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4 Steps to Unified Communications
Villanova University's Stephen Fugale talks VoIP migration
11/1/2007
The task force took the eight remaining RFP responses and went out for a "best and final offer," said Fugale. Then those finalists came on campus to make formal presentations. That's where the final decision was made.
"The final presentations really showed you the companies that understood our requirements," he said. "They understood higher education and Villanova, understood what we were trying to accomplish. They could show a fairly detailed implementation plan. That was a striking differentiator in the finalist presentations."
Avaya was the vendor left standing.
At $3 million this project wasn't a paltry win. In fact, Fugale said it was one of the larger RFPs circulating in the Philadelphia area for the last 12 to 18 months. Avaya's portfolio of products for the sale included Unified Communication Center, e911, Call Center, Computer Telephony, and Interactive Response.
But Avaya didn't win it alone. It worked in partnership with Extreme Networks, which would provide switches for the network upgrade, and Empire Technologies to act as the reseller. Avaya was no stranger to the campus either. Villanova was an Octel customer, which happened to be the voice mail product that Avaya sells. Plus, it has a strong relationship with Meru Networks, the wireless access point provider the school was working with for its wireless rollout.
During the entire evaluation process, Fugale said, the triad worked "hand in glove. They knew our campus. They knew all 50-plus network closets."
Step 3: Prepare, Train, Deploy and Cut Over
It took 18 months from the time the task force was formed to the day when Fugale went to Villanova's president and board of trustees for final approval. The actual deployment of the system went blazingly fast. The equipment arrived in a pod, "preconfigured remotely, then configured further here," said Fugale. During the same period, the network closets underwent their upgrades with rack and switch installations. The school placed its core communication servers in two locations for redundancy.
The current environment was frozen so the new system could be populated from the old one; and 5,000 new phones were distributed.
In the meantime, training had begun. That consisted of providing on site classes with an Avaya trainer, as well as making videotapes of her sessions available via the Web. Paper materials were also made available. Following deployment, the trainer returned for additional sessions. IT staff received more extensive technical and administrative instruction.
The cutover was planned for July 4, 2007, involving the efforts of 40 to 50 people from the school's IT crew and Avaya and Empire. They worked from building to building, starting with the most pivotal ones--the health center, the president's office, public safety. By the following Saturday, it was largely finished. Said Fugale, "It was fairly flawless."
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