Background
The POLYPLASTIC Group (http://en.polyplastic.ru/) was established in 1991, and over the years has become one of Russia’s leading plastic processing companies. The Group comprises of twelve plastics processing enterprises (located in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan), two Research and Development (R&D) centers, and a number of joint ventures and trading houses. The company is staffed by a workforce of more than 5,000 employees, and annually produces thermoplastic composites, polyethylene pipe systems and fittings in excess of 290 kilotons. The company was assisted in the planning and deployment of this project by Softline (www.softline.ru/contact/msk). Softline has been in the IT market since 1993; today, it is the leading company in IT technologies in the Russian market.
The company is an authorized distributor for over 3,000 software manufacturers, and enjoys the highest partnership status with global industry leaders. Softline has a high-skilled team of project managers and technical specialists possessing a wide-range of practical experience in building reliable and efficient IT infrastructures at minimum expense. Like many other companies wanting to incorporate the powerful benefits of Unified Communications, the POLYPLASTIC Group decided to make the move to Microsoft Lync.
However, converting all the equipment on the network which was spread across the various branches of the company was a costly endeavor and management decided to migrate in a more gradual fashion. AudioCodes Mediant 800 Media Gateways, installed at the local branches with TDM PBXs, connected to an AudioCodes’ Mediant 1000 SBC at the company’s main office to allow for VoIP communications and Lync connectivity. Branches which had IP-PBXs also connected to the Mediant 1000 in a similar fashion. The Mediant 1000 at the POLYPLASTIC Group’s HQ, connected to MTT, the Moscow-based Service Provider, through a SIP trunk. Given the new complexity of the network, a system was required to "escort and monitor" the major change that had been undertaken and to be able to quickly identify and correct any problems that might occur on the network.
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Gradual migration
Migrate gradually to Lync to incorporate the powerful benefits of Unified Communications
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Escort and monitor
A system was required to “escort and monitor” the major change that had been undertaken
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Problem detection
Quickly identify and correct any problems that might occur on the network
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Quality optimization
Optimizes the quality of the VoIP network
"There is no question that the SEM helps save operational time and optimizes the quality of the VoIP network."
Results
Prior to implementing the SEM, there was no formal alarm-based system to provide alerts if something wasn’t working right. With SEM, the VoIP engineer is able to monitor the entire network and can immediately see where the problem on the network resides, drilling down as far as the call itself to rapidly and efficiently conduct a root cause analysis.
Without SEM, the POLYPLASTIC Group faced a situation in which critical business services such as telephony, were introduced to the network without proper real-time tools to manage potential problems. Such a situation could result in extended service downtime in remote locations with no real way to rapidly correct the problem.
The ability to rapidly identify (in real time) problems on the network allows for quick correction of problems that exist and for prevention of problems before they occur.
The SEM allows for a cost effective and efficient way to monitor the network as it migrates to a Lync environment.
The SEM provides information about SBC internal call parameters (such as IP group, number manipulation, etc.). This information helps find mistakes in existing or new configurations in routing or number manipulation.
The SEM provides many statistics for company calls. After analyzing these statistics, the POLYPLASTIC Group found a lot of calls where they could change the routing in order to reduce costs (least cost routing). Without SEM, the POLYPLASTIC Group would not have been aware of these statistics and would have continued to pay double the costs for some of these calls.
