SKYPE FOR BUSINESS:

SUCCESS BEYOND THE

SERVERS
Speaker: Ben Lee
Company: Modality Systems
Position: Consultant
WHO AM I?

Ben Lee – Lync / S4B Consultant and tech

enthusiast
I enjoy playing with tech and still find making
calls from a PC slightly “magical”.
Member of the MTCC
I help run the M.UC.UG.UK and NEBytes user
groups
www.mucuguk.org
www.nebytes.net
I can be found in a few places :
@Bibbleq
www.bibble-it.com
I/M: ben.lee@modalitysystems.com
WHAT’S IN A NAME? (DISCLAIMER!)

 Lync
 Skype for Business
 S4B
 Skype4B
 Skype4Business

 UC / UC / UCC
AUDIENCE?

 Consultants?
 Service Providers?
 IT Pro’s?
 IT Managers?
 Others?
SUCCESS BEYOND THE SERVERS
SKYPE FOR BUSINESS IS TECHNOLOGICALLY COMPLEX

Skype for
Business

Applications Voice Devices Video Infrastructure

Attendant PBX Integration Endpoints LRS Servers

PSTN
Billing Headsets S.Hubs Gateways
connectivity

Reporting Interop Handsets Interop HWLB

Contact Centre Portable Networking

Recording RPs

VDI

PKI
*many many other things not shown!
S4B AS UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

Unified Communications (UC) is not something that can be provided by a single product. It is a suite of
integrated technologies that unite to support collaborative experiences.

UC

Conferencing

Voice/Video

Telephony

Voicemail

Content platform

Email
UNIFIED TO UNIVERSAL
Line of
business
applications

Technology stack

UC

Conferencing Business Processes

Business
Voice/Video intelligence

Telephony

Voicemail Users
Contextual
filtering
Content platform

Email
STANDARD PROJECT LIFECYCLE
 “Soft stuff”
 Project Inception
 Define goals
 Deploy - Technical
 Figure out technical solutions
 Deploy Design Deploy Complete Maintain
 Complete
 Project review
 Success / failure
 Move on
 Maintain
 Patching
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY SUCCESS?

 £$€ saved?  Happy users

 Servers deployed?  Using the solution
 X users migrated?  People taking advantage of the tools
 Y users “EV” enabled?  Building it into their working processes
 Z number of conferences?  Cost savings are always nice too!
IDEAL WAY TO RUN UC
 Start with your users
 Build an understanding of what they do and how they work
 Map that back to UC stack / Lync
Design
 Fully understand features and benefits to your business
 i.e conferencing
 Federation
 Etc…
Evolve Deploy
 Identify functionality gaps
 Some you solve, some you don’t
 Examine the business processes
 Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo
 Don’t just consider cost savings
 UC is about enhancing productivity Complete Migrate
 Make user experience a primary goal
 Design

Evolve Deploy

DESIGN
Complete Migrate

 Users
 Profiling
Users
 Devices
 Headsets
 Handsets Extending Devices
 Others
 Clients
 Desktop User experience
 Mobile
 BYOD
Interop Clients
 Infrastructure
 Interop
 Extend Infrastructure

 Functionality gaps
 3rd party solutions
 Design

Evolve Deploy

DEPLOY - TECHNICAL
Complete Migrate

 Technical deployments
 Pilot parts of the solution
 3rd party interop
 Gain confidence in the system
 Validate the whole solution
 Design

Evolve Deploy

MIGRATE - USER ADOPTION

Complete Migrate

 Not an “IT Says” project!

 Buy in
 Champions
 Listen to them
 Devices
 Fit for purpose
 Migration strategy
 User expectations
SETTING USER EXPECTATIONS
(EXAMPLE)
 Design

Evolve Deploy

MIGRATE – USER ADOPTION PT2

Complete Migrate

 Monitor usage
 Gather feedback
 Involve users
 Solve problems
 Design

Evolve Deploy

COMPLETE
Complete Migrate

 Proactivity!
 Baseline environment
 CQM
 Monitoring
 Patching
 Upgrade cycles
 Evergreen
 Key:
CALL FLOW DIAGRAM Index
1.
2a.
Desktop build
Personal A/V devices
Colours

No corporate
control
Data center 2b. Company devices
8 3. Mobile / other
9
4a. Lan
Internet 4b. Corporate LAN ? Able to influence
11 5a. WiFi
7
5b. Corporate WiFi
6. Branch WAN Under corporate
7. Public Internet control
8. DC Internet
9
9. Corporate Firewall
12 10 DC WAN
11. Server resources
12. Voice Gateways
11 13. PSTN connectivity
7 13
PSTN

5a 4a 4b 5b
10 6

2a 2b

WAN
1 3 10 1 3

Remote Location Office Location

 Design

Evolve Deploy

EVOLVE: LIVING UC
Complete Migrate

 Driving integrations into new areas

 Other UC upgrades / renewals
 Dial-in conferencing
 Voice / Video room systems
 Evolving device strategy
 Challenge assumptions
 BYOD strategy
 Internet access
 Performance
 Refer to baseline
 Incremental improvements
 Industry evolves
 Challenge old assumptions
CONCLUSION

Design

 Users, Users, Users Evolve Deploy

 Monitoring!
 Don’t let it stand still

Complete Migrate
Thanks to our sponsors…

Check out their booths in the expo area