The network switches, routers, and VOIP equipment all need to support QOS. There are different ways to implement QOS.  A best practices approach is to have your VOIP equipment use the Differential Services (DiffServe) QOS mechanism.  In this scenario, the IP packets carrying VOIP are “marked” as priority packets.  All networking equipment would then be configured to honor the marking and provide priority to these packets.

Ensuring QOS end-to-end across the network is an important consideration when designing networks for VOIP and video.  For example, when a WAN protocol like MPLS is used, various “marking” techniques can get lost in translation.  The QOS mechanism used by your routers and switches on your Local Area Network need to translate to high-priority packets with your WAN provider.  Various MPLS carriers implement QOS in different ways.  You want to ensure that your provider recognizes your markings and places those packets into their own high-priority VOIP scheme.  Many WAN providers will take DiffServe packets marked with “EF” or “Express Forwarding” and place them in their “VOIP” or high priority queues.

For the 8^th year in a row, ShoreTel finished head-and shoulders above the competition in every category, making them the uncontested winner.

It’s important to note that Nemertes is not commissioned by any manufacture to conduct the research.  The customers and products speak for themselves!

See for yourself – download a PDF of the Nemertes Research PilotHouse Awards here: 2011 Nemertes

Inflow Communications, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, focuses strictly on Unified Communication technologies like VOIP phone systems and video conferencing. Additionally, Inflow has the training and expertise to design, deploy, and support Unified Communication-capable data networks (LAN, WAN, and wireless).

The Need:

Fluidigm had an antiquated Nortel business phone system installed in California.  The system was not supported, inflexible, and failing.  In addition to the need to replace this failing phone system, Fluidigm’s business was changing drastically and they needed the appropriate Unified Communications technology to meet those needs.  Their workforce was becoming increasing mobile and the current system didn’t support seamless smart phone integration.  Additionally, Fluidigm recently rolled out Salesforece.com CRM.  Fluidigm desired the ability to leverage the investment in the CRM system by tracking inbound / outbound calls to their service center, “pop” client records when they call in, and give their sales force the ability to easily dial clients via the clients’ records.   Last, Fluidigm needed to extend all of this functionality to their International offices, starting with Singapore.

The Solution:

Working with Fluidigm’s IT vendor, Inflow assisted in the design and deployment of a new Adtran POE network architecture.  On that VOIP-capable architecture, Inflow added ShoreTel ShoreGear voice appliances, application servers (for desktop call control, voicemail, reporting, etc), and IP phones.  ShoreGearT1K appliances were installed to terminate two (2) PRI circuits from the Public Switched Telephone Network.  Furthermore, ShoreTel’s native Salesforece.com integration software was added to facilitate the CRM integration.   Last, a ShoreTel Converged Conference bridge was installed to accommodate audio conferencing, secure Instant Messaging, and desktop sharing.

A 45 MB MPLS connection to Singapore was provisioned with the appropriate Quality of Service (QOS) to support video and Voice-over-IP data transmissions between the offices.  The Inflow engineering and professional training team traveled to Singapore to install the appropriate ShoreGear switches to accommodate an additional 80 IP phones and an E1 ISDN circuit.  This provided station-to-station dialing, presence management, and intelligent call routing with their US facilities.

Fluidigm plans on working with Inflow Communications to deploy ShoreTel to their Paris office next.

Over time, Inflow designed and installed ShoreTel at all Silverton clinics, while maintaining the integration to the core legacy phone system.  This year, over the period of 3 months, Inflow migrated the hospital to ShoreTel VOIP on a department-by-department basis.

All of Silverton’s clinics and the main hospital are connected over an LS fiber optic network. For Public Switched Telephone access, the hospital uses 2 Primary Rate Interface (PRI’s) and the clinics leverage 46 SIP trunks over a 3MB connection at the Wellsprings facility.  Additionally, each clinic and the hospital terminate standard analog trunks for local survivability and 911 access.

Silverton originally selected ShoreTel as their Unified Communications platform of choice because of its modular and scalable platform, distributed intelligent architecture, and robust Business Continuity features. As with any medical facility, it is imperative that the Unified Communications design provides the absolute highest level of reliability and fault tolerance under all “failure” scenarios.

If any clinic loses connectivity to the network, they can continue to make and receive calls because each ShoreTel appliance located at the clinics has the entire database burned into flash memory for 100% local call processing abilities.  Each ShoreTel appliance is rated “carrier-class” because they run on purpose-built Operating Systems (the same used in aviation-control equipment and pacemakers) and has no moving parts (except redundant fans).  Additionally, Silverton installed a “spare” appliance on their network that can take over call processing duties should any appliance (at any site) become unavailable.

Silverton Hospital chose Inflow Communications as their vendor-of-choice because Inflow has the highest level of knowledge, experience, training, and customer service as it pertains to ShoreTel Unified Communications technology in the industry.

Mt. Bachelor had several needs to be addressed starting with the fact that the existing Siemens phone system was becoming obsolete making the availability of replacement parts an issue. The current phone system lacked the modern features like mobility integration, Unified Messaging, and intelligent call routing necessary to adequately support their business. The guest services personnel needed more “call center” features like queuing and system-wide presence management to better handle inbound guests calls. And most importantly, since the phone is the primary communication method with guests, Mt. Bachelor needed a VoIP phone system that was robust and fault tolerant under a number of different situations.

Better Management in the Office

To solve Mt. Bachelor’s phone system woes, Inflow Communications installed two ShoreTel, Unified Communications systems (one at the administrative office in Bend, Oregon and one at the resort on the mountain) connecting the two sites via a microwave radio. All calls enter the system via two PRI voice connections at the office in Bend. Since most of the resort’s guest services personnel are located at the admin office, Inflow equipped these users with ShoreTel Agent Call Communicator Licenses, which provides the ability to see review calls in queue for longest hold time, position, etc. and status (on the phone, do not disturb, etc.) of all users across the organization.

Better Reliability on the Mountain

Working with Inflow, the Mt. Bachelor IT staff installed ShoreTel ShoreGear Voice switches in three base stations on the mountain and these stations are connected to each other via a gigabit fiber optic network. The ShoreGear switches register VoIP phones throughout the network and connect the analog phones and devices located at the ski lifts. The network is designed so that if any of the switches become unavailable the phone registered to that switch will automatically move to one of the other two switches. (This set up demonstrates ShoreTel’s unique N+1 call processing redundancy feature.) The system is truly distributed because each voice switch has the entire system’s data burned into flash memory (note, there are no failure prone hard drives used).

To round out the phone system, redundant voice mail and auto-attendant servers were installed at each location. And should these servers become unavailable, the ShoreTel Director Server will take over automatically. The entire VoIP phone system is administered via a clean, elegant web-based administration tool significantly reducing the ongoing maintenance cost of the system. It also allows the resort’s staff to be “empowered” to manage the system without a heavy reliance on outside vendors.

Can you recognize your callers by doing a database “dip” based on caller ID and bring up the client’s record to an agent before they even answer the phone? The answer is yes. Can you “time-stamp” call activity automatically in a customer’s CRM record? Yes. Can you provide by-the-second billing information to your billing software automatically regardless if your employees are servicing your clients from their desk phone or a mobile device? Yes you can. Can you automatically make outbound calls to patients to remind them of scheduled appointments by integrating to your scheduling software? Of course!

Inflow Communications is a Portland, Oregon-based company specializing in business communications technologies – including VOIP, Unified Communications, and Video Conferencing. We can also assist you in determining if your network is adequately prepared for real-time communications applications.

ShoreTel releases the SA-100 Appliance. This appliance hosts the latest ShoreTel web and audio conferencing application with provides additional features like secure Instant Messaging, desktop sharing, Outlook scheduling integration, and recording.

ShoreTel Releases Communicator for Mac! This is a native Mac OS application that provides telephony control, voicemail configuration, presence management, dialing directly from the Mac address book, importing contacts from the Mac address book, and notification of incoming voicemails.

Communicator Presence indication in Microsoft Outlook and Word: this newly added feature allows users to initiate a call or an IM conversation, or to flag for changes based on presence information. This works in Outlook 2007 – 2010 and Word 2007 – 2010.

ShoreTel Communicator is now supported with Office 2010.

Server-based call history: Now a user’s PC can be turned off or the Communicator application shut down and history data is still captured. This is because all call history for a user’s extension is now stored on the ShoreTel director server.

Currently, ShoreTel 12 is in Controlled Release and only available to new customers. Version 12 should be Generally Available (GA) in the September timeframe. Consult with Inflow’s support team at support@inflowcomm.com if and when you think it makes sense for your organization.