Inherited a mess - how can I consolidate?

[mvalpreda]

Apologies in advance as I am not well versed in telephony. The vendor of record has gone kaput so trying to assess what is in place, what should stay, what should go, what can be easier, etc.

I have a customer with a couple of locations. There is still a decent mix of IP and digital handsets. Trying to see if this can be cleaned up/consolidated as I feel there is way too much Avaya equipment for a company with ~600 users/extensions. I don't believe anything is under support contract nor has been upgraded to latest software/firmware in years.

Main location
[ul]
[li]G450MP80 with MB450, S8300, 3x MM712, 4x MM717[/li]
[li]G450MP80 with MB450, MM710, 2x MM712, 5x MM717[/li]
[li]5x G700 media gateways populated with different number of MM712s and daisy-chained to each other (hard to get exact figures as there is ZERO cable management and it is cascading spaghetti soup)[/li]
[/ul]

Secondary location
[ul]
[li]G450MP80 with MB450, 8x MM717[/li]
[li]G700 media gateway with the controller? (upper left) MM711, MM712, MM717[/li]
[li]G700 media gateway with the controller? (upper left) S8300, MM712, MM717[/li]
[li]G700 media gateway with the controller? (upper left) MM712, MM717[/li]
[/ul]

Questions
[ol 1]
[li]If I replace all the digital phones with IP phones, will I be able to get rid of all the chassis that are purely there for digital handset connections? I can imagine I need to have a G450 with the S8300 and the incoming PRI (MM710 I assume) and have an analog card for fax or other analog lines.[/li]
[li]If I have another location come online, I will need a G450MP80 at the new location if I want any analog lines correct? Does that chassis need the S8300?[/li]
[/ol]

We are talking with a vendor, but I'd love some unbiased answers/opinions.

 

[phoneguy55]

Looks like you can consolidate, I would start by getting rid of all the digital and replace with IP phones. Then you can remove all the G700 as they are end of life anyway. Leave the G450's but put more then a single MP80 in them. Ideally 160 or 320. Run your list measurement reports to see what your using. If you have local trunking then an MM710 or a few per site + an analog card. New locations will get a G450 if you need local trunking and/or analog. S8300 at remote sites are needed if you want survivability. If you have a good WAN its not necessary. A software upgrade is probably a good idea as well as I'm sure its very old and unsupported. I would also replace the S8300 at the main site with dual HP servers. This will add to stability and make software upgrades less impactful as you can upgrade the standby, interchange, and then upgrade the new standby.

 

[mvalpreda]

Thanks for that. I have been reading and think that the server-based approach is going to be more sustainable. We have a good Hyper-V cluster, so that would be nice and stable. We do have a pretty good WAN with both a point-to-point layer-2 connection and site-to-site VPN.

I am concerned about having EOL equipment, is there a path to something else? IPO 500v2?

 

[kyle555]

You can bring a new location on with G430 or G450. The S8300 would just be for failover, so it's not required.

Do a list conf all in CM. I'd be curious to see if all the gateways are there with phones programmed on them.

Either they doubled in size in the last 10 years warranting the G450s on top of the G700s or someone sold them entirely new kit to replace the G700s and never removed them.

In any case, you can get G430s (3 slot) with 2 EM200 (2 slot each) to get up to 7 slots. You can add DSP to them if needed. The only difference between that and a G450 at that point is the dual power supply option. And a G430 with a single PSU is better than a G700 with the same single PSU that's probably 10-15 years old.

I wouldn't replace to IP500 - while it can support the digital phones, you'd need new digital modules that are specific to the IP500.

IP Office might be a viable option if a system upgrade is coming and if they're so out of contract on CM that there's no spiff to stick with it.

IIRC, with IPO, if you keep it to SCN on IP500 and digital modules, you don't need user licenses. You need user licenses if they have IP phones or if they go on Server Edition.

Either way, if all the ports on your digital modules are used, you're well north of 500 digital ports not counting the stack of G700s. So for a 600 person company, that's not crazy.

Do you know what release of CM you're on? list conf soft.

 

[NewNic]

As well with the G430/G450 you can use the SLS (Simple local Surviviablity) with out adding a LSP/8300 to it. Its a bit of a pain to set up , but for simple surviveablity it works, and is inherent