Avaya is one of the best-renowned communication companies in the world. Known for an incredible range of Unified Communications and Contact Centre solutions, Avaya is a market leader in delivering innovative, open and converged solutions for intelligent business experiences.
Here at UC Today, we've followed the Avaya story for many years. When the business first launched in 2000, it was already preparing for great things. A spin-off company from the successful AT&T and Lucent companies, Avaya began life with a vision to create pioneering communication systems in a transforming business environment. Despite difficult periods, including a brush with chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016 to 2017, Avaya has come out ahead of every challenge it has faced so far - bigger and better than ever.
Today, Avaya is the largest pure-play CC and UC company, with revenues of $3.3 billion in 2018. During 2018, Avaya also debuted their new leadership team and revised go-to-market strategy, based around their cloud-first architecture, infused with artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other emerging technologies.
Today, we'll be looking at one of the most crucial components of the Avaya portfolio: Avaya IP Office.
As always, the views expressed in this review are those of the author only. UC Today is an entirely independent news and insight service with no role in promoting or endorsing any particular products or brands.
The History of the IP-PBX and IP Office
The story of the IP-PBX has been one of nearly continuous, and rapid, evolution. When VoIP first began to make its mark in telecommunications two decades ago, the initial benefits of transmitting telephony over the internet rather than PSTN were all about call costs.
Since then, the developments of multimedia UC, software servers, IT convergence, mobile integration, and browser-based communications have followed in rapid succession.
IP Office allows us to see much of that history still living in a single product. Now on its tenth stable release, IP Office started life as a pretty straightforward IP-PBX solution for small businesses. With five available editions, at one end of the scale, it remains just that – a small, on-premises IP-PBX server which can support between 2 and 250 users.
But at the other end of the scale, IP Office has evolved into something quite different – a midmarket solution with a vast swathe of UC and collaboration applications tagged on, which can run in software-only format either on dedicated datacentre servers or virtual machines.
Having been a mainstay of the IP telephony market for many years, and a pioneer in developing UC and converged solutions, IP Office vendor Avaya now finds itself undergoing its own transformation as it battles for financial survival in a changing marketplace. Avaya's new strategy includes everything from investments into new blockchain and artificial intelligence technology, to the acquisition of companies like Spoken Communications. Indeed, the acquisition of Spoke in 2018 helped Avaya to give their vast contact centre customer base a direct path to the cloud, created using technology from a leading innovator in Contact Centre as a Service solutions.
The purchase of Spoken Communications, along with a broader change in direction for Avaya as a company has not only led to the development of new products for the brand. Avaya has also begun to invest additional resources and time into making their flagship products more appealing too. For instance, the Avaya flagship VoIP platform, "IP Office" is one of the most well-respected solutions on the market, and Avaya is constantly searching for new ways to make it better.
How Does It Look?
The IP500 v2 server comes in a 17.5” black chassis suitable for rack mounting, full dimensions 445mm x 73mm x 365mm. Each unit has four module slots which can be used to vary the line, endpoint and data connections available on each server. Up to 12 expansion units can be stacked with a primary server.
Primary Capabilities of IP Office
At its core, Avaya IP Office is all about simplifying your communication and collaboration strategy. Whatever you need to take your digital transformation strategy to the next level, Avaya can help you find it, from a flexible deployment strategy that's available in the cloud, on-premise, or in a hybrid environment, to an all-in-one solution for Communication and Collaboration delivered through Avaya Equinox. This turnkey solution will help you to take your organisation to the next level with:
- Cost-saving applications to suit your strategy: From audio and video conferencing systems that allow you to embrace the remote-working trend to BYOD integrations and instant messaging, IP Office has the cost-saving solutions that will enhance and future-proof your business.
- Excellent mobility solutions: As more employees venture outside of the standard office environment, Avaya IP Office is there to ensure that you're prepared for anything. The intuitive, cloud-connected tools in your Avaya environment will keep members of your staff connected and engaged, wherever they may be.
- Complete integration: Designing the ultimate communication and collaboration experience today means finding a solution that can integrate with your existing strategy. Avaya IP Office is ready to work alongside some of the leading tools in today's business space, including Microsoft Office 365, Google, Salesforce, and even Skype for Business.
- Security: With secure and highly reliable systems embedded throughout, Avaya IP Office excels in security. Enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing that you're protected against everything from toll fraud to malware. You're even defend against unexpected downtime thanks to a tried-and-tested architecture.
- Endless communication options: Communication in the modern world isn't just about voice anymore. Instead, you can integrate everything from email and webchat to voice and fax into your technology stack. Support any customer interaction, no matter how your clients approach your business.
All that, and Avaya IP Office is even designed to scale with the changing needs of your business. As companies of all shapes and sizes strive to remain agile, Avaya can support anywhere up to 3,000 users at once, across up to 150 individually networked communication sites.
Available Editions of IP Office
Avaya IP Office is available in five editions, Basic, Essential, Preferred, Server and Server Select. The different editions offer a range of deployment options, either on the IP500 v2 hardware server or as software-only solutions, with maximum numbers of users as follows:
Basic: IP500 v2 server only, up to 25 users
Essential: IP500 v2 server only, 20-99 users
Preferred: IP500 v2 server only, 21-250 users
Server: IP500 v2 server, software on a dedicated Linux server or virtualised in a VMware environment; 100-2000 users
Server Select: IP500 v2 server, software on a dedicated Linux server or virtualised in a VMware environment; 100-3000 users
With the software solutions (Server and Server Select), users can be distributed across a maximum of 150 sites, using a networking architecture built from a primary server, a secondary server, and up to 148 expansion ‘nodes’ at each location – either an IP500 v2 or software on a Linux server. If an IP500 v2 is used as the primary server, a maximum of 250 users can be deployed across 32 sites.
IP Office is a hybrid system, supporting TDM analogue and digital telephony as well as VoIP and trunking. An IP500v2 must be deployed to support legacy connections, with a wide range of base cards, trunk cards, and expansion units available to increase analogue and digital capacity. As well as a wide range of Avaya IP, SIP and DECT endpoints, IP Office also supports Nortel hardware.
