How to Make MS Lync and Your Current PBX Work for You

Last month, Sonus conducted various roadshows around the world to educate the enterprise community about the benefits of SIP trunking and Lync unified communications where I got an opportunity to talk about the role an enterprise session border controller (E-SBC) plays in accelerating Lync deployments. In that session, I was asked a very interesting, but important question – “What causes Lync deployments to get stuck in the pilot phase?” or better yet “How do enterprises ensure that their Lync deployment is quick and successful?”   
 
As this was a common question, I thought that I’d share and ask you to add your experiences.
 
Plan Ahead
 
Most Lync deployments start out with IM and Presence, the most logical first step. When the infrastructure necessary for IM and presence is deployed, enterprises also get the ability to do peer to peer voice and video. However, their existing voice communication infrastructure that consists of IP/legacy PBXs and PSTN trunks is still a separate voice island that doesn’t really interoperate with Lync.
 
So what’s the problem here? Well, first of all, no one wants another dial-tone. Unified communications is about a single identity reach regardless of the device or application of choice of the user, may it be a desk phone, a mobile phone or even an app on their smart-phone. Separate islands of communication infrastructure lead to just the opposite. Secondly, most enterprises will not retire their existing communication infrastructure right away when they are deploying Lync. And last, but not the least, enterprises will move from PSTN trunks to using SIP trunking (if they are not doing so already) in the near future to take advantage of new features like HD Voice and Video and enable cloud communications.
 
Without planning ahead, enterprises that start the Lync pilot with IM and Presence may get stuck in the pilot phase indefinitely when they come across these “new requirements.”
 
Remember: It is always an interworking and survivability story
 
Remember the voice islands we talked about? Think about how you would bridge those voice islands because more often than not, it will be a migration story. Interworking is the key to make it work together. Not just that, interworking is even a bigger requirement when enterprises are planning to deploy (or will deploy) SIP trunks in an environment that has both Lync and legacy equipment – you wouldn’t deploy something new if it doesn’t work with what you already have, right? Many enterprises don’t realize this, but they still have a lot of analog devices in their network that they need to interoperate with as they migrate to new technology. What analog devices you say? Think Fax machines, common area phones, paging systems, etc.
 
Though IP networks are very reliable these days, enterprises still worry about business continuity in case there is a network outage. And rightly so. Enterprises need to ensure business continuity in branch offices when the enterprise WAN goes down. They also need to ensure that such enterprise branches are able to make calls out to 911 during emergency even during WAN outage.
 
Think E-SBC
 
So, going back to our original question, “How do enterprises ensure quick and successful Lync deployment amidst all these challenges?” The answer is using an E-SBC. Sonus E-SBCs provide interworking across protocols, dial plans, media types, etc.  that allow that migration story to be realized by enterprises while also ensuring security, connectivity, interoperability and survivability.
 
Have you yet experienced having to make MS Lync and a currently existing PBX work together?