Not Sexy, but Significant - NEC Untangles the Management Web of Unified Communications Applications

The subject of application management isn't sexy. Most of the time vendors, press and analysts like to talk about how neat the capabilities of UC applications are, and we like to complain about how applications from disparate vendors don't work well together. We complain about things such as lack of federation, and whether vendors are on board with standards, or lack thereof. We question whether a single vendor's applications play well together too, but rarely does the topic of how companies manage all of the different applications they have come into play, whether they are UC or other business applications. Why? Because it's just not as fun to talk about as what end users get out of using UC applications. Besides, we like to think that some systems administrator is going to do the dirty work for us. Even if that is the case, systems administrators are end users too, and making things work well for them should be a top priority.

Another issue is that whereas we talk about integration, we usually talk about whether applications work well together, such as desktop video and Telepresence being deployed and used at the same time by groups of people, not the nuts and bolts of making sure all of the directory entries for employees across voice messaging, email and instant messaging are all consistent. We talk about being able to have a UC solution no matter what device a user is on, but not how to provision those different devices with applications. Perhaps we don't talk about it because we don't know that there is a problem, a cost, and a solution.

The Problem

The core problem is that every time a business adds an application or a user, that person has to be added to the system and their device or application has to be configured to their job function or personal specification. This problem occurs across all applications in an enterprise whether it is adding an employee to an HR database, or provisioning a voicemail box for that new employee. Some of the issues have been addressed through the invention of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP); a network protocol developed to allow users to extract information from a hierarchical directory on a network for use elsewhere. Lots of companies, such as Microsoft (with Active Directory) or Apple (through Open Directory) have incorporated this function, but not across the board, particularly when it comes to voice applications, leaving many business applications still siloed when it comes to sharing user information.

The bigger problem is in administering, monitoring, and reporting all the separate applications in the business in a cohesive and uniform fashion. Traditionally the IT folks have monitored their data network and the voice guys their telecom network, with VoIP, SIP, and voice and data applications that share components of each, the need for monitoring everything with transparency has grown exponentially.

The Cost

The cost is the time it takes to set up every application and user, multiplied by errors if the information is not consistent, and errors if done manually. Within unified communications we have multiple applications that can come as a suite or be added one at a time, raising complexity, such as presence, IM, video, etc. But look across an entire organization and what do you see? You have the corporate directory for HR, voicemail, email, call accounting, IP telephony, CRM, WFM, and perhaps a contact center. That is a lot of complexity, and multiple administrators or "end users" handling those applications and servers. There is a lot of room for oversight and error. If one or more of those applications are integrated and a change is made, there is something missing or is an error replicated? There are a lot of hidden costs involved and a lot of room to cut costs as well.

With the bigger picture, the cost of administering separate networks, or not understanding the impact of errors and faults that one solution may have on another is also time consuming and costly.

A Solution

Every vendor has done work in systems administration even if those solutions don't get much press. One of these not so talked about solutions in the market is NEC's UCE Manager (formerly known as MA4000); part of NEC's UC for Enterprise suite of applications.

Sexy End User Features

See, I have to get your attention again. NEC put a lot of work into making UCE Manager very easy to use, yet very powerful. So even if you aren't a systems administrator, or an application developer, you can understand the value of some of this work. For example, UCE Manager has:

• Drop down lists (the ones we are all familiar with in our business productivity solutions) for doing things such as provisioning work stations, voicemail boxes, etc., and only valid configuration options appear so users don't have to guess or plow through long lists.
• Help in the form of notes and hints, but more importantly, UCE manager allows the user to search through UCE manager and all the communication servers' technical documentation for answers, using key words or concepts. Hmmm. What a usability concept.
• An audit history so that the end user can see everything that changed, who changed it and what happened. This is particularly important when there are multiple administrators on board.
• Template-based programming that allows the user to pre-define default configurations for things like workstations or voicemail boxes, which can be used with -
• A wizard-based, range programming tool, which lets users edit large groups of devices simultaneously. Sounds boring. It's not. With this tool an end user can get a bunch of work done quickly and accurately, such as do moves, adds and changes (MAC) simply by using the aforementioned templates, copy configurations from one device to another, renumber phones or voicemail boxes (across multiple communication servers), delete groups of devices, users or voicemail boxes, move TDM devices from one location to another without wiring, and a lot of other tasks.

Those are just some of the features of UCE Manager. NEC put a lot of effort in helping to simplify administration and in making the tools intuitive for the user. It allows for real-time monitoring and reporting for any station. It also provides the user with a traffic manager that collects real time VoIP and traffic statistics for voice servers. This allows administrators to fine-tune capacity planning.

UCE Manager also utilizes industry standards to ensure simple integration of multiple systems. NEC tied UCE Manager's features together with centralized administration so there is just one point that an administrator needs to go to monitor and change any one system. For example, remember the new employee? UCE Manager employs industry-standard LDAP to deploy directory-based applications. So when that new employee shows up and is added to the HR system, all the information about that employee, such as name, employee number, telephone number, department, etc., is available to the voicemail box, email box, IM application, etc. This greatly speeds up deployment of the other applications, as well as ensuring consistency in the data. Hence, you won't find Laurie MacFarland in HR, and that same person as Lauri McFarland in an IT database.

UCE Manager is also not just about the voice applications, such as UC or IP telephony, it also covers network management as well. UCE Manager is built on principles of the industry standard Telecom Management Network (TMN) model, which supports integration with Network Management Systems (NMS), and uses Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to forward and report to administrators on problems within the network or network inventory.

Finally, just as important as ease of use and simplicity is security. Again, NEC put a lot of thought into making the network secure. UCE Manager provides administrators with proactive fault management, intrusion and toll-fraud detection, end-to-end encryption, and rapid disaster recovery. Once again, the single point of administration also applies to security allowing administrators a single point of authentication into the NEC management interface.

NEC's UCE Manager is just one example of how vendors are addressing a knotty problem we created when we added all of those neat applications we like to talk about, that incorporate components of voice and data together. It's worth taking a look at.

This paper is sponsored by NEC.