018
Voices in the Cloud
Communications as a Service boosts phone options
he concept of cloud
computing and virtualization
has to date largely been
viewed in the context
servers, CPUs and storage
to date. Every day services that would
have been hard to imagine moving into
the cloud or being virtualized are indeed
being virtualized. The movement towards
doing everything in the cloud was really
spearheaded by the Software as a Service
(SaaS) movement. This has been followed
by applications such as hosted e-mail and
hosted document management (e.g. Google
Docs, Hosted Sharepoint.) Adoption of
services in the cloud has taken root with
the consumer side, and with consumers
becoming increasingly comfortable with the
model, they have brought that comfort in to
the business segment as well.
There have been some rapid and
incredible advancements in technology that
is making Communications as a Service
(CaaS) a reality. VoIP technology has
moved from the use of the Internet to make
PC-2-PC calls to where high-end desktop
IP phones can make High Definition (HD)
calls across private, secure, Multiprotocol
Label Switching-based IP networks. The
advent of carrier-grade softswitches has
allowed service providers the pack the power
of gigantic phone switches of the past in to
t
software based implementations running
on blade servers. These switches occupy
significantly less space, power and are built
using the latest software design principles
allowing for easy growth in scale and
functionality. Most importantly, they are no
less reliable than traditional switches. In fact,
because of their all IP design, they are easier
to deploy in redundant and scalable manner.
So, what does CaaS mean to the end
user? In the past, the office IT person
would have to get telephone lines from
the phone company, buy a PBX from the
phone vendor, install it and then perform
ongoing maintenance (or outsource it).
The maintenance would typically require
a contract with per-incident or residual
fees. Software upgrades also would need
additional dollars. The PBX would sit in
the office data room without the heating/
cooling/power redundancies found in a
carrier data center. All of intelligence of
the office communications was now in this
closet. If the facility was compromised due
to any reason (e.g. power, heat), phone
service would be down and that translates to
lost revenue—something that businesses in
this economy can ill-afford.
With CaaS, the business customer has
a new option. He can go to a service
provider and receive office phone service
delivered over a private, secure, quality-of-
service enabled IP connection with all the
intelligence of the service in the service
provider’s cloud (hosted in state-of-the art
data centers with 99.999% availability).
This enables the business customer to
completely outsource the management of
his office telecommunications. Moreover,
the leading providers in this business also
offer products that allow customers to have
zero capital expense upfront, allowing them
to preserve their cash for their own needs.
Plus, the service is monitored 24x7 and
typically includes all the maintenance. The
service also includes productivity enhancing
features—made possible by the fact that the
technology is all IP and hosted—including
integration with their smart phones and
data applications.
CaaS has matured and is here to
stay and grow with the community it is
designed to serve.
service enabled IP connection with all the
Sanjay Srinivasan is chief technology officer and head of
operations of Telesphere.
