Organisations need to take a holistic approach to make the most of this technology and avoid potential challenges further down the track.
“Traditional VoIP systems are usually independent of other IT systems, even though they often share the same network infrastructure,” says Amit Rao, APAC director, NETSCOUT.
“Dealing with the failure of such systems is a relatively straightforward affair. However, UC&C platforms are fast replacing VoIP systems as the go-to technology for enterprises to interact both internally and with other businesses.
“These platforms often include voice, video, conferencing, and instant messaging data streams. It can be much more challenging to identify the root cause of problems that may hamper the effectiveness of these platforms.”
Rao believes organisations need to make sure they are prepared for UC&C technology to take a larger role in business processes.
As Rao explains, this can be achieved by taking a holistic view of the complex environment UC&C platforms generally inhabit to identify the causes of potential problems that may impact telepresence and collaboration services.
“If organisations don’t make the effort to work out the business processes to deal with the complexity of UC&C technology before its implementation, they face the danger of being at the mercy of technological stumbling blocks that may arise,” Rao adds.
“To combat this, organisations need to build holistic service assurance capabilities that work in multivendor environments, into new UC&C deployments at the very beginning of a transformation project.
Read more:?Are unified communications driving the workplace of the future
“This way, they can rapidly troubleshoot trial rollouts and monitor the operational system from day one.”