Unified Communications

Avaya provides integrated, multi-vendor business communications applications, systems and services in a reliable and secure fashion. The result is a superior, seamless user experience across all enterprise communication solutions regardless of location, network, or device.

Integrated:  The capabilities of formerly disparate applications are brought together into unified interfaces.  The functionality is integrated.  For instance, you can click to call the sender of an email, move from an instant message to a call or a conference call, or reply to a voice message with voice or text.  The modalities will be brought together so users can seamlessly shift between their mobile phones and their desk phones in any order while a call is in progress and access the same directories and applications, regardless of their locations or devices.

Multi-vendor:  Avaya concurs with the consensus of many industry analysts who suggest that Unified Communications is not an all-in-one solution from a single vendor.  Avaya offers customers robust interfaces to our market leading communication servers in IP Telephony, Messaging, and Conferencing.  Avaya is committed to supporting standards and integrates its solutions to add value to third-party solutions from Microsoft, IBM, and others.  While some communication vendors may also offer base level integrations, Avaya extends its customer demanded features into these environments.

Reliable and Secure:  Demonstrating the capabilities of Unified Communications is one thing.  Banking on the use of these capabilities across the enterprise requires reliability that ensures they'll be working when required.  Avaya offers customers choices to make the infrastructure as resilient as desired and to support the scale that is required to meet enterprise security standards.

Seamless user experience:  Employees today have too many devices and communication applications to manage.  Users are bombarded with phone calls, email, voice mail, fax, and instant messaging.  They participate in a variety of conference interactions including audio with or without video or enhanced by the web.  With all these tools, employees spend too much time managing devices and operating the tools, which diminishes the time and quality of communicating and interacting with business associates.  Avaya Unified Communication solutions bring these applications into consolidated easy-to-use interfaces to provide Intelligent Access, embedding communication into what people do as they do it.

Independent of location, network, or device:  Workers today operate in a number of modes.  

• "Desk workers" spend considerable time working at their desks.  Their primary tools are their computers and their desk phones. 
• "Campus Roamers" are at their work locations, but are roaming the office or the campus.  They depend on mobility devices such as a PDA or cell phone.  They need in-building wireless over WiFi networks or dual mode phones that can be used on both public mobile and enterprise WiFi networks.  They may use any available computer or phone not necessarily assigned for their primary use.
• "Road Warriors" are found traveling either locally or globally.  They remain connected using cell phones, PDAs, speech access from any phone to communication applications, public computers connected to the internet, or their computer using wireless broadband facilities. 
• "Remote Workers" may be formal telecommuters or casual work-at-home associates. They could be working from their hotel rooms, or they could be a sales, service, or professional associate working at a customer's location.  They could be groups of employees directed to work at a temporary or emergency locations. 

While job types or specific individuals may predominantly operate in one of these modes, most workers today need to communicate in any and all of these modes.  Avaya Unified Communications is designed to allow workers access to the communication tools they need from wherever they are.

Avaya Unified Communications can be configured to meet a variety of communication needs.

Desktop Telephony

Avaya desktop telephony clients and integrations make it easy to place and receive phone calls from your PC. Unified Communications clients provide simple Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) to control calls, utilize a wide variety of Avaya Communication Manager features, access directories, and track inbound and outbound communications. Client integrations extend Avaya communication capabilities into third-party clients already deployed within the enterprise environment.

Unified Communication capabilities include telephony presence; instant messaging; integrated video; click to call from Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer; contact screen pops for incoming calls; search and dial from LDAP, Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes directories. Integrations are available for Microsoft Office Communicator, Live Communication Server 2005, Office Communications Server 2007, and IBM Sametime supporting click-to-call and unified telephony and instant messaging presence.

Key capabilities include:

• Choice of a robust Avaya client for the PC, a web based application accessible anywhere on the internet supported on Windows, MAC, or Linux, or integrations to Microsoft Office Communicator or IBM Lotus Sametime;
• Visual Voice Mail to access voice and fax messages
• Visual Audio Conferencing to see who is participating or speaking, and to mute/drop noisy lines
• Flexibility to use SIP or H.323 for audio and/or video
• Operational modes to support where people work:  Shared control in the office (simultaneous use of GUI and telephone), any phone perhaps for a teleworker (control on the PC, call path directed to a designated telephone), PC only for the road warrior in a hotel room (control and VoIP all through the PC)
• Standards support for LDAP, H.323, SIP (SIP capabilities as per IETF RFC 3261)

Related products:

• Avaya one-X™ Portal
• Avaya one-X™ Desktop
• IP Softphone
• Application Enablement Services (AES) integration for Microsoft Office Communicator
• Application Enablement Services (AES) integration for IBM Lotus Sametime

Mobility Avaya mobility solutions extend the capabilities Avaya Communication Manager beyond the users desk phone to mobile phones, hotel rooms, remote corporate desk phones and over both cellular and IP networks. Avaya thick and thin softphone clients can be used from any remote location over the network. Speech access provides access to telephony, email, and voice mail from any phone. Users can be intelligently reached by select high-priority callers.  With advanced features supported on hundreds of devices, our solutions generally work with existing deployed mobile devices.

Key capabilities include:

• Simultaneous ringing of desk phone, mobile phone, or any other phone the user wishes
• Find-me / follow-me services
• Visual driven voicemail handling
• Full corporate directory accessible and searchable from most mobile phones
• Seamlessly shift between cell phone to desk while a call is in progress
• Speech access to voice mail, email and attachments via text-to speech, contacts, calendars, tasks, calling and conferencing
• Access to advanced features from any mobile device
• Mobile device application supports for the broadest number of mobile phone platforms including Symbian, Palm, BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Java; application support for over 500 devices including those from Apple, RIM, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Motorola and others
• Calls made from mobile devices and designated numbers assume the identity of the business number of the calling associate
• Leverages Avaya Communication Manager and enterprise IP Telephony network to reduce mobile calling costs.
• Extension of advanced phone management capabilities to in-building DECT and
• WiFi phones.

Related products:

• Extension to Cellular
• Avaya one-X™ Mobile
• Unified Communication Center
• Avaya one-X Portal
• Modular Messaging
• IP Softphone

Conferencing

Avaya conferencing solutions provide valuable audio, web, and video collaboration capabilities in a package that is convenient for users and cost-effective for businesses.

Avaya offers integration with major instant messaging and web conferencing products in an on-premises model, including IBM Lotus Sametime, Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, Avaya Web Conferencing and Microsoft Live Meeting and Microsoft OCS. Users can click-to-conference from their instant messaging client, see who is participating and mute/unmute participants.

Key capabilities include:

• Typical conferencing customers realize a return on investment in six to nine months and can save up to 50% compared with outsourced services - all while increasing employee productivity and ensuring business continuity. Customers using an IP network save even more on transport charges, by routing the conference traffic over the IP network.
• Broadest feature set of any conferencing solution on the market, i.e. only need one solution for all conferencing needs:
• Reservation-less, attended, event-based, capabilities; sub conferencing, dial out, blast dial, recording, billing and reporting, etc.
• Ideal for disaster recovery or crisis preparedness solutions, thanks to dedicated ports, redundant systems, and hot swappable components
• Scales from 24 - 14,000 users for easy expansion planning
• Integrates smoothly with corporate directories and databases for simple, effective administration
• Allows customers to leverage existing network infrastructure (works with Avaya Communication Manager or any PBX).

Related products:

• Meeting Exchange Enterprise;
• Meeting Exchange Express;
• Meeting Exchange for IBM Lotus Sametime;
• Meeting Exchange for Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional;
• Expanded Meet-me Conferencing;

Avaya Web Conferencing

Avaya conferencing solutions provide valuable audio, web, and video collaboration capabilities in a package that is convenient for users and cost-effective for businesses.

Avaya offers integration with major instant messaging and web conferencing products in an on-premises model, including IBM Lotus Sametime, Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, Avaya Web Conferencing and Microsoft Live Meeting and Live Communication Server. Users can click-to-conference from their instant messaging client, see who is participating and mute/unmute participants.

Key capabilities include:

• Typical conferencing customers realize a return on investment in six to nine months and can save up to 50% compared with outsourced services - all while increasing employee productivity and ensuring business continuity. Customers using an IP network save even more on transport charges, by routing the conference traffic over the IP network.
• Broadest feature set of any conferencing solution on the market, i.e. only need one solution for all conferencing needs:

  • Reservation-less, attended, event-based, capabilities; sub conferencing, dial out, blast dial, recording, billing and reporting, etc.;
  • Ideal for disaster recovery or crisis preparedness solutions, thanks to dedicated ports, redundant systems, and hot swappable components

  • Scales from 24 - 14,000 users for easy expansion planning
  • Integrates smoothly with corporate directories and databases for simple, effective administration
  • Allows customers to leverage existing network infrastructure (works with Avaya Communication Manager or any PBX).

   

Related products:

• Meeting Exchange - Enterprise
• Meeting Exchange - Express
• Meeting Exchange for IBM Lotus Sametime
• Meeting Exchange for Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional
• Expanded Meet-me Conferencing
• Avaya Web Conferencing
   

Video

Avaya extends telephony capabilities to video, allowing users to easily add video to a phone call from their desk or from an Avaya IP Softphone when working remotely. Telephony features (hold, mute, transfer, forward, etc) can be extended to video. With desktop, four-party group, or multipoint capability using high quality Polycom video endpoints, users can collaborate face-to-face and gain a real-time view of the situation.

Avaya video solutions use a single IP infrastructure to integrate voice and video applications, making video easier to manage across a distributed enterprise, and lowers Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Avaya video solutions utilize a single IP network and common signaling, directories, and authentication procedures for voice and video (H.323, H.261, H.263, or H.264), simplifying and reducing the cost of deploying video across a distributed enterprise.

A standardized dial plan for voice and video allows video endpoints to be connected directly and seamlessly when you dial a phone extension, making it quick and easy for users to initiate a video call. Telephony features such as hold, transfer, and coverage may be transferred to video, and users can share control of voice and video utilizing Softphone.

Key capabilities include:

• Support for both Polycom and Tandberg High-Definition video endpoints
• More open standards- based than competitive solutions
• Broad protocol support: H.323, H.263, H.264 video, as well as SIP to H.323 video
• Provides best quality desktop video on market to date (Full CIF at 30 frames per second courtesy of Polycom)
• Shared control of voice or video
• 6-party ad-hoc video

• Cumulative bandwidth management to prevent saturation of WAN bandwidth (using Avaya CAN);
• Priority bandwidth management allowing priority users different video privileges

• Avaya/Polycom solution is simpler to implement and manage across the enterprise:
• Single network management structure for voice and video
• Common signaling, a standardized dial plan, common directories and common authentication and authorization procedures;
• Single IP network for voice and video.

Messaging

Modular Messaging is all about delivering more flexibility and choice in the best messaging productivity tools to improve customer satisfaction, lower costs and drive revenue for an enterprise or organization.  Modular Messaging is a powerful IP and standards-based voice, fax, and email  messaging platform designed for single or multi-site global enterprises.

Unified Messaging can be delivered in one of two topologies. A unified message store using Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino offers customers a single inbox, single server for all messages, single administration, and a single directory. Alternatively, some enterprises require a separate voice mail store and chose the Avaya Message Storage Server with unified access to email, voice mail, and fax messages from the users' email client (Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes) or the Avaya speech access application. Ultimately, it is the enterprise's strategy for dealing with corporate governance and compliance, the reliability of their email infrastructure, organization of the IT and telecom functions and other factors that will dictate the right solution for any given organization.

In addition to unified access to messages, the Avaya messaging applications support the use of a single number for voice, fax, and TTY calls, offers integrated find-me/follow-me services, and advanced call-me and notify-me capabilities.

Unified Communications Center (UCC) is an important enhancement to the Avaya message portfolio. UCC customers can use any telephone and via speech commands gain access to calling and conferencing capabilities; voice, fax and email messages; enterprise directories and databases for contacts; and productivity tools such as calendars, contacts and tasks lists. Avaya Unified Communication Center provides mobile, collaborative and management associates with a unified interface to their most important information and communications tools and enables them to turn downtime into productive time.

Key capabilities include:

Related products:

• Modular Messaging
• Unified Communications Center

Unified Messaging can be delivered in one of two topologies. A unified message store using Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino offers customers a single inbox, single server for all messages, single administration, and a single directory. Alternatively, some enterprises require a separate voice mail store and choose the Avaya Message Storage Server with unified access to email, voice mail, and fax messages from the users' email client (Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes) or Avaya's speech access. Ultimately, it is the enterprise’s strategy for dealing with corporate governance and compliance, the reliability of their email infrastructure, organization of the IT and telecom functions and other factors that will dictate the right solution for any given organization.

In addition to unified access to messages, the Avaya messaging applications support the use of a single number for voice, fax, and TTY calls, offers integrated find-me/follow-me services, and advanced call-me and notify-me capabilities.

Key capabilities include:

• Aria, AUDIX, Serenade Telephone User Interfaces (TUI) assignable on a class of service basis
• Scalable to 144 ports (Avaya Message Storage Server) or 240 ports (Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino) and up to 500 systems and 250,000 subscribers in a networked configuration
• A variety of reliability and resiliency features and configurations including off line call answer, off line access, high availability message store, and N+1 server configuration for core applications
• Voice mail co-existence, networking, and protocol conversion using industry standard protocols (SMTP/MIME, VPIM V2, AMIS), Avaya digital protocols (Aria, Serenade, AUDIX), and Avaya analog protocols (Octel Analog Networking)
• Integrated message waiting indication
• Support for third party integrations including: Cisco, Nortel, Siemens, Alcatel, Mitel, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Lucent, Philips
• Centralized topologies with needs for multiple time zones and multi-lingual
• Standards based: SIP, H.323, QSIG, IMAP4, POP3, SMTP/MIME, LDAP, G.711, GSM 6.10
• Compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Communications Act

Related products:

• Modular Messaging
• Message Networking

Unified Communication Solutions for Microsoft centric customers

Enterprises who have or are planning on a desktop strategy based on Microsoft can extend the Unified Communication capabilities as follows:

• Click-to-call from Microsoft Office Communicator, Outlook, SharePoint
• Unified telephony and instant messaging presence
• Utilize Avaya Communication Manager features from within Microsoft Office Communicator via the Avaya tab
• Centrally controlled desktop video
• Dialing from Microsoft Outlook contacts
• Outlook Contact screen pop for incoming calls
• Click-to-call from web pages accessed with Internet Explorer
• Avaya one-X™ Speech access to email messages and attachments, calendar, contact, and task information stored in Microsoft Exchange along with calling and conferencing capabilities
• Avaya one-X™ Mobile for Windows Mobile
• IP Softphone for Windows Mobile
• Unified message store with Microsoft Exchange
• Unified access from Microsoft Outlook to email, voice mail, and fax messages stored in Microsoft Exchange, or email in Microsoft Exchange and voice and fax messages stored in the Avaya Message Storage Server
• Touch-tone or DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency) access to email messages stored in Microsoft Exchange via text-to-speech
• Unified Conferencing via the integration of Microsoft Live Meeting web conferencing with Avaya Meeting Exchange audio conferencing
• Scheduling of conferencing resources from within Microsoft Outlook

For more information, see the Avaya/Microsoft Alliance pages.

Unified Communication Solutions for IBM centric customers

Enterprises who have or are planning on a desktop strategy based on IBM can extend the Unified Communication capabilities as follows:

• Click-to-call from IBM Lotus Sametime, Notes
• Unified telephony and instant messaging presence
• Centrally controlled desktop video
• Dialing from IBM Lotus Notes contacts
• Avaya one-X™ Speech access to email messages and attachments, calendar, contact, and task information stored in Microsoft Exchange along with calling and conferencing capabilities
• Avaya one-X™ Mobile for Windows Mobile
• IP Softphone for Windows Mobile
• Unified message store with IBM Lotus Domino
• Unified access from IBM Lotus Notes to email, voice mail, and fax messages stored in Lotus Domino, or email in Lotus Domino and voice and fax messages stored in the Avaya Message Storage Server
• Touch-tone or DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency) access to email messages stored in Lotus Domino via text-to-speech
• Avaya one-X™ Speech access to email messages and attachments, calendar, and contacts stored in Lotus Domino along with calling and conferencing capabilities
• Unified Conferencing via the integration of IBM Lotus Sametime web conferencing with Avaya Meeting Exchange audio conferencing
• Scheduling of conferencing resources from within IBM Lotus Notes

For more information, see the Avaya/IBM Alliance pages.

Avaya Global Services Unified Communications Readiness Services

Enterprises today are wrestling with their internal business challenges around remote and mobile workers.  As enterprise employees are increasingly away from the office, traveling or working from remote locations, organizations are struggling to keep their workers productive while keeping costs down.  Additionally, these new work modes are causing concerns over information security, compliance and business continuity. The question isn't just what to do, but how, when and for which workers.

Avaya Global Services has expanded its Unified Communications Consulting Practice. Building upon our vast experience deploying communication systems for over 90% of the Fortune 500 companies and our deep expertise in technology, we will help enterprises develop, design and implement advanced communications solutions.   The Unified Communications Consulting Practice encompasses expertise ranging from technical integration application specialists, solution specialists, advanced solution architects up through executive level Unified Communications consultants.

The Teleworker and Mobile Worker Assessment offers provide a multi-phased systematic approach for examining a customer's current business communications state, assessing the teleworker and mobile worker opportunities and modeling the proposed implementation and success metrics.

The three detailed phases:

Discovery Phase

• Demographic assessment
• Baseline cost and process modeling
• Current state technology assessment
• Security assessment
• Business Continuity assessment

Opportunity Phase

• Opportunities for change ranked by complexity/ impact
• Quantification of revenue gain / cost savings

Solution Design

• Implementation plan
• Performance Metric creation
• Determination of final net benefits

Assessment deliverables:

• Detailed current state cost analysis
• Worker segmentation and profile description
• Security, Compliance and Business Continuity assessment
• Technology, Business process and policy recommendations
• Opportunities for change ranked by complexity and impact
• Detailed business case for change
• Solution design and implementation plan including resource requirements and timelines

With Software Support Plus Upgrades your business may elect to receive all software upgrades, keeping your applications current, gaining new features and functionality and enabling you to protect your investment.

Avaya Global Services can help customers make the most of their investment in Unified Communications by linking advance communication applications to business processes and applications. A consulting engagement leverages Avaya expertise and experience in contact centers, advanced communication solutions, and IP migration. Each engagement is designed to solve the customer's holistic business communications problems by aligning business strategy with technology strategy. This strategic alignment helps to ensure that the customer's business goals can be achieved. Avaya consultants use strategy, optimization, and migration methodologies to meet customer goals.

Consulting services include:

• Assist clients in validation and execution of technology and communications strategy
• Solve business problems and pain points related to gaps in communications strategy and execution
• Enhance operations through better and more efficient interactions between customers, suppliers, and employees
• Provide elements of industry and vertical knowledge for specific aspects of communications deployment
• Deliver expertise, insights, and information that addresses the customer's most important business challenges
• Offer prescriptive solutions tailored to infrastructure requirements and business drivers

Business Benefits

 Complete description

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