Unified communications (UC) management is essentially the management of unified communications; it refers to the systems used by enterprise organizations to automate their enterprise communications services and the voice network infrastructure that those services run over (i.e. how they connect to the PSTN).
History As with most technologies, as UC evolves from early adopter to mass market adoption, the focus changes from service features to service quality and cost. As the UC technology lifecycle matures, the focus on UC management increases. The need for UC management has evolved from the growing complexity that surrounds next generation communications environments. As the demands on a company’s communication platform increases – with the introduction of new UC services and applications – the task for an IT team to manage the platform manually becomes more and more complex. Employees need to be trained in multiple systems and the company needs to invest in separate ticketing systems, knowledge systems and reporting systems to manage the complexity. UC management, and its ability to automate complex business processes, introduce repeatable administrative tasks and centralize the operation of the entire corporate communications platform, is becoming increasingly appealing. Ticketing systems, reporting systems and knowledge systems are all replaced by a central UC management platform. More recently, unified communications services have moved into the cloud and have become UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service). All UCaaS providers use advanced UC management platforms to manage their cloud services. These UC management platforms must be able to support multiple customers (often referred to as multi-tenant). UC management vendors include: Park Bench Solutions, VOSS Solutions, Kurmi Software, Arcana, Ensim, Tivoli, NAV360, SpanLink, UBiqube, SoftLink, Metropolis Corp, Metreos, Leonid Systems, Fidelus, Uplinx, Variphy, Visionael, Voyence, ATEA, Sector Six. Most UC vendors are also creating their own UC management solutions, as they realize that the market adoption of their applications will be much higher if management is in place.
Unified communications
Unified communications (UC) refers to a set of enterprise communications applications that improves business and individual productivity. Applications include:
Voice (hundreds of voice features, including call forwarding, speed dials, hunt groups, call waiting, call park, barge, do not disturb, call recording, paging, etc.) Directories (corporate directory that lists all relevant users in the organization and their numbers) - Click to call is a common feature from a directory E911 (emergency services that allows the location of a caller to 911 to be identified within a large company office) Audio bridge (a meeting room, where people can call in to hold a conference) Document share (a central repository that allows secure access to documents, under flexible business rules) Computer-telephony integration (linking phone and computer systems, to enable click to call and the control of voice calls from the computer applications) Unified messaging (instant messaging, voicemail messaging and single mailbox) Extension mobility (where a user can move offices and their phone extension follows them to whatever phone they log into) Single number reach (sometimes call “find-me-follow-me” – where a user can direct a call to simultaneously ring on a number of devices) Fixed-mobile integration (where a call can be switched back and forth between a cell phone and a desk phone, mid-call, without breaking the session) Soft phone (a client application that operates on a laptop computer and can make phone calls, just like a regular desk phone. This allows for remote work by the user with an office phone number) Smart mobile client (a client application that operates on a smart mobile device and can connect to the company PBX. The user can remotely operate as though they are in the office) Presence (allows a user to view all their contacts and see whether those contacts are available or not) Audio conferencing (a voice-only conference call, with 3 or more people) Video conferencing (a voice and video conference, with 3 or more people) Web conferencing (a voice and web conference, with 3 or more people, where documents can be viewed online in a shared environment) High definition video telephony (calls on video enabled phones, where users call and see each other in real time. The HD refers to the high level of quality and is also known as Telepresence. The idea is that the high definition allows users to see the facial expressions of each other, so the experience is like being in the same room.) Video meeting room (similar to an audio bridge, but for video devices) Personal meeting rooms Enterprise social networks (similar to Facebook, but for the enterprise) Content distribution (Allows a corporation to deliver content to employees in a secure way) Contact center (provides advanced call flow management from customers to agents, based on skills groups) Communications aware business processes The key to unified communications is that all applications work together in a seamless way. An example might be a user starts an IM with a contact, they switch to a voice call, they invite a 3rd person to join the call, they switch the call to a video and web conference and invite several more people, some of whom are remote workers. They finally record the conference and post it to a personal meeting room. Unified communications (UC) management is a software solution that automates the configuration of all the UC application services, the end-user devices and the underlying network infrastructure (such as gateways, switches, session boarder controllers and the inter-connecting trunks). Unified communication applications do not work out of the box. They need to be configured before they will work seamlessly, and there are many thousands of settings available to create a highly customized solution for each company’s unique requirements. UC management also provides:
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