I know most people don’t want to hear it, but is it time to start thinking about removing legacy infrastructure and beginning the journey to rolling out a new telephony solution? The old adage of ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ might no longer fit with the rapid pace of change. Perhaps you have already started the process of modernizing the work place and the voice communication and collaboration aspects that tag along. Either way change is inevitable and this is really where a decision should be made of "how" that modernization should occur – not if.
In the old days, when moving from one PBX to another, the theory was much more of a "rip and replace" mentality where the users would leave work on Friday, then come back Monday morning to a new phone on their desk with a little cheat sheet on any new buttons or features that the new PBX has to offer. But is this really the best way to make this type of change? Is it fair to the users to be "forced" to immediately adopt the new platform? Well, in many opinions, it is no longer the right way to go about this process and options now existing to smooth out this process.
Instead, companies are starting the concept of "migrating" to the new platform with some level of "coexistence" with the old and the new. Let's dive into a couple of things to keep in mind during this process as when done right, it is great but when done wrong…ouch…
A great example is in a larger organization, where many offices may exist in different geographical locations, and doing a complete cutover in a couple of days is usually impossible. The IT teams do not have the manpower to make all the changes without a negative impact on the users – especially while focusing efforts to ensure successful deployment and functionality along the way. This is where coexistence is key!
Coexistence allows IT managers to have both telephony platforms up and running, while meticulously identifying users and groups to migrate at a much more reasonable pace. Users in one office can start the migration to the new platform, adopt the new technology, and continue working without interference. At the same time, users in other offices will see no change in their daily activities, as they will continue to use the existing telephony infrastructure until they are selected and ready to migrate.
Now that is all well and good, but what about the IT department? Having to manage two telephony environments, especially in cases where administrators may only have knowledge of one or the other but not both, can become very challenging. This also could pose issues with the ability to manage and enforce dial plans to provide a similar experience across both platforms. Many things to think about while beginning the journey but things that industry experts are able to assist with and reduce the pains that could come up along the way…
No need to despair and fret over the choices – there are solutions that can help in both scenarios.
We plan to cover all of the above (and much more) on our upcoming "Cloud"ucation Episode #2 - Coexistence & Migration, so please do join us to hear it from the experts. If you have not already signed up, please do so at the following link: http://online.audiocodes.com/clouducation
