NEC Philips Unified Solutions

Systems Integrator Saves £42,000 with Consolidated Messaging Environment

The United Kingdom division of NEC Philips Unified Solutions (NEC Philips) provides enterprise unified communications solutions for customers in various market sectors. Due to a merger, the division had separate messaging servers at two locations, running Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 at one location and Exchange Server 2003 at the other. As a participant in a Microsoft Rapid Deployment Program, NEC Philips deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to both locations. Employees now benefit from improvements in accessing mail when outside of the office. The new messaging environment is helping NEC Philips save GBP£42,000 (U.S.$68,460) over three years, with improvements in disaster recovery, storage costs, and antispam services.

Situation

NEC Philips Unified Solutions (NEC Philips) is a joint venture established in 2006 between NEC Corporation and Royal Philips Electronics. The United Kingdom division of NEC Philips is headquartered in Cambridge, England. The company works with midsize companies and large enterprises, providing customized productivity solutions that integrate tightly into business processes.

As a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, NEC Philips works closely with Microsoft to create hardware and software solutions for both unified communications and collaboration. For example, NEC Philips deploys customized contact center, professional operator, and mobile messaging solutions that interoperate with Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail messaging and collaboration software.

The United Kingdom division runs in a separate e-mail environment from the parent company in Europe so that it can test the latest unified communications technologies. But due to a recent merger of the UK offices in Cambridge and Wokingham, the division found itself running two separate e-mail servers. The Wokingham office used Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, and the Cambridge office supported Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

The Wokingham office used one server for all of its e-mail functions, while Cambridge used two mailbox servers in a single copy cluster with one active and one passive server. The Cambridge office also had another server for Client Access and Hub Transport server roles and a unified messaging server to deliver voice-mail messages to employees’ inboxes. With two separate environments to manage, the IT department had to duplicate many administrative tasks, resulting in high internal IT support costs.

While the Wokingham location had no mailbox size restrictions, the Cambridge location used a storage area network (SAN) solution that required the office to implement restrictions to limit the use of the expensive storage. NEC Philips employees frequently have to review large log files received through e-mail to identify and resolve communication issues for customers. In addition, many employees’ mailboxes were not large enough to handle the size and volume of e-mail required to properly support their customer resolution tasks, and spam often overpopulated their inboxes. As the volume of e-mail grew, storage costs escalated and productivity began to be effected.

Most employees at NEC Philips serve as consultants to other enterprises, providing expertise on unified communications solutions. Steve Derbyshire, Operations Director for NEC Philips Unified Solutions UK, says, “A lot of our employees work away from their offices, frequently at customer sites. Probably only 25 percent of the company is office-based. We have to provide the ability for employees to get their e-mail anywhere.” Many employees had issues accessing e-mail when working remotely because they had to use a virtual private network (VPN) to check their e-mail. This was frequently an issue for employees working on customer sites where the ports required for VPN were closed, preventing remote access to e-mails. Any delays in communication can prevent the timely resolution of customer issues.

Solution

Because of expected enhancements in high availability and storage, NEC Philips decided to participate in the Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. In August 2009, NEC Philips upgraded all mailboxes to Exchange Server 2010. Derbyshire says, “Our goal was to migrate into a single environment and make it more resilient by using replication between the two sites.”

With Exchange Server 2010, we’ve been able to eliminate the third-party hosted disaster recovery solution, which saves about £12,000 per year. Steve Derbyshire Operations Director, NEC Philips Unified Solutions UK

NEC Philips is implementing a database availability group (DAG), a new capability in Exchange Server 2010 that combines on-site and off-site data replication into a single high-availability solution that reduces downtime. DAG provides automatic failover at the database level, without the complexity of traditional clustering that NEC Philips had in place with Exchange Server 2007. Now the organization has two servers that each run the Mailbox, Client Access, and Hub Transport server roles. The data from the primary mailbox server in Cambridge is automatically copied over to the mailbox server in Wokingham, providing high availability and disaster recovery. NEC Philips also deployed Edge Transport servers at each location for message hygiene (antivirus and antispam protection) and to act as a simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) gateway.

NEC Philips then moved all of the mailboxes from SAN to less expensive direct-attached storage (DAS). The company also uses Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disks, which is a new storage option with Exchange Server 2010. Now IT can provide larger mailboxes at a lower cost without sacrificing system performance. Mailbox sizes are now unlimited compared to previous limits as small as 200 megabytes (MB) for some employees.

NEC Philips is also taking part in the early adopter program for Microsoft Forefront™ Protection 2010 for Exchange Server to provide additional advanced antispam protection to its employees. Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server includes automatic content filter updates, specialized spam signature data, and access to the Microsoft Internet Protocol (IP) Reputation Service, a real-time IP block list used by the Edge Transport server to block addresses that are known to send spam messages. The automatic application of content and signature updates eases the division’s administration efforts and also ensures that its employees receive the latest protection.

Employees are taking advantage of improvements in the new messaging solution to collaborate and communicate with customers. NEC Philips employees can now connect Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client to Exchange Server 2010 using the Outlook Anywhere feature, which eliminates the requirement for employees to use VPN to access e-mail when working at customer locations. The Federation feature in Exchange Server 2010 will enable NEC Philips to share services, such as calendars, meeting resources, distribution lists, and presence information, externally with customers as though they belonged to the same organization. Federation will also be used to connect to the parent company in Europe.

NEC Philips expects to upgrade its employees’ computers from Office Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010 when it is available, to take advantage of latest capabilities. Employees will be better equipped to prioritize and manage their communications with new features, such as MailTips, which will help ensure that users get their message delivered correctly the first time. For example, NEC Philips consultants will know—before they click the Send button—whether a message recipient is out of the office or a message is being sent to a large distribution list. Employees will also reduce the amount of time catching up on an e-mail thread with Conversation View, another feature of Outlook 2010, which helps to organize e-mail messages by topic. With this capability, employees can view all messages in a conversation at a single glance.

In addition to the upgrade to Exchange Server 2010, NEC Philips tested Windows® phones with Windows Mobile® 6.5. Matt Hawkins, Consulting Team Leader for NEC Philips Unified Solutions UK, describes how Conversation View is particularly beneficial with Windows phones. “On a phone, you have about three inches of screen. With Conversation View it organizes your e-mail messages so that you can see all the messages related to that one subject, which is really useful.” He continues, “Feedback on the user interface has been very positive. It has made organizing your inbox a lot easier.”

Benefits

NEC Philips has experienced a number of benefits from upgrading its current unified communications solution to Exchange Server 2010, including reduced disaster recovery costs, storage costs, and antispam and monitoring costs, as well as improved customer service. Total savings are estimated to be GBP£42,000 (U.S.$68,460), or £280 ($456) per employee over three years (Figure 1).

Reduced Disaster Recovery Costs

Improved failover and resiliency capabilities in Exchange Server 2010 have enabled NEC Philips to provide in-house disaster recovery services. Derbyshire explains, “With Exchange Server 2010, we’ve been able to eliminate the third-party hosted disaster recovery solution, which saves about £12,000 [$19,560] per year.”

Figure 1. Estimated cost savings for NEC Philips after upgradingits current unified communications solution to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.2010

Reduced Storage Costs

Derbyshire says, “We haven’t seen any real difference in performance between the SAN and SATA drives. We are getting the same performance from a cheaper disk. The disk capacity for the individual drive is eight times as large and 25 percent of the cost. So our storage cost is about 30 times less with Exchange Server 2010, when comparing byte to byte.” The reduction in disk input/output (I/O) and additional storage options enable less expensive storage for Exchange Server 2010. NEC Philips has saved £1000 ($1,630) on storage, equaling about £6.67 ($10.87) per employee. Derbyshire continues, “If you extrapolate that to a larger organization that would be quite a significant saving.”

Reduced Antispam and Monitoring Costs

“Using Forefront instead of a third-party solution, we have been able to reduce our licensing costs,” says Derbyshire. “It’s about an initial £3,000 [$4,890] reduction and an additional £1,000 [$1,630] annual recurring license fee savings compared to the previous antispam solution.” Over three years, the savings for NEC Philips totals £5,000 ($8,150). In addition, employees have experienced a reduction of spam by more than 90 percent, freeing up time to focus on customer-related issues.

Derbyshire says, “We previously used MailSweeper for Exchange Server, but Forefront has been a big improvement. We are also no longer paying for an external provider for antispam services, and the amount of spam has been reduced significantly.”

Hawkins adds, “In addition to the 100 real e-mail messages I receive daily, I was receiving about 30 to 40 messages a day that were spam. With Forefront and Exchange Server 2010, spam is down to two or three per day, so more than 90 percent has been eliminated.”

Improved Productivity and Customer Service

The new messaging environment frees up time for NEC Philips employees to be more productive when working outside of the office. “If I am on the road and someone leaves a message at the office,” says Hawkins, “I am going to see it in the inbox on my Windows phone.” This helps NEC Philips prioritize and resolve critical customer problems more quickly.

With the upgrade to Exchange Server 2010, all employees now benefit from unified messaging. Employees especially appreciate the new voice-mail preview capability with unified messaging, which enables them to receive a text-based version of voice-mail messages in their unified inbox. Consultants frequently have to support multiple customers, so the ability to preview messages helps them prioritize issues and provide better customer service.

NEC Philips employees have more reliable access to their e-mail with Office Outlook 2007 while working at customer locations with the Outlook Anywhere feature in Exchange Server 2010. Derbyshire says, “We can’t eliminate VPNs entirely due to other applications, but we have reduced our dependence. It has saved money on software because we had to license the VPN client every time we use it, so it has cut down the VPN licenses that we had to buy.”

Employees will also benefit from the larger mailboxes. They can now spend their time responding to client needs rather than managing the size of the inbox.

With its upgrade to Exchange Server 2010, NEC Philips has consolidated its messaging infrastructure into a highly available environment that better supports its business users while reducing IT costs. The company’s investments in its unified communications capabilities help position itself for future growth.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
Exchange 2010 can help you achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration, and compliance. Exchange delivers the widest range of deployment options, integrated information leakage protection, and advanced compliance capabilities, that combine to form the best messaging and collaboration solution available.

For more information about Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, go to:
www.microsoft.com/exchange

For more information about Microsoft Unified Communications, go to:
www.microsoft.com/uc

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 in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 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 NEC Philips Unified Solutions products and services, call (44) (0) 1223 468000 or visit the Web site at:
www.nec-philips.co.uk