Cisco UK assure their world-class infrastructure with BT SmartNumbers

Background

In today's interconnected world, information flows are essential to the success of any business. So vital, in fact, that organisations need to routinely expect the unexpected. That's exactly what Guy Wyckmans did when he decided to adopt smartnumbers to enhance the resilience of Cisco voice communications in the UK.

Now, in the event of a power outage, a WAN failure or a telephony service interruption,smartnumbers ensures in seconds that all calls will be automatically rerouted. Now Guy and his colleagues can rest assured knowing that, almost whatever happens, Cisco customers and people will always be connected.

Challenge

Cisco Systems is a global leader in the design and manufacture of IP-based networking solutions. One of the world's largest corporations, its products are designed to transform how people connect, communicate and collaborate. It operates in more than 165 countries through 470 offices and almost 70,000 employees.

The company's European headquarters is in Bedfont Lakes near Heathrow Airport, with another principal office in Reading some 30 miles to the west. Inbound calls for both sites were delivered over BT ISDN lines via Bedfont Lakes and carried between the sites over the Cisco WAN. This allowed Cisco people at Reading to enjoy the same number range as their colleagues at Bedfont Lakes. It also helped consolidate voice traffic to make optimum use of available lines.

However, although this arrangement greatly simplified the numbering plan and supporting flexible working, there was a downside in terms of business resilience. Guy Wyckmans, Category Supply Manager at Cisco Systems, explains: "Continuity of voice services is vital for Cisco and there were a number of points of weakness in our UK infrastructure that needed improvement."

First and foremost, in the event of a WAN failure, calls could not be delivered to the Reading site. Moreover, should the local BT exchange serving Bedfont Lakes suffer a major outage or power failure, or should a catastrophic event affect the Bedfont Lakes area, the Reading site would be similarly impacted.

Solution

In September 2012, BT deployed smartnumbers, its flexible number management and call redirection service delivered in association with Resilient Networks, to provide the perfect solution. The smartnumbers platform underpins the BT Assure Voice Continuity Proactive Recovery service, enabling calls to be quickly rerouted in the event of a failure. Implementation involved porting a block of 10,000 Cisco 020 numbers to terminate in the smartnumbers cloud.

Two further blocks of 10,000 numbers were acquired by BT on behalf of Cisco. One new range of 020 numbers for Bedfont Lakes and another range of 0118 numbers for Reading, each set up to replicate the last four digits of the original numbering plan.

Under normal circumstances incoming calls are routed by the smartnumbers application to the Bedfont Lakes site, just like the original call delivery arrangement. However, in the event of a problem, say, with the delivery of calls from the local BT exchange to Bedfont Lakes, calls will be automatically rerouted by smartnumbers via the Cisco voice gateway at Reading and delivered to Bedfont Lakes over the WAN. This rerouting will happen almost instantaneously and be completely invisible to the end user.

"The scheme took a bit of planning but in the event the transition went very smoothly over a single weekend," confirms Guy Wyckmans. "All staff kept their same phone number and most people simply weren't aware that the change was happening. It was a 100 per cent success; there was no negative feedback at all." When implementingsmartnumbers Cisco also took the opportunity to equalise the number of BT ISDN access lines serving each of its sites, further enhancing business resilience.

Value

The BT Assure Voice Continuity Proactive Recovery solution featuring smartnumbers has provided Cisco with a dependable voice continuity solution without business disruption. Guy Wyckmans says: "Using smartnumbers is much more cost effective than dual-parenting ISDN services and it provides us with far greater network resilience. It's simply a much more flexible and elegant solution."

As well as assuring business continuity, the service underpins other significant cost avoidance measures. For example, because the rerouting arrangement happens in seconds, Cisco has reduced its requirement for standby power systems. In addition, equalisation and optimisation of ISDN services across the two sites has enabled some ISDN lines to be ceased for recurring cost savings from reduced line rentals. An added benefit is that smartnumbers will support and de-risk migration to SIP trunks.

Moreover, as smartnumbers allows calls to be redirected to any fixed or mobile device people can work from anywhere. This gives an even higher degree of business resilience, in the event of bad weather or worse, without the need to maintain a recovery site. The service also helps demonstrate compliance with the requirements of ISO22301, the international standard for Business Continuity Management.

Cloud-based delivery means smartnumbers not only improves business resilience, but also enables modifications to be made to internal infrastructure without impacting voice services. For example, Cisco runs IP telephony end-to-end naturally, but for the many organisations where that's not the case smartnumbers has the potential to make the transition easier and safer.

Aside from enhanced business continuity and risk avoidance, smartnumbers delivers ther agility benefits, such as the seamless delivery of out-of-area exchange line numbers, making it feasible for all Cisco UK employees to be included in the same number range irrespective of their location. Cisco is now considering extending the use of smartnumbers to cover its sites in the City of London and Manchester.