4-page Case Study - Posted 9/26/2007
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University Enhances Collaboration, Productivity with Unified Communications
To improve communications, Colorado State University (CSU) wanted updated collaboration tools. The university also needed products that would work with existing technology. CSU implemented a unified communications solution based on Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Integrated telephony, collaboration tools, and presence information help employees stay productive, and encrypted data transactions keep information more secure. CSU now has a solution in place that can grow with the university’s communications needs. With Office Communications Server 2007, the university can continue to streamline IT administration and deliver advanced services to the academic community.
Situation
Founded in 1870, Colorado State University (CSU) is a research university with more than 25,000 students and 7,000 employees. The university is based in Fort Collins, Colorado, and prepares students for a variety of careers in liberal arts and sciences. With eight colleges and multiple departments located across a 579-acre main campus, CSU continuously strives to improve its delivery of information and resources to staff and students.
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By offering a unified communications solution based on Office Communications Server 2007, we can deliver services appropriate to a world-class university.  |
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Nick Smith
Exchange Administrator
Colorado State University |
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Like many higher education institutions, CSU differs from conventional business enterprises in that it allows users more independence in shaping their IT environments. So although the Academic Computing and Networking (ACNS) group provides broad IT support for the university, several departments and colleges maintain their own information systems. As a result, the CSU community uses a variety of collaboration and communications tools, including calendaring, instant messaging (IM), and telephony.
Disparate communications tools made collaboration difficult and hindered the implementation of solutions that could improve efficiency for users and technology administrators. For example, not all systems shared the same directory service, which required managing different sets of user credentials for students and employees. As a result, CSU was unable to implement single sign on (SSO) capability across all its systems. Lack of interoperability also made it difficult to design an integrated communications solution.
To improve services to students and faculty, CSU implemented a messaging system in 2006 based on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007. The new messaging system delivered advanced calendaring options and support for mobile users with Web-based access to e-mail and other data. Equally important, it also gave the university the foundation for building a unified communications solution.
Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging is built on the Active Directory® service. By using a single directory service for its communications systems, CSU can easily add new information and manage user identities. For instance, the university added voice mail to its unified messaging solution, so that students and staff with Exchange Server accounts can check voice and e-mail messages through Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client. They can also dial in with a phone to hear their e-mail messages and manage their accounts.
CSU was prompted to advance its unified communications solution because the DMS-100 telephone switch by Nortel Networks may lose support in a few years. CSU also operated a separate small-scale voice over IP (VoIP) solution from Cisco Systems that served about 50 users. These systems were reliable and easy to maintain, but the university wanted an integrated solution with better collaboration tools.
As the university considered updating its telephony infrastructure, it decided to investigate VoIP communication and other collaboration tools. Ideally, the right solution would improve the productivity of the CSU user community, and it would also give the university better operational control.
For example, instant messaging was growing in popularity, but the university lacked an internal IM solution. As a result, CSU students and employees used a variety of public IM services such as Yahoo! and Windows Live™ Messenger instant messaging service. IT administrators and end users wanted a more secure, encrypted IM solution to protect potentially sensitive information. “We’re an educational institution, and we often exchange information that we don’t really want sent out to a third-party IM vendor,” says Nick Smith, Exchange Administrator at Colorado State University. “We would like to keep the data on campus.”
To achieve its communications goals, CSU looked for a unified communications solution that would integrate with existing technology. The university wanted to build on its Exchange Server 2007 implementation to offer the CSU community better collaboration tools.
Solution
To add VoIP capability, the ACNS group considered upgrading to an IP Private Branch Exchange (PBX) by Nortel Networks. However, it decided the Nortel solution would be too costly. Expanding its existing VoIP solution, Cisco CallManager from Cisco Systems, was not a practical choice either. Cisco CallManager did not work well with the Exchange Server 2007 environment, and it lacked integrated collaboration tools such as IM.
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With Office Communicator 2007 I can click on contacts and see if they are free…. I don’t have to open up a new calendar request and add users just to see whether or not they are busy. |
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Nick Smith
Exchange Administrator
Colorado State University |
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Then CSU learned that Microsoft was planning to release Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (the new version of Office Live Communications Server 2005). The new version appealed to the university because it integrates software-powered VoIP, IM, and presence information. By choosing Office Communications Server 2007, the university could add IM, conferencing, and VoIP to the voice mail and other unified messaging capabilities it had already acquired with its Exchange Server 2007 implementation. The CSU community would be able to access these communications tools through familiar programs such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and Office Word 2003.
As part of a pilot project, the university installed Office Communications Server 2007 in a lab environment on virtual servers running the Windows Server® 2003 Standard Edition operating system. CSU set up its virtual server environment with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and a Dell PowerEdge 2950 server computer. However, the university will ultimately set up a conventional network environment with three Dell PowerEdge 1950 server computers. One machine will be installed as a consolidated network edge server to manage remote communication, the second will be installed as a server for Office Communications Server 2007 software, and the third will be installed as a Mediation Server.
The Mediation Server routes data between Office Communications Server 2007 and the media gateway, which integrates the unified communications solution with the Nortel Networks PBX. The CSU gateway interoperates with the Mediation Server through session initiation protocol (SIP) and IP on one side, and with the PBX system on the other side through a primary rate interface (PRI), based on the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) telephony protocol.
CSU currently uses an AudioCodes Mediant 2000 VoIP media gateway to support its unified communications solution. AudioCodes gateways provide high performance and voice quality, and they easily integrate with Microsoft software. The gateways can support Exchange Server 2007, Office Communications Server 2007, and Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) connections simultaneously.
The AudioCodes gateway was originally purchased to integrate the PBX and Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging, and the university decided to integrate it also with Office Communications Server 2007. “We are running kind of a dual system,” Kyle Haefner, Communications Programmer at CSU explains. “Office Communications Server 2007 media is handled with PRI protocol, while voice mail runs over a ground start T1 carrier through a channel bank.”
The university also acquired a Dialogic DMG 2000 gateway and plans to use it with the AudioCodes hardware. The Dialogic gateway will be dedicated to VoIP communication, and the AudioCodes gateway will handle voice mail. Dialogic offers a range of enterprise-class media gateway products to support Microsoft unified communications solutions. Dialogic Media Gateways are designed for simplicity, PBX interoperability, and price performance, and they are backed by a worldwide distribution and support organization
The university selected 30 employees to participate in the pilot program. Most participants were members of the IT group or telecommunications. The CSU employees used workstations or portable computing devices installed with the 2007 Microsoft Office System applications and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 software. Office Communicator 2007 is the client application for the unified communications solution. Office Communicator 2007 integrates with productivity applications, the telephony infrastructure, and registers against Office Communications Server 2007.
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All the communications within Office Communications Server 2007 are encrypted. The ability to encrypt instant messaging communications alone is a big security win for us. |
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Nick Smith
Exchange Administrator
Colorado State University |
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CSU implemented IM capability first and then introduced VoIP communication. The university students and employees mostly use a LG-Nortel USB Phone 8501, and a few work with the LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540. LG-Nortel delivers comprehensive, innovative communication solutions to help organizations run their business efficiently and effectively. LG-Nortel solutions help improve productivity, reduce IT administration costs, and lower the total cost of ownership.
Calls for the USB handset are managed from the desktop with Office Communicator 2007, and the LG Nortel IP Phone 8540 directly connects to the Ethernet and registers against Office Communications Server 2007. Both devices are easy to use. In fact, employees report that features such as call transfer and forwarding are more intuitive to use with the LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540 than with the legacy Meridian phones used on the Nortel PBX system. Smith says, “Our nontechnical users easily adapted to using the LG-Nortel VoIP devices. They only needed about five minutes of training.”
The university employees use the Office Communications Server 2007 solution as their primary telephony tool. Smith reports that the solution delivers clear audio quality, particularly during internal calls. “I found the audio quality of the Office Communications Server 2007 software-powered VoIP calls superb.”
CSU employees also rely on IM and presence information to support routine work activities. For example, IT staff use the unified communications solution to help employees resolve problems. “I use presence in Office Communicator 2007 all the time to see who is available, and there are many times that an instant messaging communication escalates to a phone call very quickly,” Smith says.
The university has slowed deployment of its unified communications solution while it addresses staff changes. However, when deployment resumes in early 2008, CSU will introduce the new communications tools to 4,000 users. Eventually the university will completely replace its legacy voice-mail system with Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging, which will set the stage for fully implementing a campus-wide unified communications solution.
Benefits
By implementing a unified communications solution based on Office Communications Server 2007, CSU can help employees work more efficiently. Communications are more secure, and tight integration with other systems and applications supports a more streamlined IT environment. Finally, CSU can use the integrated solution as a foundation for continued improvement of the services it delivers to employees and students.
Improves Productivity
The unified communications solution delivers an integrated tool set that helps members of the campus community work more productively. For example, Smith says that integrated presence information is a key feature that helps him be more efficient. “With Office Communicator 2007 I can click on contacts and see if they are free. This is very useful and saves me time. I don’t have to open up a new calendar request and add users just to see whether or not they are busy.”
Delivers More Secure Communications
CSU was concerned previously that popular communications tools such as instant messaging offered more risk than benefit. With Office Communications Server 2007, however, the university can take advantage of newer technologies like VoIP and IM communication more securely. “All the communications within Office Communications Server 2007 are encrypted,” says Smith. “The ability to encrypt instant messaging communications alone is a big security win for us.”
Supports Streamlined IT Environment
CSU may gradually move toward a more centralized IT environment and the unified communications solution will help the university reach that goal. The process is slow because users have considerable freedom in choosing technology tools. For instance, they have the option of using either the Exchange Server 2007 messaging solution or the legacy Octel 350 for managing voice mail. Thus, rather than enforcing changes, CSU follows a strategy of offering the campus community the communications tools they want on a platform that is easier to support.
The university maintains multiple Web-based resources for students and employees and several directory services for managing user identities and credentials. As more users migrate to an integrated communications solution based on Office Communications Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Active Directory, the ACNS group expects that implementing improvements such as an SSO solution will be much easier. Says Smith, “By offering a unified communications solution based on Office Communications Server 2007, we can deliver services appropriate to a world-class university.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Colorado State University products and services, call (970) 491-7276 or visit the Web site at:
www.welcome.colostate.edu
Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.
For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published September 2007
