Unified with Cloud

Cary Hayward, Senior Director Product Management at Polycom is responsible for leading the planning and strategy efforts for Polycoms cloud collaboration solutions and products, including the recently announced RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite. In conversation with N Geetha, Hayward discusses the importance of integrating cloud with Unified Communication in real time

What challenges confront senior IT executives now with regard to the Unified Communication (UC) space?

Senior IT managers across industry verticals now confront challenges owing to innovations happening in the Unified Communications (UC) technology; this is more to do with the complexity that technology brings in with regard to user interfaces. While there is increased complexity in dealing with the new tools, the challenge is also about cost structure, access control and also granting ease of access to users to the networks, amid growing competition. Besides, the changing IT landscape has also thrown up ample challenges with Cloud adoption proliferating and giving free access to all devices. Cloud capable devices are growing, demanding ease of use, and ubiquitous connectivity is viewed as a barrier to faster growth.

Lets go a step further to analyse access getting out of control. There are about 950 million mobile devices and approximately 6 per cent using 3G compatible smart phones. It is consuming huge amount of bandwidth and the 3G market is growing at a faster CAGR. All these call for right interoperability standards creating barriers to UC. Service providers face the common problem with the uptake on the access through web browsers and email imports and scheduling, which is resulting in huge risks. UC vendors and service providers need to plan a meticulous approach to address growing concerns and have intelligence built into the solutions to rule out any inter-operability issues.

When you speak about cloud integration, how do you see it adding value to UC strategy in an enterprise?

Understanding cloud strategy is most critical for any IT manager to enhance the efficiency of the UC platform. It should be tightly integrated with the cloud framework. Lets first talk about the Cloud. What is the new value it would bring in? It enables you to pay for what you use, it lowers predictable costs, it enables a shift from Capex to Opex and it helps in accelerating speed to value.

The other advantage is that there is no patching or maintenance of infrastructure required, theres faster deployment of applications, robust multi-layered security and reliable and fault-tolerant framework. From a UC standpoint, the Cloud economics provides the latest software for users, Internet collaboration, anywhere access and instant self-provisioning, all of which enhances productivity.

However, the most vital aspect is the journey from the Cloud to real-time Clouds in a UC framework. The flip side is that the Cloud has not been extended to communications applications like it has with services and data. According to Frost & Sullivan, the interesting phenomenon is that the journey involved various stages starting with ISP1.0 giving access to the internet; ISP 2.0, access to servers as the internet access point; Colo 1.0, racks for CLBs at the internet access point; ASP1.0 model hosting applications on servers at the internet access point; introducing cloud-internet based software services in the Cloud[ and last but not the least, the real-time cloud intelligent optimised internet infrastructure.

The question here would be how to integrate the real-time Cloud with the UC strategy; and there are best architectures defined by key cloud characteristics. The integration is made possible using:

• On-demand self-service which enables adhoc/scheduled calls to be put on a single pool of resources. The key elements in this would include E164 and SIP URI support, Interop with Carrier class NAT/FW solution for enterprise/Government, SIP and H323 supported, Integration with leading call control vendors and migration to SIP in the core.
• Mobile location on independent resource pooling in which multiple media bridges in one virtual pool for massive scale and flexibility. The supporting elements provide policy control points to SP/govt/Ent via Multi-tenant Management System for scheduling, device management, reporting, monitoring interface and API Suite for service integration.
• Virtualised always-on availability that involves multi-tenant scheduling, management, provisioning, directory, real-time switching decisions on SVC vx AVC, SIP vs H323 and the Cloud elements with multiple MCUs in one virtual pool for scale and resiliency, multiple RSSs under one virtual pool for recording and streaming, for adhoc and scheduled calls, SIP/H323/UC, single and multi-codec, Cisco, MSFT and H264 high profile, road map for greater scale (SVC).
• Ubiquitous open network access that provides web client support, inter-vendor B2B Open Exchange, single to single and multi to multi interop on Polycom end points, APIs for integration into 3^rd party systems. The elements would include SBC certification/Customer options, SIP/IMS-E164, signaling GW and scheduling/Traffic/Policy API.

How much are your customers involved in any kind of product innovation?

The office of the CTO and product engineering are involved directly with customers. There is formal honorarium extended to the team to solicit customer feedback on various products and during the development process. For instance, Polycoms data process group generates feedback on the end points and absorbs customer observations in the designs and functionality. There is an organised feedback mechanism process that we follow by way of having Customer Councils to seek opinions from specific verticals. Currently, we solicit opinion through this council from the government, healthcare, retail and service providers and make necessary changes in product functionality. For instance, features such as non-complexity in the Unified platform, ease of use capability etc., are incorporated based on customer feedback. Our recent launch of RealPresence CloudAxis is developed on customer needs.

This is an innovation where the product extends the RP platform to provide B2B and B2C experience. The solution enables external/internal users meeting on a bridge from Web, Mobile, Desktops and rooms. It also provides host portal for adhoc/scheduled meetings pulling social contacts. RealPresence will enable a two-way communication process and two ways a host can initiate a call. This is made possible using the email address of the user they want to invite and using imported contact information from Skype Gtalk, Facebook.

The unique part is that via the CloudAxis, any known or unknown user can join via web browser to any Polycom EP and infrastructure inheriting 20+ years of interoperability and codec quality.

How do you ensure that such an integrated platform is risk free?

There are three types of security measures we address when we develop a solution and extend to the end user. We tighten the security at the access level with encryption and a stringent password enabled mechanism. We use various cryptographic tools from Symantec, AES and other security vendors. We prescribe stringent mullti-tenancy policies for branch offices. For HR and marketing teams, we create a separate traffic and bandwidth platform to generate information.

How are your customers leveraging new functionalities and how do you differentiate yourself?

We have a huge customer base globally and a good number in India, spread across almost all industry verticals. From a market positioning standpoint, as per Frost & Sullivan'sVideo Conferencing Endpoints & Infrastructure Market in India CY 2011" report that came out in H2, 2012,Polycom leads the video conferencing systems and infrastructure market in India with 50.2 per cent market share in 2011. Since we are a pure play unified communication vendor, we collaborate with various vendors to created interoperability labs for audio and video and address every end-point. We help customers in their investment protection plan on using office productivity tools.

We have recently launched advanced innovative video capabilities in our Telepresence solution in collaboration with AT&T. This is a cloud-delivered video communication model enabling customers to collaborate in any manner. The Real Presence Platform is a comprehensive software infrastructure for universal video, on-premises or in the cloud collaboration, inter-operating with the broadest set of applications, devices and network protocols. Some of the new capabilities that customers would leverage from the collaborated platform would be:

• New on-demand virtual meeting room capabilities that increase customer choice through expanded interoperability
• Flexible and easy-to-use video collaboration experiences that deliver a lower total cost of ownership
• New forms of collaboration with business customers, partners and suppliers on the AT&T Business Exchange.

Telepresence Solution customers will now have access to a range of Polycom RealPresence video solutions offered in 40 countries--including immersive and multipurpose rooms and personal systems--as part of a managed service bundle. This approach helps customers reduce their capital expenditures by providing the video equipment as part of the managed service for a monthly fee, while also helping to reduce the burden on internal IT resources, leaving customers more time to focus on business-critical activities.

The network will carry Polycom video, voice and data communications including access to the AT&T Business Exchange to and from over 80 locations around the globe, including Polycom customer experience and briefing centres.

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