Background
Based in Mexico City, Winpenny Education Services (winpenny.edu.mx) is a relatively new school, steadily growing in size year after year. Its mission is to educate all children in a supportive, challenging, disciplined and positive environment, with rigorous academic study together with the incorporation of advanced technology.
C3ntro Telecom (www.c3ntro.com) is a Microsoft-specialized system integrator and long-standing AudioCodes partner, focused on helping its clients to achieve the next step by acting as a consultant and implementing end-to-end, cloud-based communication and collaboration solutions.
Like many organizations of a similar size, Winpenny’s communications infrastructure centered around a small, open-source PBX platform. It had served its purpose very well for a number of years, but Winpenny was looking to take things a step further. It wanted to benefit from the latest in unified communications while at the same time reducing its ongoing costs. The new solution had to offer full voice communications with user collaboration, instant messaging and presence. At the same time, Winpenny had limited space available so it needed a compact solution that would not require multiple servers and dedicated racks.
Highlights & Challenges
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Single platform
Full Lync enterprise voice on a single platform
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Small footprint
Small footprint saves space and power costs
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Lower costs
Greatly reduced capital and operational expenditure
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Seamless connectivity
Seamless SIP trunk connectivity
"AudioCodes One Box 365 is a perfect solution for small to medium organizations such as our own looking to make the move to unified communications."
Solution
Winpenny turned to C3ntro, one of Mexico’s leading Microsoft system integrators, to assist in this project. The obvious choice for the main unified communications platform was Microsoft Lync, which offers all the functionality Winpenny was looking for. C3ntro recommended deploying Lync using the AudioCodes One Box 365 all-in-one appliance which combines the full Lync server pool with AudioCodes’ robust voice connectivity solutions and an intuitive management tool all on a single device.
“Over the last few years C3ntro has worked hard on developing a Microsoft Lync unified communications solution with telephony that would be attractive to small and mid-size businesses,” explained Oscar Novoa, General Manager of C3NTRO Telecom Microsoft Enterprise Productivity. “With AudioCodes One Box 365 we now have a turnkey Lync solution that includes everything our customers need without having to make large initial capital investments.
“AudioCodes One Box 365 enables us to add value for small and medium-sized companies that previously could not afford access to the great benefits that a solution like Lync can provide.”
AudioCodes One Box 365 is an appliance-based Lync solution which contains all the necessary server software and hardware required to deploy enterprise voice services. AudioCodes One Box 365 can be deployed as the main Lync voice infrastructure for SMBs as well as SMEs and larger enterprises in a fully standalone mode or as a highly efficient solution for providing Lync enterprise voice in an Office 365 environment. Winpenny deployed the Pro edition of the solution which provides support for up to 500 users per device. The solution also includes an integrated and highly intuitive management system that gives operators full control over the platform and its users.
AudioCodes One Box 365 comes with the AudioCodes’ Mediant session border controller (SBC) integrated into the platform. AudioCodes’ SBCs are certified for interoperability with Microsoft. This means that Winpenny can connect directly to local SIP trunking services and benefit from the cost savings and efficiency these offer in comparison with traditional TDMbased connections to the PSTN.
Results
Winpenny’s transition from its legacy PBX to Microsoft Lync was carried out very smoothly and quickly thanks to the simplicity of the AudioCodes One Box 365 solution. The organization now has a fully functioning Microsoft unified communications platform running on a single appliance, which minimizes the issue of infrastructure management and has led to the streamlining of its overall UC operations.
“AudioCodes One Box 365 is a perfect solution for small to medium organizations such as our own looking to make the move to unified communications,” said Melvyn T Winpenny, CEO at Winpenny Education Services. “With the help of AudioCodes and C3ntro we were able to have the system up and running in very short time and can already see benefits in terms of our employees’ productivity and cost savings.”
