- OSS Telco

Are You Worried About Losing Your Data?

OSS Telco — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:24:48 +0000

Protect Against Losing Your Data

30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years according to Home Office Computing Magazine.
Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States according to Mozy Online Backup.
34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures.
And to top it off 6% of all PC’s will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year according to The Cost of Lost Data by David M. Smith.

The the fact remains that there are factors that are out of your control, and that could be devastating to your company. So you therefore should be worried about losing your data, because of the consequences involved.

So what are the viable options available in order to mitigate these random threats and get them under your control? One such option is cloud backup & recovery.

It seems like everybody and their mother has jumped on the cloud backup and recovery bandwagon. 75% of companies will use enterprise-class cloud computing solutions within 5 years. The specific benefit of cloud based services is that it drastically reduces costs and burden of disk and tape management.

Cloud backup & recovery provides a fully managed solution with proactive remote access and monitoring, leaving you free to focus on core projects instead of backup chores.

If you haven’t explored the area of cloud computing yet, I encourage you to research it.

Telecom Best Practices in Project Management

oss.telco — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:12:22 +0000

The process used to accomplish Management and Control is based on the industry telecom best practices for project management. This process is utilized to generate consistently successful, high quality projects that achieve their goals in a timely manner. Prior to the commencement of the project, OSS works with the Client to define their goals, objectives, available information, time frames, project scope, anticipated depth of analysis, deliverables, and individual project unique information. This information is incorporated into the Statement of Work which is presented to the Client for agreement. Depending on the Client’s documentation requirements or internal procedures, the information, along with additional project documentation can be incorporated into a formal Project Book that contains full project documentation.

Project Scope

One of the key steps in the project process is the definition of the project scope as this then defines the work to be done. The scope defines what results are to be achieved, the information that is to be analyzed, the degree to which the information will be analyzed and the parameters within which the work will be conducted.

Project Source Data

A variety of data is obtained (mostly from the Client) and used to build the telecommunications baseline. The baseline is then combined with the non inventory information to determine the available options, potential efficiencies and savings as well as potential alternate profiles of system/network configuration. The data may include:

One to three month’s telecom invoices for all voice and data services within the project scope
Copies of all active contracts, including amendments, attachments, schedules, etc.
A current list of organizational site locations and addresses.
Any available Network diagrams and key applications (with bandwidth requirements if known)in use over the network
Letter of AgencyAuthorization (form will be supplied by OSS) for access to Client’s records from each of the carriers.
Client personnel contact information, for those individuals responsible for forwarding the data and being project liaisons.
List of any billing disputes previously identified
Description of any planned voice or data changes
Traffic studies (optional)
Accounts Payable report for most recent 12 months (only required if billing disputes are involved within the project scope)
Carrier account team contact information for all carriers within the project scope.

Additional information may be desired based upon the project scope.

Project Telecommunications Service Project Profile

The telecommunications baseline and the contracts, network diagrams, bandwidth requirements, service locations, and other information combine to form a database that defines the telecommunications service included in the project. OSS refers to this database as the Service Project Profile. The Profile defines the starting baseline from which all changes are defined and all savings are measured.

Project Telecommunications Service Profile Analysis

The telecommunications profile is analyzed by the OSS analysts to determine data completeness and then to define potential optimization opportunities, potential configuration changes and potential savings opportunities based on the data, the costs, the utilization, the currently available technology and the available alternative options. The goal of this project phase is to define the various opportunities that potentially exist to reduce costs and increase flexibility or increase service levels at the same or reduced costs thus providing increased telecommunications value to the Client.

Project Telecommunications Service Recommendations

The results of the analysis phase are presented to the client as quantified recommendations. Depending on the Client’s specifications, the presentation format can be a Summary with attachments, a full report summarizing the data, the full scope of the analysis (including all the alternatives whether they were proven cost justified or not) and the recommended alternatives (with their justification, benefits, costs and weighted scores), or something in between these two. If the Client has specified a full auditable Project Book, the full report will be included. In addition, depending on the Client’s specifications, a recommended Migration Plan which delineates a process (along with responsibilities, tasks, schedules, etc.) to achieve the recommended solutions can be included in the Recommendations.

Project Deliverables

The deliverables from a Telecommunications Management and Control project vary in accordance with the Client’s specifications. As previously noted, Client’s have specified that they receive a presentation of the final opportunities and alternatives along with cast and savings analyses and Clients have specified they receive full ISO 9000 compliant Project Books containing documented recommendations, cost analyses, presentation of all defined options and results of their analysis, the defined service baseline and all gathered data, the project quality standards, the proposed migration plan and other unique items. Normally, the deliverables package contains all or some of the following:

The Telecommunications Baseline
A Summary of the various Contracts with term and other considerations.
A Summary of the Analysis Phase
A listing of potential savings and a cost benefit analysis
A listing of all potential savings from the identification of non-utilized services or contract vs. bill discrepancies
Physical site inspection findings
Telecommunications Expense Management (TEM) recommendations
Proposed Action/Migration/Management Plans

In addition, the OSS team will conduct presentations and discussions of the project recommendations to provide whatever details and information the Client desires.

One Stop Solution and its Team

One Stop Solution realizes that organizations are concerned with voice and data costs and service levels and it has provided assistance in improving their telecommunications services and reducing costs to numerous organizations ranging from hospitals to NFL football teams to insurance companies to property management companies and law firms.

OSS understands that telecommunications costs represent a major expense that can rank with personnel costs or utility costs. OSS equally understands that the control and mitigation of telecommunications expenses cannot compromise service quality and operational requirements. Therefore, a disciplined, structural approach combined with industry knowledge is essential to achieve the desired results.

One of the results of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a fragmentation of the telecommunications industry. Very few, if any of the telecommunications companies are the same as they were regardless of whether they have an old and familiar name. Further, as a result of industry regulation and service standards not keeping pace with the growth of service providers, the environment has become one of “caviat emptor”. Buyers have to be aware as well as bewaring.

OSS and its team are aware of the providers, their strengths and weaknesses, what various contract terms and conditions mean operationally, what the market prices for various product and services really are, what new technology can replace older services and provide enhanced service at advantageous prices and how to use this knowledge to the advantage of their clients. Moreover, OSS and its team can assist their clients in maintaining telecommunications service levels and cost controls after the project and on an ongoing basis.

OSS’ experienced consultants have used their industry experience and knowledge to provide cost effective solutions and, when requested, to manage the project to completion.

One Stop Solution Consultants and Project Managers have extensive experience in all phases of telecommunications. This experience and training produces optimal telecommunications solutions for our Clients. The OSS personnel are typically organized as follows:

Executive Sponsor-High-level owner of the Client relationship, and responsible for the satisfaction of the Client requirements and the OSS quality control.
Project Manager-The primary point of contact for the Client who provides project oversight and leadership and who is primarily responsible for the achievement of the project goals and objectives.
Senior Consultant – Responsible for project activities in the Project Manager’s absence and for providing leadership and coordination to project Consultants and Analysts. May, on larger projects function as a Team Leader for managing specific functional teams.
Consultant – Responsible for the production of results for their assigned project areas, verifies analyst data and completes high level analyses, responsible for the maintenance of OSS quality standards and produces of deliverables.
Analyst – Responsible for the organization and categorization of telecom records as well as the organization of record information into pre-analysis data files and the conduct of the initial level of analyses.

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What Are Managed WAN Services and Why Do I Need Them?

oss.telco — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:38:06 +0000

Market Definition

Managed WAN services cover the features and functionality carriers offer in their wide area networks (WAN) and at the customer point of demarcation. These are a collection of value-added services that can include monitoring and reporting, security, and outsourced CPE functions. Large businesses see managed network services as a way to outsource IT functions and purchase them along with consulting and professional services that assess, design, and implement their enterprise networks. At a basic level, carriers’ managed WAN services offer monitoring and alerts of critical problems such as network outages. Higher tiers of service can add configuration management; proactive troubleshooting and trouble resolution; SLA management; more sophisticated/granular monitoring and reporting; on-the-ground CPE installation and hardware support, ensuring CPE software is up-to-date and configured correctly; and overall lifecycle management.

WAN management emerged in the late 1980s, starting in the U.S. with outsourced management of a few, very large enterprise frame relay networks. The practice boomed alongside widespread adoption of IP networks and IP VPNs (MPLS VPN). The IP revolution converged networks – public with private traffic, priority with best-effort delivery, and voice with data applications – making them more dynamic and complex. These trends fueled enterprise customers to off-load WAN management responsibility. In managed WAN services, Current Analysis includes network infrastructure from Layer 1 transport through Layer 3 IP; the definition also includes carrier-managed CPE deployed at the customer point of demarcation, as well as premium SLA guarantees available when customers purchase carriers’ management and network redundancy options. Besides the network services themselves, managed WAN services coverage takes into account support resources: staff on the ground to provide on-site installation, service, and support; network operations centers and related facilities; and customer portals that deliver alerts, reports, and other vital information to customers. Finally, though general-purpose consulting and professional services are not covered, managed WAN services include packaged disaster recovery/business continuity services; a primary customer driver remains higher service level guarantees and rapid recovery in the event of an outage.

Market Review

• Global Masters of Managed WAN…: Many smaller service providers offer managed WAN services effectively. However, when it comes to breadth, depth, and reach of services, the world’s biggest carriers field tremendous resources to help shoulder the management burden and let the largest multinational corporations focus on their core business. AT&T, Verizon Business, Orange Business Services, and BT Global Services offer such a spread of managed network services, backed by strong consulting and professional services capabilities, global networks, and a global on-the-ground presence.

• A Broad Base of Players: There are plenty of additional service providers that offer managed network services domestically and/or internationally. Other major providers include Qwest, Sprint, and Global Crossing as well as virtual network operators such as Virtela. Domestic service aggregators such as New Edge Networks and MegaPath are additional purveyors of managed WANs. CLECs including PAETEC are rising stars, and Hughes Network Services is among the top players in terms of endpoints, as its satellite/terrestrial segments are managed by default.

• IP Spurs Managed WAN Adoption: Enterprises traditionally employed private line/digital data service, frame relay, and ATM to build static data communications networks consisting of point-to-point real or virtual circuits to connect locations. The world of IP/Internet traffic uses mesh networks and enables converged services on one pipe that are more dynamic and complex. While managed network services have been spurred by IP, major carriers also continue to tout off-the-shelf management options for frame relay/ATM networks and even for transport services.

• Customer Portal Automation: AT&T and Verizon are among the carriers that have initiatives dating back to the 1990s to pull together network management platforms and coordinate information. These internal projects were described as iGEMS and IMPACT, respectively, and became the information engines powering their BusinessDirect and Verizon Enterprise Center customer portals. Online portals are now commonplace among major carriers, and they are a two-way conduit for customer self-service, including submitting instructions and receiving reports on customers’ managed services.

• Business Continuity Tie-In: Managed WAN services have a natural tie-in to service providers’ business continuity/disaster recovery portfolio of services. As with managed network services, these programs mix consulting engagements and professional services programs with off-the-shelf network/hosted services and active management of customer networks. Together, these services aim to keep uptime high for the customer and provide rapid alternatives in the event of a failure such as network re-routing, hardware and configuration repair, data storage, and recovery.

• Ground Forces: Many managed WAN functions can be delivered remotely through a network operations center or customer support center. Carriers can tap a high level of automation to deliver customers’ network services. However, at some point, customers with managed CPE components will need on-the-ground support for hardware installation, break/fix, or replacement – a role that channels and VARs can play in some cases, but one that requires a distributed field force and/or a partnership with a professional field services specialist such as Endeavor Telecom or Dimension Data.

Near-Term Market Drivers

• Opportunity in Economic Malaise: For multinational corporations, financial pressures from the economic downturn may funnel them into one of two directions in their communications strategy. They can lower network costs by cutting services and signing with lowest-cost providers, or they can outsource to trusted service providers and cut internal staff. The former trend may be troublesome for big global providers, but the latter could present big new opportunities for providers to sell comprehensive portfolios of network, managed, and hosted services.

• Managed Diversity for Premium SLAs: One reason customers turn to a service provider for managed WAN is to have agents in the network who are in charge of proactively monitoring and maintaining the best possible uptime. Through a combination of end-to-end control over services and access backup/diversity options (such as redundant CPE and failover access), service providers typically offer premium SLA guarantees. These SLAs can range up to 99.9% and even 100% availability, scaling up to a 100% monthly credit on the affected port(s) for less than 24 hours of downtime, for example.

• CPE Router Management Tiers: Most providers of managed IP router services have settled into a set of three standard tiers: a monitor/notify tier to issue reports and notify the customer of critical problems; a physical tier to add assistance with physical hardware problems; and a complete tier that takes full control of the customers’ routers, including configuration changes and software updates. Carriers that assume full responsibility for customer routers do not have to own them outright, but they will usually insist on full operational control to rule out customer errors.

• Global Applications Optimization: Global carriers often are called upon by their large enterprise customers to serve business locations in countries where bandwidth is scarce and/or costly. While MPLS-based IP VPNs offer broad classes of service, these services do not distinguish individual applications. Practices such as data compression and caching can help use available bandwidth more efficiently. Global providers have turned to a combination of managed and professional services with equipment from providers such as Ipanema, Riverbed, Blue Coat, and Packeteer and products from Juniper Networks and Cisco Systems.

• Continuous Portal Improvement: Service provider portals tend to be in a constant state of development and evolution. Most of the time, individual feature enhancements are not publicized because they are individually too insignificant to note. However, occasionally there is a new feature set breakthrough, such as AT&T’s adding an inventory viewing and analysis tool, and previously a mobile device access option to Business Direct, or Verizon Business adding document sharing to Verizon Enterprise Center.

• Expanded Enterprise eBonding Options: The practice of eBonding used to be a telco-internal reference for direct machine-to-machine links between carriers. Some very large enterprise customers have been invited by AT&T and Verizon Business to interconnect telco customer portals directly with enterprise management systems. Both carriers have issued toolkits to help enterprises build interfaces rapidly; Verizon even has an eBonding appliance option that very large enterprises can drop in to jumpstart their direct connection.

Long-Term Market Drivers

• Applications-aware Management: There have been competing examples in the industry of how an applications-aware network should look and what sorts of abilities such a network that is context-aware should have. Prioritizing and optimizing applications so far has mainly taken hold at the CPE level, but vendor products such as Ipanema Technologies may push forward the features carriers can offer – and manage – on behalf of their customers.

• Management by Business Function: Orange Business Services takes a different approach to packaging and presenting managed services via its Service Select portfolio. Instead of being network resource-centric (i.e., managed IP, managed CPE router), Service Select is built around functions: for example, Problem Management (to identify and prevent service problems); Change Management (to manage service change requests); and Release Management (to plan and test service changes). The concept of managing business-level challenges instead of network-level resources is different and compelling, and other providers may adopt a similar approach to take their value message to non-technical management.

• Other Managed Services Tie-Ins: Managed WAN services are one component that can tie into a host of additional managed services, among them more comprehensive managed security solutions (such as intrusion detection and prevention, authentication and compliance), managed storage, hosted messaging, managed/hosted applications, software-as-a-service, and virtual computing in affiliated data centers. More information on the building blocks of the universe of hosted and managed services available from service providers is available in Current Analysis’ Internet/Managed Services module

• Managed Services for SMBs: Managed WAN services were born out of a need by the world’s largest global enterprises, and as networking becomes more widespread and complex, they have made their way down-market to mid-sized and smaller enterprises. Some attempts have been made to try and extend managed network and CPE services to SMBs, but it has been a hard sell due to less sophisticated networks, less rigorous uptime needs and lower telecom/IT budgets. These businesses are relying on self-service via customer portals, but there has been some success from carriers selling bundled on-site premises management and technical support.

• Europe’s Pro Services Push: U.S.-based providers handle consulting and professional services engagements as they relate to the network and direct customers’ complex IT projects to systems integrators. Europe’s largest global carriers, Orange Business Services and BT Global Services, have proved themselves willing to tackle more complex IT projects. Despite BT’s current and anticipated write-downs partly due to issues with professional services contracts, the practice remains an important differentiator for multinational enterprises looking for one entity to consolidate networks, consulting, management and outsourcing under one roof.

• Cable Providers Absent: Cox Business and Optimum Lightpath, which have been ahead of the curve in competing in the business telecom market, already tout basic managed router, managed firewall, and managed VPN options for their customers. The business telecom divisions of Time Warner Cable and Charter offer a managed security suite that includes an IP VPN product. However, these competitors and Comcast have yet to build a reputation as enterprise-ready managed services providers, sporting an array of services and several tiers of proactive network and CPE management and maintenance.

Losing Money to the Big Telecom Companies?

oss.telco — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:35:11 +0000

How much money is YOUR company losing to the big telecom companies?

Statistics reveal that many telecommunications companies have error rates on the monthly bills they send to customers ranging from 10 to greater than 30%. An OSS Telecom Expense Audit can identify this overcharge, neutralize any discrepancies and reduce this overhead expense without any reduction in service.

An OSS Telecom Expense Audit enables companies to increase profitability through the reduction of erroneous expenses and improve the return on investment (ROI) in telecommunications systems.

An OSS Telecom Expense Audit examines your Customer Service Records and carrier invoices as well as contracts and other documentation to ensure you are paying the correct amounts for services you are using.

Thus, an OSS Telecom Expense Audit enables the recovery of any improperly billed amounts and it enables cost savings from the elimination of unused or non required services.

Basic Business Lines

oss.telco — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:22:49 +0000

Basic Business Lines, often called “Plain Old Telephone Service” (POTS) lines, provide basic access service and supply a single voice-grade communication channel for single line telephones, key telephone systems, modems and other devices that need to access the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Business Lines offer consistent naming, functionality, standard and optional feature sets and convenient feature packages across all markets.

Company Needs

Basic Business Lines provide small, medium and large customers with low cost, flexible telephone service. How they use the lines will depend on the size of the company and their own specific needs. The most basic of voice services, Business Lines can be used by the smallest of customers to provide access for voice or dial-up data/Internet connectivity; large or enterprise customers will use them to set up branch offices with key systems or as emergency back-up lines for PBX, fax, modem or credit-card authorization machines.

Business Line Companies may:

Want basic, low-cost PSTN access for voice, fax, modem and/or other equipment
Want to complement a PBX or Key System with a low-cost option for fax and modem connectivity
Have locations with a limited number of phone lines
Not require the features or functionality of a PBX/Hybrid phone system
Need a back-up for existing lines.

Benefits

Consistent naming, functionality and features across all markets
Quick set-up
Low costs and competitive prices
Don’t require any technical expertise
Robust optional features and convenient feature packages
Combined single invoice
Standard features

As well as a full range of local and long distance applications, Basic Business Lines support these standard features:

Touchtone
Directory Listing
911 Access
Optional Features

These features are available to all Basic Business Line customers for an additional monthly charge:

Anonymous Call Rejection
Automatic Call Back
Automatic Line (Hotline)
Automatic Recall
Call Forward Don’t Answer Ring Select (Subscriber Programmable Ringing)
Call Forwarding of Call Waiting Calls
Call Waiting with Cancel Call Waiting
Caller ID – Number Only
Caller ID per Line Blocking
Distinctive Ringing/Call Waiting
Circular Hunting
Message Waiting Indication–Audible
Message Waiting Indication–Visual
Remote Access to Call Forwarding
Selective Call Acceptance
Selective Call Forwarding
Selective Call Rejection
Simultaneous Ring (SimRing)
Speed Calling 30
3-Way Calling
Call Forward Variable
Call Forward Busy
Sequential Hunt
Call Transfer
Caller ID – Name and Number
Call Forward Don’t Answer

For More Information Please Call: 1-866-OSS-TELCO

Why Co-locate your Data Center?

oss.telco — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 22:12:11 +0000

More and more companies are no longer building their own data centers, but are leasing data center space from professional providers. As a result, Co-location Providers are expanding their capacity to meet the increasing demand for half and full cabinets as well as cages with free standing racks in state of the art environments.

This demand is due to the reluctance of executive, financial and IT staff to commit the capital resources required for building the facilities, and acquiring the infrastructure, necessary for a data center. This commitment is expanded by the continuing need to keep the data center current as the requirements for HVAC and power change with the evolution of technology and is further expanded by ever increasing utility costs and the desire of corporations to reduce their carbon footprint (Green Computing). The initial cost and incomplete depreciation of a data center can leave a corporation tethered to a dinosaur.

Compounding the lack of available capital for data center development, the supply of data-center space that resulted from the dot com bust is no longer available. Thus, there is no ready supply of data center space and therefore there is a requirement to consider solution providers.

Internet data center demand is expected to continue to outpace supply through at least 2013, according to Tier 1 Research.

While some data center investments such as those that that reduce operating costs (virtualization projects, private cloud infrastructures) are being funded, there is a general reluctance to take on debt in a time when income and profit margins are tight. Therefore the desirable option for many organizations is to lease with the resulting increase in demand for hosted data center space that is being used for options ranging from use as a temporary facilities until the economy permits the construction of their own facilities, to using collocated space for the all or part of data center operations, to using the space for a backup/disaster recovery site.

This flexibility of function has greatly increased the acceptance of co-located data facilities and thus increased the demand for them and the increased acceptance may well become a permanent cultural change in Information Technology Operations as corporations decide they like the lack of capital commitment combined with professional facilities management that provides continuous environmental updates and the ability to rapidly reconfigure to achieve the maximum benefits from technological changes.

In addition, co-located data center facilities offer a variety of support services from basic technical support to full hands on hosting which can reduce the workload of organizational IT resources. Moreover co-located facilities offer a variety of terms from month-to-month through 1, 2 and 3 year leases to enable tenants to precisely control their costs.

Further, tenants in collocation centers have discovered operational benefits that build on their initial financial considerations. They have credited their facilities occupancy with reducing interconnection and network costs while obtaining network redundancy, reduced network costs and improved provisioning times through their access to multiple services providers at the same location.

The benefits of locating data center operations in a facility that is not only currently certified to be state of the art, but is constantly maintained and enhanced to remain state of the art unlike corporate data centers which frequently are static or which evolve slowly due to capital constraints combined with the fact that such a location requires a minimal capital investment and provides incremental operational benefits present a powerful incentive for organizations to utilize co-located environments in an increasingly space constrained world.

For more information on data center’s and related telecom/data products please visit OSSTelco.com.

Hosted PBX versus PBX On-Premises: Pros and Cons

oss.telco — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:55:27 +0000

There are many factors in choosing whether you want to have an external host for your PBX or bring it in-house. Which choice is right for you?
There are many serious considerations for any organization moving away from its existing phone system, likely to be based on the regular phone network and an expensive Centrex system to a new system based around IP telephony. A key decision is the right PBX system to choose and how to integrate that into existing organization IT and business practices while still planning for the future.

For some organizations, key functionality and features are going to drive the decision and these will in turn drive many of the other potential decisions. But in a majority of cases the features and functionality on offer will exceed current planning and practices so dramatically that other more basic operational issues will come to the fore.

The most critical of these from the point of view of implementation and future growth is whether to have a PBX system physically on your organization’s premises and under your control or whether to have a PBX hosted externally by a service provider. For a few organizations this decision will stem from a fundamental philosophy of the business – outsourcing all functions that are not directly germane to the core business.

However, IP telephony and VoIP are new technologies with great potential and their benefits and future directions are not clearly understood yet by those in the field, let alone their customers. The factors that come into play are cost, future expansion, control, flexibility, range of features and options, and implementation.

We’ll take a look at the pros and cons of hosted versus on-premise solutions in each case:

Cost

In the long run this is more of a wash than you might expect. It is obvious from the outset that the initial and setup costs for a hosted solution will be lower than for an on-premises solution. But it isn’t necessarily so clear where long term operating costs end up taking the overall cost equation. The variables that come into play include the lifetime of equipment, how rapidly technological change will outdate existing equipment and the ease-of-use and flexibility of the solution in question.

Hosted IP-PBX

Pros: Lower setup cost, no maintenance costs

Cons: Potentially higher ongoing service provider costs

On-premise IP-PBX

Pros: Potentially lower ongoing costs, no risk of fee increases

Cons: Higher setup costs, unknown long-term maintenance costs

Future Expansion

The potential for future expansion is more a matter of control and timeframe than of locking yourself into some kind of limitation. Both on-premise and hosted IP-PBX solutions leave you room for expansion and growth. Both will incur higher costs along with growth at a rate that should reduce your overall per-seat cost but will still mean a higher total bill. Both have the potential for allowing big jumps in future expansion. The difference is that with a hosted provider you eliminate some of the risk and difficulty but at the cost of a potentially longer turn-around time and possibly losing some flexibility.

Hosted IP-PBX

Pros: Your provider shoulders all the risk, work and complexity

Cons: Your provider may not be able to make changes as quickly as you could yourself and may not be able to precisely match your needs.

On-premise IP-PBX

Pros: You have complete control and flexibility – you can even switch solutions or mix-and-match.

Cons: Every expansion increases the complexity you have to manage yourself.

Control

Control is a tricky issue and really what is at the heart of a decision between a hosted or on-premise solution in terms of strategy. Some organizations prefer to keep control as much as possible internally, even at the cost of added cost, work and complexity. Other organizations want to outsource as much as possible to keep internal focus on core business – even if that decision ends up costing them more. While this decision would seem to be a clear win for an on-premise solution, in fact several hosted providers do supply enough flexibility in terms of services that many organizations would be satisfied that they had enough control.

Hosted IP-PBX

Pros: Paradoxically, by giving up control you may be able to see the forest better rather than the trees.

Cons: Let’s face reality – your service provider has the actual control – you don’t.

On-premise IP-PBX

Pros: You really do have control over every detail. An easy-to-use solution with careful management will give you a solution that matches your needs better than anything else can.

Cons: You have control – now you have to exercise it…

Flexibility

While there are differences for an organization between a hosted and on-premise solution in this regard, they are more to do with timing. Any reputable hosted solution will be prepared to work with you to add the features you need and require and will also be prepared to become more flexible as market needs arise. But there is disadvantage for someone using the hosted solution. It will always be a common solution for all the provider’s customers and it will take the service provider longer to implement it than you could do yourself with an on-premise solution.

Hosted IP-PBX

Pros: Service provider may have more resources to implement a solution you could not afford to do just for yourself.

Cons: Slowness to adapt and reluctance to adapt for a single customer.

On-premise IP-PBX

Pros: You can do what you want with your equipment – the ultimate flexibility.

Cons: You may not have enough resources to do complex, expensive or difficult things where a service provider might be able to do them for its hundreds of customers more easily.

Range of Features/Options

The same issues arise with features and options as they do with flexibility – if you own the solution you will always have the ability to add more features and options – for a price. But spreading the cost across thousands of customers makes it easier for a large provider to add features at a lower cost. While true, however, this is a smokescreen in this case. The actual individual solution matters far more in this area than specifically whether it is a hosted or on-premise solution. Your business has a required set of features, a desired set of features, a nice-to-have set of features and you don’t care about the rest. If the solution offers it, that will outweigh whether it is hosted or on-premise.

Hosted IP-PBX

Pros: Only one thing matters – does it have the feature set you want.

Cons: Ditto

On-premise IP-PBX

Pros: Only one thing matters – does it have the feature set you want.

Cons: Ditto

Implementation

This is one of the areas where hosted versus on-premise makes a huge difference. There is no doubt that a hosted IP-PBX service ought to be cheaper, easier and possibly quicker to implement. You will have to weigh that against the on-premise slight advantage in control, options and flexibility. There is one other scenario where implementation will matter a lot – if you aren’t certain about what you future needs are likely to be then a hosted solution starts to look more attractive. You’ll just have to be careful about what your contract may or may not lock you into.

Hosted IP-PBX

Pros: Cheaper, quicker and easier

Cons: None

On-premise IP-PBX

Pros: You will know your system’s capabilities a lot better than if you didn’t implement it yourself.

Cons: Cost, speed and difficulty

By now you will have gathered that this discussion is mostly relevant in the small to medium business space – say up to a few hundred users. More than that and you should seriously consider if need to step up to enterprise class on-premise PBX system with high-level support and SLAs from a reputable manufacturer. But even in that space, hosted can be a good interim solution if you can arrange a short term contract while you take the time to evaluate, test and design a robust long-term on premise solution.

For the small business market, the smaller your business, the more likely that a hosted solution is right for you, but there are exceptions. An organization that is changing rapidly, has a high turnover or that can’t afford the evaluation and management overhead of picking a customer premise system is still going to find a hosted solution a good fit.

And in contrast, a business that needs tight control and flexibility and for whom an integrated telephony solution is a mission critical business application is going to want to have a solution they own and operate on their premises in order to truly deliver for its employees and customers.

NetAccess Corp – Parsippany II

oss.telco — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:10:24 +0000

NetAccess Corp is rolling out Parsippany II on October 1st:

NetAccess corp is nearing completion on their new 50,000 square foot Tier IV data center located in Parsippany, New Jersey. Parsippany II is the most capable and most efficient data center in the Northeast with power densities of 20kW per cabinet and a PUE of sub 1.2.

This new state-of-the-art data center allows Net Access to offer flexible solutions to meet the ever-expanding IT infrastructure requirements.

Highlights:

Supporting tomorrow’s density today with up to 20,000 watts per cabinet
Customers can fully utilize their cabinet, even with dense blade technology
Metered power – pay for only what power is consumed
Purpose-built single floor, single tenant building
2 (N+1) power available from physically separate power rooms
100 percent uptime SLA
Dark fiber connectivity to major carrier hotels
Customer office suites and shared conference rooms available
Onsite 24×7 network operations center (NOC)
Multi-tier security with two-stage biometrics and reinforced man traps
Local and remote video surveillance
Efficiency – PUE of sub 1.2

This additional data center will allow us to not only provide space for new clients, but also enable existing clients to leverage this environment for expansion or D/R purposes.

Parsippany II has a go-live date of October 1st, 2010.

Please contact us today to schedule your tour!

631-846-1154 or julrich@osstelco.com