The way we communicate is changing rapidly. Business communication strategies are evolving well beyond basic voice to include presence, IM, video, mobile applications, bring your own device (BYOD) and web-conferencing with the goal of improving the ability to work together effectively and productively. This is why Avaya is launching its Collaboration Pod with EMC and VMware technology.
Because how we communicate has radically changed, by necessity, the platform from which all these rich communications capabilities has also changed. Like other business applications, real time communications are also being virtualized. Data from Nemertes Research shows that 42% of businesses are virtualizing or planning to virtualize their unified communications applications.
There is a segment of the enterprise market that has the IT resources and experience to deploy a virtualized unified communications solution in house. They have the required knowledge in communications protocols know-how and the time required for the planning, deployment, cabling, testing and optimization phases for deploying these applications. For others, however, that task might be daunting due to resource and time constraints.
What’s the solution? A pre-integrated, pre-tested virtualized solution designed around the unique requirements of Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) … a solution that contains everything necessary to run UCC in a virtualized environment, from the applications all the way through to the networking equipment. This is exactly what Avaya is delivering to market with the support of EMC and VMware with our Collaboration Pods.
Avaya Collaboration Pods include the VNX5300 storage arrays from EMC, VMware vSphere and networking, management, gateways, session border controller and applications from Avaya. The first offer — called the Collaboration Pod for Avaya Aura Virtualized Environment — is centered on collaboration.
Designed to increase application availability and simplify operations for both Enterprises and Cloud Service Providers, the Avaya Collaboration Pods enable deployment of advanced communications solutions for internal or for hosting services in hours as opposed to weeks or months. They also dramatically simplify operations through a common orchestration layer and integrated, single-call support.
When architecting the solution, selecting EMC’s VNX5300 platform as the storage array was an easy choice. As a mid-tier platform it provides a cost-effective yet powerful solution for storage that offers future growth for intensive applications such as call recording in a contact center environment and for high bandwidth video calls. The reliability of the VNX platform — with dynamic failover/ failback with the ability to perform in service hardware and software upgrades — contributes to the high overall reliability of the system, keeping business-critical communications services always available. Finally, the level of integration provided by the VNX family with VMware helps keeps operations simple for the user.
Avaya is pleased to be working on this initiative with EMC and VMware — enabling business around the world to collaborate in order to achieve better productivity and make faster, smarter decisions, with greater speed and simplicity than ever before.