VOSS Solutions announced a major enhancement to VOSS-4-UC that enables organizations to seamlessly integrate and manage Microsoft Teams and Cisco UC, through Microsoft Teams Direct Routing. In the solution, VOSS-4-UC simplifies the ownership, operations, and management of a best-of-breed multi-vendor solution where both Cisco and Microsoft devices and applications are deployed.
VOSS-4-UC†meets the varying needs of individual users by leveraging the full capabilities of each system to deliver the best experience, while also optimizing existing licensing costs. With this latest enhancement, VOSS Direct Routing allows an existing population of users with Microsoft’s productivity and collaboration tools to be incorporated with the telephony services and controls of a Cisco Call Management solution, to deliver a multi-vendor UC experience that specifically suits an organization’s needs.
The ability to deliver fully call-enabled Microsoft Teams clients in coordination with Cisco services is enabled by the Microsoft Direct Routing capability and corresponding Session Border Controller (SBC). This allows the Microsoft Teams clients to utilize the Cisco UC estate for communications with devices as well as PSTN connectivity. VOSS is excited to be working with†AudioCodes†as the first SBC partner to drive this inter-operation utilizing Microsoft Direct Routing.
Andy Elliot, VP Marketing EMEA at AudioCodes, commented: “The reality for most organizations adopting Microsoft Teams as their enterprise collaboration platform is that they need to integrate with existing UC equipment, including Cisco, to protect those investments. Managed migration and interoperability is therefore critical. VOSS’s expertise in managing mixed multi-vendor estates allied to AudioCodes’ expertise in Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams is a great solution for enterprises looking for a smooth migration to Microsoft intelligent communications.”
Bill Dellara, VP Product at VOSS Solutions, added; “It’s exciting for VOSS to be working with AudioCodes. Together, we are empowering our customers to choose the right mix of vendors and UC applications, and create best of breed solutions that minimizes costs to deliver business results.”
VOSS Direct Routing overarches an organization’s Cisco and Microsoft UC infrastructure with a single management layer that ensures the environment works technically and can be operated and maintained efficiently. VOSS UC management brings these two disparate areas together into a single pane of glass view of subscribers and their services, for control of the call routing and PSTN access, and provides migration options to move users between services. This fully supports the range of mixed user deployment models in such an environment, including dedicated Cisco, dedicated Microsoft Teams, or a true multi-vendor user with services in both environments. The VOSS UC management capability includes:
- Fulfillment -†A single interface that provides a coordinated view and provisioning across the multi-vendor solution. This includes automated processes for user onboarding and day-to-day MACDs, regardless of the vendors or the user’s service mix. The full number management across the infrastructure including number routing gives a single consolidated view across the solution. This builds on VOSS-4-UC capabilities such as flexible interfaces and workflows, flow-through provisioning, multi-tenancy, devolved administration, audit history, and much more.
- Single point of integration -†Provides a single point to simply integrate the multi-vendor solution into business processes and external systems. This greatly reduces the manual effort and costs to achieve wider business process automation while keeping the integration flexible and able to adapt to changing needs.
- Billing/expense management –†Single integrated view of the users and services across the infrastructure to ensure accurate cost allocation or invoice generation. The control over the call routing and centralized PSTN access is key to reducing call costs by maximizing the value of the integrated architecture while providing a single view for billing.
- Assurance and analytics –†Deep insight into service operations and the quality of the integrated solution, including advanced analytics that measure how the service is being consumed, and the ability to automate responses to any issues that are raised.
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Key benefits of VOSS Direct Routing include:
- Flexibility to provide the users the services and endpoints they require, from call-enabled collaboration clients, or from the client in conjunction with more advanced telephony, including handsets, advanced call control capabilities, and video-conferencing.
- Integrated call flows and feature sets ensure interoperability between the systems, as well as the ability for users to have service in both areas. This manages call costs by ensuring on-net calling between the systems, while providing far more freedom in terms of PSTN connectivity options and call tariffs.
- A single management portal for all management tasks provides the ability to fully deploy and manage the user base regardless of which services mix they require. This interface gives a single view of the entire estate and means administration tasks are no longer split between teams looking after different systems, which achieves higher utilization of resources. Tasks can be completed far faster and by resources that don’t have in-depth technical knowledge of either vendor’s solutions.
- Overall license costs are minimized by leveraging the full capabilities of Cisco and Microsoft UC tools and applications to deliver a best of breed service that matches the varying needs of the users in the environment.
