This white paper discusses implementing seamless unified communications (UC) for organizations with a distributed, mobile workforce. It describes how IP PBX systems can be distributed across multiple sites to provide voice services. The paper argues a distributed architecture is better for multi-site companies, as it allows voice resources to be right-sized for each location. Implementing UC in such environments requires selecting a solution that integrates with existing VoIP investments while providing a consistent user experience everywhere.

1. WHITE PAPER
Seamless Unified
Communications for the
Everywhere Enterprise

2. Table of Contents
1. Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The Enterprise IP PBX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Adding Unified Communications to VoIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Integrating Mobility Seamlessly and Securely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Implementing an Integrated UC/VoIP Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Figure 1: Distributed architecture diagram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Figure 2: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 2

3. 1. Executive summary
This white paper examines the considerations an IT manager faces when seeking to
The Changing Nature of
implement Unified Communications (UC) seamlessly (and successfully) throughout
Business Communications
the Everywhere Enterprise. And virtually every enterprise is everywhere these days.
In a white paper titled The Employees work at offices, of course, but they also work at home and from public places,
Changing Role of Mobile including airports, hotels, customer and partner facilities, and coffee shops. As will be
Communications in the shown, the simplicity and quality of the user experience are what should be considered
Workplace, Frost & Sullivan the hallmark of a successful implementation of seamless UC for the Everywhere
makes an important Enterprise.
observation about the
Everywhere Enterprise: “As Owing to its ability to deliver dramatic improvements in productivity, a wide variety of UC
companies grow increasingly solutions are currently available, and most of these work well enough. The real challenge
global and dispersed, with for IT managers, therefore, becomes making an optimal selection from among the many
employees working from choices available. Which one has the set of features that best matches the organization’s
places other than the office needs and culture—now and in the future? Which one is the most cost-effective? Which
on a regular basis, one will be the easiest to implement, use and manage?
organizations must deploy
technology that supports
Further complicating the task, most organizations will not be implementing UC from
communications and
a clean slate. Most enterprises now have voice over IP (VoIP) communications, instant
collaboration for a growing,
messaging and/or Web conferencing solutions for some or all employees. Many are also
and changing, population of
investing in a mobility solution to integrate smartphones and tablets into their enterprise
mobile workers. Unified
wireless LANs, and may already support VoIP over the WLAN (VoWLAN).
communications, which In such environments, implementing Unified Communications enterprise-wide in a
incorporate voice, presence, way that is seamless and consistent for users and administrators alike can indeed be
conferencing and chat a daunting challenge. The effort is well worth it, though, because UC is capable of
capabilities, make it easier for delivering tremendous benefit to any organization.
people to share information,
locate experts as soon as they Laying the Foundation for Enterprise-wide UC
need them, speed and
improve decision-making, The situation in most enterprises seeking to implement Unified Communications today
and drive productivity. But to can be broadly characterized as one of two scenarios:
be truly valuable to all
employees, UC technologies
• Greenfield” environments, where voice communications remain mostly or exclusively
“
– especially voice and
circuit-switched.
presence – must be made • oIP environments, where the organization has already deployed an IP PBX and IP
V
easy to use and available to phones.
everyone who needs them,
regardless of where they are The former obviously has the luxury of implementing a fully integrated UC solution from
working or on which device.” a clean slate. But the latter also has the ability to implement a fully functional, easy-to-
use, and cost-effective UC solution—one that preserves the investment in VoIP—with the
right approach.
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 3

4. 2. The Enterprise IP PBX
At the risk of over-simplification, IP PBXes have either a centralized or a distributed
architecture. Centralized architectures are characterized by a single, very large system
designed to support tens of thousands of users. Remote users normally connect via the
enterprise WAN back to the centralized system. Whether local or remote, all users are
dependent on the central system for voice services.
Distributed architectures work differently. System capabilities are provided by multiple
smaller systems internetworked via the enterprise WAN and/or the Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN). Instead of a single, central “mainframe” IP PBX providing
dial-tone for all end users, the distributed configuration involves a network of 10, 20 or
even 100 smaller IP PBX modules all working in unison to deliver the same capabilities.
Even though there are multiple modules in the distributed architecture, the configuration
still provides a single service to all the end users and can be managed as a single system
by the administrators.
In general, the distributed architecture is superior for any organization with multiple
facilities. Vendors of distributed solutions normally offer a range of modules at different
price/performance points, enabling the configuration to be “right-sized” at each site to
minimize costs. These modules are usually designed as dedicated appliances to ensure
adequate performance for the number of local users supported, but some solutions are
available as software capable of running on an ordinary server.
ShoreTel Director
PSTN
/ITSP
HEADQUARTERS INTERNATIONAL
BRANCH
Headquarters Server
(System Adminstration, voicemail, ShoreTel
ShoreTel Communicator
auto attendant, work groups)
Communicator RoamAnywhere
[Physical or Virtual]
RoamAnywhere
Analog
Device ShoreTel
Voice Switches
ShoreTel
Contact Communicator Distributed Voice
Center
Server (voicemail
auto attendant)
ShoreTel [Physical or Virtual]
ShoreTel Appliances
(Collaboration, Communicator
VPN Concentrator, Contact Center
Mobility Router) ShoreTel
ShoreTel IP Phone
IP Phone
ShoreTel
Voice Switches
IP WAN
ShoreTel
Communicator
ShoreTel RoamAnywhere
ShoreTel Voice Switch
Communicator ShoreTel
RoamAnywhere Communicator
ShoreTel
Legacy VPN Phone
Voicemail
OFFICE
Legacy ANYWHERE
Phones
Legacy PBX
PSTN
/ITSP
REGIONAL OFFICE
PSTN
SINGL E
E-IMAGE ARCHITECTUR
Figure 1: Distributed Architecture
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 4

5. The distributed architecture also has the inherent advantage of being both more reliable
and more scalable. The use of multiple, modules—all internetworked and functioning
in unison—enables the sessions being managed in any one experiencing a failure to be
transitioned to another, automatically and often transparently. And rather than requiring
any major or “forklift” upgrades, additional modules can simply be added as needed
to increase capacity or to support more users, thereby affording both incremental
scalability and increased resiliency in the enterprise-wide N+1 system configuration.
To maximize the reliability and scalability advantages of distributed architectures, the
best modules are designed with built-in redundancies to minimize local failures, and
the entire network of modules can be configured and managed as a single system.
This latter ability is a major area of differentiation among available solutions. In some
cases, different modules offer different feature sets and, therefore, must be managed
differently. In other cases, the only difference among modules is their size (the number
of users supported), and these solutions can usually be managed by a single console and
sometimes with a single software image.
For organizations with a single, major facility the centralized architecture may be
superior. Like the original circuit-switched PBX, an IP PBX with a centralized architecture
is designed to handle many tens of thousands of users. As a single point of failure,
however, these large-scale systems normally have built-in redundancies and must be
deployed in redundant configurations. However, in systems where the redundancy does
not add usable capacity (characterized by modules operating in a “hot standby” mode),
the inherently reliable N+1 distributed architecture may afford a more cost-effective yet
equally capable and large-scale solution. Although being “centralized” in the sense that
the multiple modules might all be located in the same data center, the many advantages
of the distributed architecture would still apply.
The communications capabilities or feature set of the IP PBX, whether characterized by
a centralized or distributed architecture, is also important. It is equally important that
the features needed should be understood from up front, and one good way to do this
is to survey the users. In some offerings, all available VoIP capabilities are bundled in
a full feature set. In other offerings, the basic system may include only core voice call
capabilities, with all additional features being optional, and available separately (and
for a separate licensing fee). Unbundling enables organizations to license only the VoIP
features needed, which may result in some cost savings. But be careful: capabilities
added later may require an upgrade to the system’s hardware.
3. Adding Unified Communications to VoIP
For the purposes of this discussion, Unified Communications is multi-device, multi-
location and multimedia with support for voice, video and data—all with presence and
rich information integration. Specific capabilities may include: collaboration; video, audio
and Web conferencing; conference recording; unified messaging (integrating voice
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 5

6. mail and email); instant messaging; presence and scheduling; contact center support;
desktop sharing; and mobility. Of course, not all UC solutions support all of these
capabilities, but many now do.
Organizations with an existing IP PBX normally have the choice of implementing
that particular vendor’s UC capabilities, or layering on a separate UC solution from
another vendor. Both are viable choices, and neither is inherently superior. Indeed,
industry standards like the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) are designed to promote
interoperability among systems from different vendors. And vendors routinely implement
UC capabilities on hardware separate from the IP PBX.
For these reasons, IT managers are free to consider UC solutions based on their own
merits. How robust, complete and mature is the feature set? How well does it conform
to standards and, therefore, interoperate? How satisfied is the installed base of current
users? How easy is it to install, use and manage? How reliable is it? How extensible is the
design? How does its price/performance compare? How competitive is the total cost of
ownership? How does it integrated with the VoIP system for both end users and network
managers?
IT managers are likely to discover that the most significant differentiation in today’s UC
marketplace exists in two areas: ease of use; and total cost of ownership, with the latter
being strongly influenced by ease of implementation and management.
Ease of Use cannot be taken for granted when UC features are added to or layered
atop an IP telephony infrastructure. A robust UC solution has many applications for
communicating and collaborating, and this level of sophistication can make some difficult
to use. This is especially true for solutions that offer UC capabilities on separate systems
in a piecemeal or add-on fashion. All-in-one solutions, by contrast, are generally better
integrated and are, therefore, normally easier to use.
UC capabilities that are easy to use afford two benefits to the organization. The first is the
significantly greater improvement in productivity. As IT managers know, features that lack
a consistent user interface or are otherwise difficult to use will, simply, not be used. Users
will instead turn to other systems, such as email, that are less effective for collaboration.
The second benefit is, admittedly, more self-serving: Simple systems result in fewer calls
to the Help Desk. Simple systems also require less training, and the most intuitive of user
interfaces may even eliminate the need for any training.
Total Cost of Ownership is sometimes ignored in situations where a satisfactory return on
investment is all but guaranteed, as it is with the dramatic gains in productivity afforded
by Unified Communications. But some very powerful UC solutions can also be quite
expensive to own and operate, while other equally capable and powerful solutions are
remarkably affordable. Indeed, some solutions are purpose-built to minimize the total
cost of ownership by minimizing both the up-front capital expenditure and the ongoing
operational expenditures.
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 6

7. Capital expenditures vary dramatically with different solutions, especially when taking
into account future needs that may require costly upgrades for some systems. For
this reason, the incremental scalability afforded by the distributed architecture (with
a variety of modules at a range of price/performance points) normally has the CapEx
advantage. The N+1 reliability of the distributed architecture also has a CapEx advantage
because none of capacity is needed for a “hot standby” mode, as is the case with some
centralized systems.
TCO comparison of major UC system vendors (pre-tax)
The Win/Win of BYOD
In an Analyst Insight report $M 35
10-year analysis $32.60
titled Enterprise-Grade BYOD based on 1,500 users 30
$29.18
Strategies, Aberdeen Group across 3 sites
answers the “Why BYOD?” 25
$21.76 $22.04
question as follows:
Long distance charges 20
“The BYOD phenomenon has Network costs $15.68
momentum in part because it Electricity consumption 15
simultaneously meets the System management, MACs, downtime $9.87
10
Support services
needs of both the
Implementation and training
organization and its Capital cost for network upgrade
5
employees to more broadly Capital cost for telephony system
0
propagate mobility and its ShoreTel Mitel Avaya Microsoft Cisco TDM
benefits.
For the organization: it Figure 2: Total Cost of Ownership
provides an opportunity to
Operating expenditures are also generally lower for distributed solutions for this reason:
reduce the cost of mobility
A family of modules, each supporting dozens or hundreds of users, makes distributed
overall by transferring
solutions suitable for small and medium businesses. Because many SMBs lack IT/
equipment costs to
UC expertise, these solutions must be designed for ease of implementation, use and
employees, significantly
management. And this simplicity scales right along with those distributed solutions that
decreasing capital expense
are also capable of supporting tens of thousands of users in large enterprises.
budgets…
For employees: … it enables
the interleaving of their 4. Integrating Mobility Seamlessly and Securely
personal/social life back into
the workplace as appropriate, Mobility means different things to different people. This discussion takes a rather broad
offering the potential for a approach to what it means to be mobile in the Everywhere Enterprise. Everyone agrees
healthier work/life balance.” that field personnel are mobile; they are either in front of or en route to a customer, and
are rarely at a desk. But nearly every other employee is also mobile at times. Some are
“corridor warriors” who leave their desks regularly to attend meetings. Some routinely
work from home, either as full- or part-time telecommuters, or just to catch up in the
evenings or on the weekends.
Consider this: The vast majority of people now have a smartphone, and a growing
number are buying tablets. And as with their credit cards, people don’t leave home
without them. The enterprise can choose either to ignore or even fight this trend, or to
instead embrace its inevitability by telling employees: Bring Your Own Device. Done
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 7

8. right, BYOD is a win/win arrangement. Employees get to use a single device for personal
and business needs, and organizations save money by issuing fewer so-called “corporate
devices.”
In a white paper titled The Changing Role of Mobile Communications in the Workplace,
Frost Sullivan expresses the BYOD business imperative this way: “To stay competitive
in an increasingly mobile workplace, companies must find ways to allow their employees
to communicate and collaborate anytime, anywhere, and from any device.”
Achieving seamless and secure support of mobility in general, and BYOD in particular,
is perhaps the biggest challenge IT managers face today when implementing a
seamless, easy-to-use and enterprise-wide UC solution. Every solution treats mobile
users somewhat differently, and the win/win potential of BYOD is by no means assured.
Without the right approach, costs will go up as the users’ quality of experience goes
down.
Here is a list of the essential capabilities needed to integrate mobility seamlessly and
securely into the enterprise-wide UC infrastructure:
• igorous authentication and virtual private networking with strong encryption to ensure
R
integrity and confidentiality
• he ability to minimize mobile phone and long-distance charges by intelligently and
T
transparently choosing the least cost path between carrier and enterprise networks
• upport for the full suite of UC capabilities on the most popular BYOD smartphones
S
and tablets, such as iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry
• Dual Persona” identity management functionality that automatically distinguishes
“
between business and personal usage of VoIP and UC features
• upport for presence with a single enterprise phone number for all users
S
• unified management system with over-the-air updates for all mobile devices, whether
A
BYOD or issued by the organization
5. Implementing an Integrated UC/VoIP Solution
VoIP and Unified Communications both benefit from a rich set of industry standards, and
these make it possible to add both tethered and mobile UC capabilities to virtually any
IP telephony infrastructure. There remain two issues with this “piecemeal” approach,
however. The first is that even full compliance with all applicable standards does not
guarantee full interoperability among systems and applications, and this can drive up the
total cost of ownership. The second is that separate applications, each with its own user
interface, can be very difficult to use, thereby undermining the very productivity gains UC
is intended to achieve.
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 8

9. The only way to eliminate these two issues to implement a fully integrated and total
solution for all VoIP and UC capabilities for all tethered and mobile users throughout the
Everywhere Enterprise. Indeed, the advantages of such a “greenfield” approach may well
justify a “forklift” replacement of any existing IP PBX and/or UC systems already installed.
Smaller organizations will, naturally, find this easier to do than larger ones. But even the
largest organizations may want to consider the “greenfield” scenario phased in over time
on a site-by-site basis, especially when being confronted with a major upgrade or during
a routine technology refresh cycle.
Implementing a fully integrated UC/VoIP solution is also the best way to minimize total
cost of ownership over time. Both capital expenditures and implementation costs
(including training) are minimized by having an “all-in-one” solution that combines IP
telephony, collaboration, conferencing; conference recording; unified messaging, instant
messaging, presence and scheduling, contact center support, desktop sharing, and
mobility in a single platform, preferably available in a choice of modules at different
price/performance points.
Ongoing operational expenditures are similarly minimized with an integrated
management system for all of the UC/VoIP applications. With such a fully- and
seamlessly-integrated solution, the many applications are normally updated concurrently
in a single software release from the vendor. This avoids any compatibility problems that
might occur when updating different applications from different vendors on different
schedules.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, implementing a fully-integrated UC/VoIP solution
from a clean slate is the best way to ensure a high quality of experience for the users.
Collaboration is more likely to be seamless for everyone throughout the Everywhere
Enterprise. The user interface is likely to be more consistent across the diverse set of
tethered and mobile devices. And management of the entire infrastructure is likely to be
consolidated and simplified for the IT department.
Given the potential upside advantages, one of the options considered in any
organization’s situation should, therefore, be the “greenfield” scenario.
6. Conclusion
Unified Communications promises to deliver tremendous benefit to any organization,
and most solutions available today are capable of delivering on that promise to one
extent or another. The differences among the multitude of choices available are to be
found instead in the robustness of the feature sets, the ease of implementation and
management, and other areas. Given the considerable improvements in employee
productivity, most UC solutions also afford an acceptable return on the investment
despite some dramatic differences in their total costs of ownership.
Seamless Unified Communications for the Everywhere Enterprise PAGE 9

10. Perhaps the most significant difference among UC solutions today involves the user
experience. A desktop IP phone or PC is very different from a VoWLAN phone or a
tablet, but that does not mean users should be required to learn an entirely different
way of interacting with the UC applications. To be fully effective, collaboration with
colleagues must be consistent and seamless. And the user’s choice of device should not
limit the capabilities supported, nor should they be burdened with different interfaces to
different UC applications.
The difference between success and failure when implementing Unified Communications
for the Everywhere Enterprise depends, more than anything else, on the quality of
experience for the users. To become fully effective, UC must deliver its beneficial
changes without requiring users to change. Better collaboration with colleagues. Better
overall productivity. Better work/life balance. Better results. All without forcing users
to struggle learning something dramatically different from what they already do today.
Indeed, if Unified Communications is not such a win/win for both the organization and
the users alike, it will never become part of the organization’s daily culture, and its full
potential will forever remain elusive.
ShoreTel’s Unified Communications solution has been designed for the best possible
user experience—one that is consistent, seamless and satisfactory, regardless of the
user’s device or location. To learn more about the benefits of such an approach in the
Everywhere Enterprise, please visit ShoreTel on the Web at www.shoretel.com or call
408.331.3300.
About ShoreTel
ShoreTel is the provider of brilliantly simple Unified Communication (UC) solutions based on its
award-winning IP business phone system. We offer organizations of all sizes integrated, voice,
video, data, and mobile communications on an open, distributed IP architecture that helps
significantly reduce the complexity and costs typically associated with other solutions. The
feature-rich ShoreTel UC system offers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and the highest
customer satisfaction in the industry, in part because it is easy to deploy, manage, scale and
use. Increasingly, companies around the world are finding a competitive edge by replacing
business-as-usual with new thinking, and choosing ShoreTel to handle their integrated business
communication. ShoreTel is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices and partners
worldwide. For more information, visit shoretel.com.
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