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Recent Projects
Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Comprehensive Off-site Disaster Recovery Solution: AT&T Collocation An implementation has completed for a comprehensive BC/DR solution with AT&T's Internet Data Center (IDC) in Lisle, hosting an IBM AS/400 with continuous disk backup from a HQ location. WANCOM and AT&T partnered with Rentsys to provide a Mobile Recovery Center (MRC) preconfigured with an Ethernet LAN, VoIP phones, client/server infrastructure and broadband wireless connection to the AT&T IDC. The MRC is outfitted with up to 50 desktops, PCs, and IP phones and ready for deployment to the AT&T IDC. The Lisle location is preferred by Chicago loop customers because they are planning for an event which would close one or more loop buildings.
Some customer requirements call for 250 to 300 mile geographic dispersion of the backup data center, for which AT&T maintains 20 Internet Data Centers in major Cities.
Mobile Recovery Center Inside View of MRC
This comprehensive WANCOM solution utilizes AT&T PRI local voice service, AT&T Private Line T1 service, AT&T Hosting services, IBM AS 400 and a Rentsys MRC.
For additional information, please contact your WANCOM account manager.
Circulation Fulfillment Firm Relocates in 45 Days Included dual site operations with AT&T PRI local trunks and 2xT1 Managed Internet Service and loaned and provisioned Cisco routers configured with BGP and dual service.
Large Healthcare Relocation in 30 Days Flash cutover of Cisco AVVID PRI trunks, Cabled 18 T1s, 6Mbps ATM/Frame, Disaster Recovery 2xT1 Managed Internet Service, paging system with 49 speakers. The paging system and T1 cable plant and associated T1 patch panel were installed within two days after receipt of purchase order.
WANCOM implements an average of 15 projects per month with AT&T Business Network (ABN) local PRI services and hundreds of lines and trunks WANCOM clients taking advantage of new AT&T bundled offer WANCOM is already implementing ISDN Primary Rate Interface connections to AT&T Local Services for clients in the Chicago metropolitan area. This new offer is significantly differentiated from other competitors:
Recent Projects
Seamless Customer Access for Credit Union with 6 Branch Locations and Solved Multi-vendor Disparities due to Acquisitions WANCOM implemented AT&T PrimeNBX (AT&T Centrex) to support intercom/transfer and 4-digit intercom dialing between branches, to support:
Additionally, WANCOM added AT&T T1 Managed Internet Service (MIS) which increased internet availability and security across the enterprise.
Voice, Data, and IP Connectivity for an executive search and M&A advisory firm with 4 locations This firms service provider exited the US telecom market and left them with a 45 day notification. WANCOM designed, implemented, and project managed a comprehensive AT&T solution across Chicago, New York, Atlanta, and Boulder:
WANCOM Solution Provided $650,000 Savings in 4 months: Two Large Regional Banks Merged with 31 Locations Required single point-of-contact identity to customers WANCOM designed and Project Managed an enterprise dial plan with disparate PBXs in a competitive multi-vendor environment. Integration of T1 and PRI trunking with utilization of existing centralized voice mail platforms, IVR, and ACD/Contact Centers.
Chicago Disaster Recovery AT&T Stages Network Disaster Recovery Drill In Chicago
Unique-in-the-industry drill ensures AT&T prepared to restore voice and data telecommunication services within 72 hours of disaster
CHICAGO -- AT&T today announced it will conduct a, five-day network disaster recovery (NDR) exercise beginning Friday, June 20, at the United Center. The exercise, designed to test and evaluate how well the company can respond to a simulated disaster that destroys a Chicago telephone switching center, comes just one month after the congressionally-mandated Top Officials 2 disaster drills in Chicago and Seattle that tested emergency response systems in both cities. AT&T's NDR exercise, one of several run each year, is part of AT&T's comprehensive business continuity plan to ensure communications can be restored quickly to its government, business and consumer clients if a disaster damages or destroys parts of its network. Switching centers, like the one being restored during the exercise, are the heart of telecommunications networks, routing data and voice communications to customers. Experience gained from the exercise is used to refine AT&T's disaster response systems and to develop business continuity services for AT&T clients. Industry studies over the past decade estimate that 80 to 90 percent of businesses without well-conceived business plans go out of business in two to five years after a major disaster. Yet, according to an AT&T commissioned study completed by Digital Research, Inc. last year, about 25% of companies do not have a disaster recovery plan in place and almost 20% of those companies with plans have not tested the plans for five years. During the past 10 years, AT&T has invested more than $300 million in its NDR program, which includes a team of more than 100 managers, engineers and technicians, as well as a fleet of more than 150 self-contained equipment-trailers that house the same equipment and components as an AT&T switching center. The exercises test the company's network disaster recovery processes, from the initial call-out of team members to equipment transport and service turn-up and testing. "The scope and scale of AT&T's NDR drill is unique in the industry," said AT&T Business Chicago regional vice president Tim Akers. "But the investment we're making helps ensure our people and our network can provide, even in the event of a disaster, the availability, recoverability and security of our customers' services, applications and data." Since 1990, the NDR team has been activated 12 times in response to disasters, including restoring service after south Florida's devastating Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and after the Northridge, California earthquake in 1994. Most recently, the team mobilized to provide recovery services following the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York. As a result of the team's efforts, most AT&T local business service in southern Manhattan was restored in 46 hours and AT&T business customers were able to participate in the re-opening of the New York financial markets the week after the disaster. AT&T Network Disaster Recovery Program NDR exercises begin with an initial call-out to NDR team members to assemble at the disaster site to prepare for the arrival of AT&T semi-trailers containing the equipment needed to restore a telecommunications services. Once the trailers arrive at the exercise site, the team can roll out up to 15 miles of coaxial and fiber optic cable to interconnect the individual components in the trailers to match the unique configuration of the damaged switching facility. Temporary microwave towers and satellite earth stations also can be erected for situations where cable cannot be used to access AT&T's global network. The NDR team then begins the process of re-activating and testing communications service. Using the equipment in the trailers, they can, for example, convert electronic signals to optical signals for transmission over AT&T's fiber optic network, amplify or regenerate optical signals, and link a recovery site by satellite to AT&T Network Operations Centers to allow remote testing. With the NDR personnel and equipment, AT&T can recover communications services within days after a disaster. The trailers, which have self-contained or dedicated power and environmental systems, generally travel by road, although they have been designed to be shipped by rail or air. When not in use, the trailers are strategically located in warehouses across the country. More information on AT&T's NDR program, including The "AT&T Point of View on Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery" white paper, is available at www.att.com/bestpractices.
AT&T Expands Business Continuity Services Portfolio
AT&T Introduces New Recovery, Availability Services
BEDMINSTER, N.J. -- AT&T today announced new, integrated recovery, availability and reliability services that provide expanded business continuity solutions to meet the increasingly complex enterprise networking requirements of businesses and government agencies. Recent regulatory and legislative requirements are heightening the need of certain business sectors, particularly financial services and health care, to implement more comprehensive risk mitigation plans. AT&T is helping businesses address these challenges by introducing AT&T StorageConnectSM Service, which supports networked remote replication, backup and recovery needs, and AT&T Direct Control for hosting customers with Advanced Monitoring Service. The services AT&T announced today are part of its extensive business continuity portfolio and leverage its industry-leading business continuity best practices. AT&T helps clients design, deploy, manage and evolve business continuity solutions across their networks and information technology environments, including networks, systems and applications. The company delivers the highest networking performance to meet clients' most stringent availability and resiliency needs. "AT&T offers the industry's most comprehensive and proven array of networking-related business continuity services to help businesses protect invaluable information assets, supported by one of the industry's best portals," said Zeus Kerravala, vice president, enterprise computing and networking, The Yankee Group. "Particularly at a time of heightened risk, having the right reliability, availability, security, and recovery systems is crucial to an enterprise's profitability and even survival." Addressing networked remote replication, backup and recovery needs, AT&T StorageConnectSM Service delivers a fully managed, flexible, multi-location storage transport, enabling clients to balance risk, cost and performance. Using AT&T StorageConnectSM Service, clients can extend their remote replication, backup and multi-vendor Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions between their premises and/or AT&T Internet Data Centers (IDCs), over any distance, virtually any bandwidth and storage protocol. AT&T StorageConnectSM Service offers bandwidth choices from 10 megabits to 1 gigabit per second, and supports the Fiber Channel, Enterprise System Connection (ESCON) and/or Fiber Connectivity (FICON) storage network protocols. AT&T is the first to offer any distance Fiber Channel, ESCON or FICON networking service with flexible bandwidth options, supporting multi-vendor SAN and tape backup solutions. Combined with AT&T Ultravailable Storage Services, corporate information is available for business applications and recovery, when needed by the client, leveraging AT&T's investments in scalable storage connectivity, SAN/NAS solutions and hardened infrastructure. AT&T was recently awarded the "Best SAN Solution" for these industry-leading services. Combining AT&T StorageConnectSM, AT&T Ultravailable® Storage and AT&T Ultravailable® Network Services, clients can assemble networked back up, replication and recovery solutions, with up to 99.99% availability guarantees. All are managed by AT&T's Integrated Global Enterprise Management System (iGEMS) management platform, with performance reporting delivered via AT&T's portal services. Worldspan(R), the leading technology provider for the travel industry, recently completed its remote replication solution using AT&T StorageConnectSM Service, AT&T Ultravailable(R) Network Service and AT&T Ultravailable(R) Storage Service. "The success of our business and that of our travel industry partners depends on reliable access to critical data," said David Lauderdale, chief technology officer and senior vice president --Worldwide Technical Operations for Worldspan. "With AT&T's support, we've strengthened our data center infrastructure to ensure network efficiency and continuity." AT&T Direct Control for Hosting allows clients to remotely and securely access their servers, located in AT&T's U.S.-based Internet Data Centers (IDCs), around-the- clock, simply by using an Internet browser -- offering clients the ability to control their environment from anywhere, anytime in real time. The service is available through the AT&T Managed Services Portal, which Tier 1 Research ranked as the number one portal in the industry for the second year in a row. AT&T Direct Control empowers clients to set thresholds for warning and alarm notification, view and receive real-time alarm notification, and access business-oriented dashboard views with drill down capability, indicating a near real time status of all of clients' monitored elements. It also enables clients to remotely perform system administration functions such as server reboots, upload software through File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and view and retrieve log files, improving performance of their hosted solutions in real time. With AT&T Direct Control, clients receive a tangible return on investment because they can securely obtain remote access to their environment and perform tasks with existing browser software. They also can leverage AT&T investments in its management platform, iGEMS, and hardened, reliable IDCs. "The new services and enhancements AT&T announced today are designed to help customers assure the availability and recovery of networks, data, computing and mission-critical applications," said Eric Shepcaro, who leads application networking product management for AT&T. "Our extensive array of business continuity and disaster recovery services is backed by an experienced team of business continuity professionals, delivering a measurable return on investment for business critical applications." AT&T helps clients identify the level of operational readiness, business resumption and recovery capabilities necessary to keep their business processes up and running. The company provides the skilled professionals, proven process and scalable platforms used by private companies and government agencies to enhance their business continuity plans. More information about AT&T's business continuity and disaster recovery services is available at www.att.com/business, or contact your WANCOM Account Manager.
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ShoreTel
VoIP Excitement
Reliability: 99.999%
Stability: VoIP Industry Leader since 1998, no debt
Quality: ShoreGear switches 11 year MTBF, award wining voice quality
Awards:
#1 ease of use;
#1 voice quality;
#1 multi-location management;
#1 lowest operational cost;
#1 Customer Service.
ShoreTel is the innovation leader in delivering IP telephony solutions to the enterprise. The ShoreTel solution is a simple and affordable intelligent phone system that can be easily integrated into a global IP communications infrastructure.
ShoreTel has been delivering its award-winning products for the enterprise since 1998. With quarter-over-quarter growth exceeding 100% for five consecutive quarters and 11 consecutive quarters of 25% growth, each, ShoreTel has proven itself to be a formidable and pivotal player in the escalating enterprise Voice over IP (VoIP) market.
WANCOM Partners with ShoreTel to Bring Businesses Next-Generation Voice Systems
IP Telephony Leverages Data Applications and Infrastructures; Delivers More for Less
[Chicago, IL, October 1, 2004 – WAN Communications Corp. (WANCOM) and ShoreTel, the innovation leader in IP telephony systems for the enterprise, today announced they are partnering to bring the benefits of next-generation voice technologies to businesses in Illinois. WANCOM is now using ShoreTel’s award-winning ShoreTel5 IP PBX platform to create cost-effective business phone systems that can bring voice and data together in powerful ways, including voice-and-data conferencing and virtual contact centers.
IP voice systems reduce voice signals to standard Internet Protocol data packets, so conversations can run over data networks. This eliminates the need to build and maintain two separate networks, and enables business applications that combine voice and data. It also gives voice the routing flexibility and location independence that makes a Web site on another continent seem closer than the shop next door.
“Thanks to the simplicity and reliability of ShoreTel’s IP voice technology, convergence is no longer restricted to the bleeding edge,” said Bob Christmas. “It is now a practical alternative for businesses of all types, sizes and geographic configurations. Voice and data are moving inexorably together, and ShoreTel’s unique IP voice systems are now giving our customers a head start on the future as well as a competitive advantage today.”
“We are delighted to welcome WANCOM to the ShoreTel team of channel partners,” said Tom van Overbeek, ShoreTel’s president and CEO. “Unlike traditional phone systems, IP voice is extremely flexible and provides endless opportunities for customization and adding value. However, this requires intimate knowledge of specific customer needs, which we rely on our channel partners to possess. WANCOM is not merely installing our products, but also elevating the business phone system from a taken-for-granted utility to a productivity-boosting environment.”
The applications bundled into the enterprise-class phone system include voicemail, an automated attendant, automatic call distribution, call detail recording, unified voice mail, and desktop call control. Everything is accessed from the same intuitive Windows-based interface, making the system very easy to use and manage.
Multiple Locations, One Phone System
The ShoreTel voice communication system and all its applications can operate across multiple sites, so businesses with more than one location have a single phone system. Calls are automatically routed among sites, and receptions or assistants at one office can field incoming calls for people at another. Interoffice calls that extend beyond the local dialing area bypass toll and long distance carriers and “ride for free” on the data network.
Users interact with the ShoreTel system through a Windows-based Personal Call Manager application and can check the presence of other employees anywhere on the enterprise network before placing or transferring calls to them. Integration with Microsoft Outlook enables automated point-and-click or dial-by-name dialing.
When calls come in for people who aren’t currently present on the network, ShoreTel4 can check Outlook calendar information before deciding what to do with the call. This is one of the features that makes the ShoreTel system particularly adept at supporting increasingly mobile workforces.
“ShoreTel’s IP voice communication system is user-centric, associating phone numbers with people, not offices,” said. Bob Christmas “Your calls find you whether you are at your desk, working at a branch office, or using a PC-based softphone at home or in a hotel room or some other remote location. You give out a single contact number and have a single voicemail box, eliminating a lot of redundant calls and duplicate messages. And you have a consistent voice environment to use, wherever you want to work”
Better Conferencing and Contact Center OptionsWANCOM and ShoreTel also offer conferencing and contact center solutions that integrate with the ShoreTel system, reducing costs and improving customer service.
ShoreTel’s converged conferencing offering combines audioconferencing with data sharing, providing a much richer communications environment for collaboration or interactions with customers. It eliminates the need to reserve time on costly conferencing services, or to engage them at all. Ad-hoc conferences can be set up as needed.
ShoreTel contact center operates across multiple locations as a virtual call center, and can do skills-based routing to match the best agent to a particular caller. When integrated with a customer database, the system can check order status or other variables before routing the call. Supervisor tools enable agent monitoring and historical reporting of agent performance, and provide real-time statistical views.
“IP telephony represents a new voice paradigm that is displacing a century-old architecture,” said Bob Christmas “Using ShoreTel’s unique VoIP solutions, we can minimize the disruption of this paradigm shift while providing businesses with a powerful new communications environment.”
About ShoreTelShoreTel, Inc is the innovation leader in delivering IP telephony solutions to the enterprise. Thousands of enthusiastic users are taking advantage of the company’s award-winning distributed IP PBX technology, leveraging expertise and resources across multiple sites to improve customer service, increase employee productivity and lower operational costs. ShoreTel has a select group of channel partners that provide top-notch service and support. For more information, visit http://www.Shoretel.com or call 1-877-80SHORE.
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Copyright © 2003 WAN Communications Corp.
