In the early stages of VoIP adoption, the main concern for enterprise IT organizations was achieving consistently acceptable call quality over their wide area networks. This issue has largely been resolved. In fact, there are now many infrastructure solutions that can effectively support basic VoIP transport.

Today’s enterprise IT organizations, however, have significant requirements above and beyond the mere ability to simply carry a voice signal from one point to another. Because of the continued evolution of enterprise IT, managers responsible for corporate VoIP implementations have a variety of additional concerns. Among these top concerns are:

SUCCESSFULLY MANAGING PHASED MIGRATION

Cost, risk, and logistical hurdles make “forklift” overhauls of the enterprise network impractical. Also, companies typically choose to initially deploy new communications solutions in the specific departments or locations where they will deliver the greatest immediate business benefit. Network managers must therefore be able to transition from any current network environment to any planned one in incremental stages. This kind of phased approach requires that some combination of legacy and/or IP-PBXs, legacy and/or SIP phone systems, Microsoft® Unified Communications, Cisco® Call Manager, analog fax machines, and PSTN access to 911 services be somehow made to peacefully co-exist with each other during each stage of the transition.