Making the Transition to Next Generation UC Technology

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eZuce Case Study- Colorado State University 2

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Welcome to Colorado State University

Bringing Users Together for a Better Communications Experience

Founded in 1870, Colorado State University (CSU) is a leading research university with more than 26,000 students and 7,000 employees. Located in Fort Collins, Colorado, CSU has eight colleges offering diverse degrees in the liberal arts, business, physical and social sciences, agriculture, natural resources, and engineering. In addition to a 579 acre main campus, the Colorado State University System includes a branch campus in Pueblo, Colorado as well as the first statutorily independent fully online university in the country, CSU-Global. With the Board of Governors office in Denver and extension offices in 59 of the 64 Colorado counties, CSU offers education in nearly every corner of Colorado.

Colorado State University, like many higher education institutions, differs from the conventional business enterprise in that it has a diverse and decentralized IT environment. Some colleges and several departments maintain their own computing and communications environments. Because of this heterogeneous environment, CSU must provide broad IT support to a varied population of end-users and a broad spectrum of end-devices. Legacy telephone service is provided centrally using a near end-of-life Nortel DMS-100 telephone switch that currently supports approximately 8,000 lines. The main campus network consists of Juniper routers at the edge, Cisco routers in the core and HP Procurve switches for building and user connectivity.

eZuce Case Study- Colorado State University 4eZuce Case Study- Colorado State University

sipXecs is the Open Alternative

The Need for Standards-Based Communications

Colorado State University has four physical locations where sipXecs has been deployed, each location having a unique set of requirements and number of users. Due to the modular nature and interconnectivity built into the software, sipXecs scales to each deployment and provides CSU with a unified dial-plan across the physical locations.

Along with their main campus IP-PBX, Colorado State University has three other remote office locations.

• The Research Innovation Center (RIC), a $52 million facility, located on the west campus, supports the University’s Infectious Disease and Biodefense research. The RIC uses an Audiocodes gateway connected to a T1, providing standalone survivability in the case that the main data link to campus is lost.

• The second location is the CSU System Office in downtown Denver, where CSU replaced an old Nortel Norstar. Two Dell servers run sipXecs in a highly available cluster configuration. Local PSTN access is provided by an Audiocodes Mediant 1000 gateway.

Disparate systems and communication tools make collaboration difficult and encumber any • The third installation provides service to the solution that could improve efficiency for end-users North Eastern Regional Engagement and IT administrators. For example there is no Center, a small branch office located two centralized instant messaging platform, instead hours east of the main campus in the small users resort to third party clients and protocols. town of Sterling, Colorado.This reliance on external entities presents a challenge not only in communication and By using sipXecs in these remote offices, CSU collaboration, but also in security and privacy which can offer services that would be cost prohibitive is a high priority at Colorado State University. and/or technically impossible using legacy Unfortunately, with no centralized CSU hosted systems. One of these key features is a solution, current instant messaging methods are of unification of CSU’s dial plan across these widely great concern and popular third party separated offices, and eliminating long distance communication tools offer more risk than benefit. costs between the remote offices and their main With sipXecs, all instant messaging is encrypted, campus in Fort Collins.that alone is an advantage to CSU.

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eZuce Open Communications Deliver Bottom Line Savings

Colorado State University Telecommunications had spent several years evaluating various replacements for their Nortel DMS-100 telephone switch. CSU had implemented small trials and pilots based on both open and proprietary software, including Cisco Call Manager, Microsoft OCS, Asterisk, and Sip Express Router (SER). None of these products offered an enterprise class, open protocol solution that fit CSU’s communication needs as efficiently as sipXecs.

Colorado State University Telecommunications initiated a small test pilot with sipXecs several years ago beginning with the 3.6 version of the code. With each revision of the code they added users and expanded the services they were able to offer. Beginning with the 4.2 version sipXecs release, CSU choose sipXecs as its strategic direction to replace their current aging Nortel PBX.

The top 3 reasons sipXecs was selected as the enterprise communications solution of choice for CSU included:

1. A full suite of Enterprise class features and advanced functionality2. High Availability for the Unified Communications System3. Leveraging open protocols, standards-based, web interface, and freedom of vendor choice

By implementing a unified communication solution based on sipXecs, Colorado State University can help employees work more efficiently and securely. CSU hopes to expand the deployment of sipXecs to many of its outreach offices in rural Colorado unifying the Colorado State University System under a single dial plan and federated messaging solution. This will help CSU provide continued improvement of the services that it delivers to employees, faculty and students.

Overwhelmingly end users have enjoyed the unification of voicemail with their email. Many users have mentioned that the audio quality of VoIP calls using the wide-band HD codec is superb. Many employees have come to rely on the integration of their phone with the IM client providing missed call notification along with easy, secure collaboration within the campus environment.

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Colorado State University, a public institution of higher education, has always embraced open-source technology; however it was not until CSU implemented into production the Kuali Financial System (KFS) that they committed to using open source in a mission critical role in the institution. CSU’s success with Kuali spurred interest in other areas of open source, specifically communications. Unlike proprietary and closed solutions, open source offers CSU the ability to offer features and services specific to the needs of an institution of higher education. For each of the last few years, most institutions of higher education have had to adjust to multi-million dollar budget reductions. Open source solutions offer a high degree of stability and flexibility at a price point that is far less than competing proprietary solutions.

eZuce’s sipXecs solution, available from SIPfoundry, provides CSU with an enterprise class communication solution that can potentially improve productivity and deliver more secure communication; all while streamlining and consolidating services in their IT environment. Colorado State University believes it can leverage sipXecs to not only replace its aging legacy

By deploying a communications solution that is equipment and provide new services, but also due based on standardized and open protocols, to the open protocol nature of sipXecs, it enables Colorado State University can avoid being locked CSU’s faculty and students to interact remotely into any one vendor’s solution. The vendors that using open source based software. Additionally, are represented in their current environment are because sipXecs is open source, CSU could as varied and diverse as the constituents, and are integrate unified communications into the academic chosen based on how the solution best serves curriculum.each individual department’s mission and goals.

eZuce helped Colorado State University deploy The Nortel DMS-100 runs an out-dated base sipXecs at its downtown Denver facility, which

code, and upgrading to the most recent version serves the CSU System office, continuing education would have required a large financial investment in services, and post graduate studies. Additionally, hardware that is no longer supported by the eZuce coordinated with CSU IT staff to link the vendor.The Octel Aria 350 will become end-of-life Denver facility’s sipXecs installation to the main in August of 2011. CSU has over 3,000 users campus cluster, providing a unified dial plan currently using Octel as their primary voicemail between the Denver facility and CSU’s main system that will be moved from Octel before this campus. By shifting the voice traffic to the network, date. CSU was able to drop an expensive T1 tie-line and

save approximately $1,200 per month.

Supporting the SIPfoundry Community

Corporate OfficeeZuce, Inc.8 Lorum Street. Newburyport, MA. 01950o. 978.296.1005 | info@ezuce.com

eZuce Case Study- Colorado State University7

In the Words of Colorado State University

Patrick Burns,

About eZuce, Inc.

http://www.ezuce.com

“Our campus has selected sipXecs as a strategic direction to replace our existing telephone switch, but more importantly as a scalable, open, full-featured communications platform to enhance communication and collaboration among our users. We have such confidence in the product that we have deployed it at our CSU System office. We now have a robust system in place, thanks to the great support provided by eZuce who performed the installation. We are experiencing both reduced costs and enhanced functionality, definitely a winning combination!"

VP for IT and Dean of Libraries,

Colorado State University

eZuce, Inc. delivers open communications enabling social business and collaboration designed for mid to large enterprises. eZuce serves as the commercial support entity and primary contributor sponsoring SIPfoundry and the sipXecs open source project. It is the first company to provide a SIP-based software only solution to enable Unified Communications-as-a-Service as the platform for next-generation, open UC architecture. For more information about eZuce, please visit our Web site at