with Avaya and S8700/S8300 I'm sure I'll be asking a lot of questions. I did put into the RFP that the bid must include technical staff training BEFORE the systems are installed and tech/helpdesk MAC type training after.

__________________
Penelope

PBXtech.info