The Challenge of Foggy Unified Communications and Collaboration

Managing UC&C solutions when some users are on-prem and some in the cloud

When water vapor, which is invisible, condenses forming tiny water droplets suspended in the air that you can see, you have fog. Fog is effectively a cloud that reaches the ground.        

In the world of enterprise communications, an environment where some users are provided services from the cloud (UCaaS), and some users are grounded, receiving services from on-premises systems, can be “foggy”.

The administration of the overall enterprise communication solution is more challenging for organizations in this foggy situation. Onboarding and configuring users is more complex. Consolidated reporting and analytics are difficult. Troubleshooting issues takes more time.

While avoiding a mixed environment may seem a straightforward solution to these challenges, for many larger organizations there are several reasons that a mixed, foggy, environment evolves.

When the Cloud Reaches the Ground

For organizations who have adopted Microsoft Teams as their collaboration and communication solution, the only option is to run Teams in the Microsoft cloud. Microsoft does not offer an on-premises version of Teams.

For many organizations Teams is a great fit for most of their people. For most, but often not all.

There are a variety of reasons organizations combine Teams, or another UCaaS solution, with an on-premises solution:

1.?????? ?Existing assets with undepreciated value.

Organizations who have working on-prem voice solutions that were recently installed or upgraded, may not have fully depreciated these systems. From a financial perspective, it may make sense to continue to use the existing telephony systems for some users as other users are transitioned to Teams Phone.

In some circumstances, Teams PSTN voice calling may be routed through the existing system, effectively having it act as a Session Border Controller (SBC) connected to the PSTN. Alternatively, a separate PSTN connection -- via Microsoft calling plans, Direct Routing, or Operator Connect – may be established for Teams users.

Even organizations who eventually plan to transition fully to Teams often do so over months or years. During the transition period, the IT staff will be responsible for managing the two (or more) systems.

2.?????? Specialized functionality

While Teams provides enterprise-grade PBX capabilities, organizations may have existing contact center or analog devices connected to on-premises equipment. Organizations may choose to move most users to Teams but retain agents and devices on existing platforms.

In some cases, data residency requirements may drive the need for a local voice solution at one or more location.

3.?????? The need for enhanced local survivability

Without an internet connection Teams does not work. Users cannot chat, post, join meetings, make or receive calls if the internet is not available.

A Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) with Direct Routing (and an on-prem PSTN connection) is used to enable Microsoft Phone System to continue to make and receive Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) calls in the case of an outage.

An SBA is a third-party device that includes a blade server running the Windows Server operating system, Registrar, Mediation Server software, and a PSTN gateway, all in a single appliance chassis.

At some facilities and for some groups of users, Teams, even with an SBA, may not provide the required level of local survivability. In these cases, organizations may choose to augment Teams with local on-premises PBXs at specific locations, leading to a mixed voice environment.

4.?????? Acquisitions

Even if a company has standardized on Teams and Teams Phone, after an acquisition, the IT group may be responsible for managing a mixed environment for a period.

5.?????? Cost optimization

I have often said “do the math”. This simply means that you need to figure out the costs associated with your specific situation. There is no general rule.

In some cases, organizations may be financially best served by combining on-premises and cloud-based communications solutions.

Managing a Foggy Environment

The Teams Admin Center (TAC) does a decent job of managing single Teams’ users within a single tenant (although bulk operations and some complex configuration still require reverting to PowerShell scripting) but the TAC has no ability to manage or report on systems other than Teams.

For organizations with a multi-vendor environment, or multiple Teams tenants, several vendors provide tools that can assist.

For the purposes of the following explanation, I am using examples from VOSS Solutions , one of the vendors that has a long history of providing multi-vendor migration, management, and reporting capabilities.

Migrations in a Mixed Environment

When an organization chooses to move users from one platform to another, or they need to deal with an acquisition, tools that can assess the current on-prem configuration and then automate the migration to the target platform can save significant effort (which equates to cost savings) and provide a better user experience.

VOSS Migrate is an example of a tool which can discover, extract, and map a current configuration to a destination platform. Legacy PBX features do not always map directly to Teams. In some cases, Teams accomplishes the same outcome using a different mechanism; tools such as VOSS Migrate can identify these special cases.

VOSS Migrate can then help define and migrate batches of users in a controlled and consistent manner.

MACDs in a Foggy Multi-vendor Environment

A tool such as VOSS Automate provides a simplified interface that IT Pros can use to effect change to any platform being managed. This removes the requirement for staff to learn separate complex scripting or configuration tools for each platform.

Automated tools allow a standard profile or persona to be assigned to groups of users ensuring a consistent user experience. Automation simplifies making changes to large groups of users, during onboarding, offboarding, or a re-organization.

Additionally, automated tools can assist with “number management”, the often complex task of acquiring, assigning, holding, and re-assigning phone numbers within a large organizations, especially challenging when these numbers are allocated across different voice solutions.

Further, automated tools provide a detailed audit trail for changes, and can offer a “rollback” option should a change have an unintended consequence.

Help desk Operations in a Foggy Multi-vendor Environment

Automation allows many operations to be delegated to helpdesk staff. The automated tool can provide simple screens with options appropriate based on a specific user’s configuration. This makes it much easier for staff to make changes regardless of which UC platform a user is on.

VOSS Automate also allows controlling permissions on a much more granular level than the Teams Admin Center allows. For example, you can delegate permissions based on office location or department.

Self-serve in a Foggy Multi-vendor Environment

While Teams allows users to self-manage many settings, for example controlling call forwarding and a simultaneous ring, automated tools can extend and simplify options users are able to configure themselves.

Increasing self-serve options reduces the burden on helpdesk staff and system administrators. Like with any other change, these changes are fully tracked in an audit log.

Reporting in a Foggy Multi-vendor Environment

Analytics can act as a compass and a ruler, helping you know if you are heading in the right direction and measuring progress.

For any UC environment it is important to measure quality, reliability, usage & adoption, customer satisfaction, and financial metrics (especially related to license optimization).

Many organizations struggle to do this even with one solution. In a multi-vendor environment reporting can become even more challenging but even more important. Especially if you are trying to deliver consistent service levels while optimizing costs.

VOSS Insights allows you to consolidate important metrics into a “single pane of glass” making it easy to view and drill down into important analytics.

Clearing the Fog

Multi-vendor UC solutions are more complex to effectively operate.

When there are strong business reasons to operate in a mixed UC environment, automated tools such as those from VOSS can help dissipate the fog and clear your way to achieving the desired business outcomes.