Manging a unified communications transition

16 January 2008

Many enterprises shy away from all-IP unified communications (UC), fearful that communications blackouts and brownouts could sink their businesses. But UC doesn't have to be a gamble.

"The wonderful part of this new technology is that converged applications can provide huge benefits," said Warren Williams, vice president of technology consultancy InfoTech. "But the downside is that voice has always been a mission-critical application, and when we lose voice, it's like our doors are closed."

Williams said total failure is possible, but improbable, with comprehensive preparation. More vexing, he said, were "little gremlin types of problems" like misconfigured hardware or poorly managed capacity. These problems often allow diminished or limited operation, but they are harder to track down and fix than a crashed server or severed T3 connection.