Nectar Revolutionizes Communications Experience with Cisco Digital Network Architecture

Unique Solution Automates Quality of Service to Optimize Communications Experience for Microsoft and Cisco Collaboration Environments Running on a Cisco Network

Today at Cisco Live, Cisco's annual IT and communications conference, Nectar Services Corp. introduced a unique solution designed to optimize the communications experience in Cisco and Microsoft collaboration environments that run on Cisco-based networks. An industry first, Nectar Evolution integrates with the Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA) to automate quality of service (QoS) and verify best practices that were previously manually implemented. The integration with Cisco DNA enables Nectar to optimize voice, video and collaboration experiences across Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Microsoft Skype for Business.

"One of the fundamental challenges we consistently see in UC environments is the inconsistent deployment of QoS across the enterprise network that can negatively impact the end user experience. The internal cost to manage and change complex wired and wireless network QoS policy configurations contribute to this inconsistency," said Joseph Fuccillo, chief technology officer at Nectar. "Nectar Evolution brings simplicity, automation and repeatability that can ensure consistent end-to-end QoS in Cisco and Microsoft UC environments. Nectar continues to promote innovative UC technology adoption for enterprises and Evolution will become compatible with even more UC platform providers and transparent UC networks will become the industry norm."

"With DNA, Cisco is reinventing the network for the digital era. One of our goals in moving towards an open, programmable, flexible network was to unleash the power of the network via a new generation of network-aware applications," said Jeff Reed, senior vice president, Enterprise Infrastructure and Solutions at Cisco. "Nectar is using our DNA controller to deliver superior quality of service to collaboration customers, allowing them to experience a hassle-free collaboration experience while dramatically reducing costs for the IT team."

The Problem

The process of identifying, implementing and maintaining QoS across the enterprise's UC network is complex and resource intensive. Eventually, due to an oversight or inconvenience of manually-implemented network policy changes, the needs for UC QoS is often put on the backburner by network administrators because of the sheer inefficiency. The primary challenge has been the inability to give proper QoS settings to multi-vendor wired and wireless UC clients. Nectar Evolution pairs its unparalleled multi-vendor UC network visibility and diagnostics with a quality automated QoS service that takes a significant burden off of the UC network administrators.

The Solution

Nectar Evolution helps to ensure Cisco and Microsoft collaboration customers receive optimized QoS for a premium optimum collaboration experience by:

• Providing UC Device Agnostic Configuration - Nectar Evolution, leveraging the Cisco APIC-EM (the Cisco DNA controller), helps ensure the user receives the proper QoS regardless of the UC device they are registering with or using.
• Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - Automated QoS as a user registers to their UC environment eliminates the need for on-going QoS changes throughout the network infrastructure.
• Improving Overall UC & End-User Experience - By designating and assigning the proper QoS to the registered UC user the overall experience will be improved and the UC environment will operate at the highest performance standards.

How It Works

Nectar Evolution improves the end-user experience by providing a registered user with pre-determined QoS using Nectar's rules-based policy engine. Once the user registers, Nectar's policy engine sends specific UC QoS data to the Cisco APIC-EM API. The Cisco DNA controller then sets the QoS policy within seconds, specific for the corresponding device type and IP to all the required Cisco routers, switches, and wireless controllers/access points that reside in the client's enterprise networking infrastructure. Nectar can then utilize its passive and active real-time UC performance monitoring and diagnostics technology to close the loop and ensure QoS compliance across the UC network.

"As the world evolves to software-defined networking, having the right tools to support this approach is imperative. Nectar's customer-centric development with Cisco helps bring organizations closer to making SDN a reality by simplifying the management of large, complex, and multi-platform networks," said Rich Montefusco, Vice President of Managed Services at Carousel Industries. "Nectar Evolution helps ease the complex management of QoS and ensure a positive user experience. With our expertise in both Cisco and Nectar technologies, Carousel Industries is excited to bring this solution to our customers."

Nectar has a strong pedigree with both Cisco and Microsoft. The company is a Cisco Solution Partner and Nectar Evolution is a certified Cisco Compatible Solution. Additionally, Nectar is a qualified Microsoft IT Pro Tools Partner under the Skype for Business Program, a Microsoft depth partner under the Microsoft Software Defined Networking (SDN) API program and a Microsoft Gold Communications Partner.

Availability

Nectar Evolution will be available to enterprise customers in the second half of 2016 via Cisco's channel of authorized resellers. Nectar will be demonstrating its Evolution solution at Cisco Live, Las Vegas, July 10-14, 2016 in Booth #1144.