Mitel MiCloud Edge Uses VeloCloud for SDN Support

 By Casey Houser

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Contributing Writer

Enterprise communications company Mitel (News - Alert) has announced the release of its newest software, MiCloud Edge, which takes advantage of the VeloCloud software-defined networking (SDN) architecture to give companies an easy way to handle their company networks.

VeloCloud hosts its own cloud-based infrastructure that can handle public and private clouds and quick, reliable data transfer for voice and video. Its expertise in the SDN market makes it a strong pick for Mitel, which suggested in its announcement that MiCloud could best the cost of a traditional wide area network (WAN) by a factor of three. MiCloud Edge acts as the customer-facing part of a combined service that offers simple setup of new network nodes and easy maintenance of existing workloads.

Jon Brinton, the executive vice president of the Mitel cloud division, commented on the importance of reliability for companies that make use of a WAN.

“Even with the highest performing communications and collaboration tools, businesses require a reliable and consistent network powering them,” Brinton said. “MiCloud Edge simply and cost-effectively transforms network reliability, delivering professional-grade cloud communications and ensuring business-critical applications are always prioritized.”

The promise of so-called “next generation networking,” made possible through software’s control of networking paths, has taken its hits early in the game. Like all new ideas in information technology, SDN has seen its share of trepidation from businesses, even to the point of carrying the moniker “Still Done Nothing.” The slow start for SDN, however, has helped some early adopters see improved flexibility and consistency in their networks.

That success, despite contrary appearances, is exactly the path VeloCloud has tried to pave in its own implementation of software. Now MiCloud Edge is bringing the new form of networking even further into the public eye by placing a prominent application in front of a prominent networking vendor. It is clear that Mitel believes that MiCloud Edge can automatically route voice and video in the best possible way for clients. Mitel has also said it expects the use of SDN here to lower costs for clients by minimizing the need for expensive hardware and populous IT staffs.

MiCloud Edge is now available in North America. Assuming it catches fire – just as the SDN market as a whole appears poised to do – sales could spread even further to the rest of the global Mitel base of more than 100 countries.

Mitel and VMware

Voice and data applications can now be implemented and managed on the same virtualized servers.

What used to be two separate endeavors – requiring distinct infrastructure and different skill sets – is now one unified strategy. Simplifying deployment, maintenance, upgrades, scalability, usability... everything.

“It was a big deal for us, the Mitel and VMware partnership...Their solution is stable, tested...and actually works.” --Amit Mantri, Director of Network Operations, Intrasphere Technologies, Inc.

The promise of “simply communicating” starts with a simple premise: Voice is just another app.

Mitel’s strategic partnership with VMware is the catalyst for transformation.

Together, Mitel and VMware cracked the code on how to add real-time voice applications to virtualized servers without experiencing latency issues that affect call quality.

Virtual Desktop Solutions

Our relationship with VMware continues to transform unified communications. For example, Mitel introduced a series of Virtual Desktop UCC solutions, which essentially integrates the office phone into the portable desktop.

Integrated Business Collaboration Applications

Mitel and VMware Zimbra have recently announced the integration of click-to-call, visual voicemail, and call logs with the Zimbra 8 web client.

More than 2,000 Mitel clients of all sizes have already deployed virtualized voice and are reaping the tremendous value of the Mitel–VMware partnership. This is where the industry is heading. See you in the data center.

QUALITY MAKES THE CASE FOR THE MITEL HOSTED SOLUTION

If you think your company is a good candidate for Voice over IP, an increasingly popular and effective way to save money on your telephony costs, you are probably already familiar with the concept. The benefits of pushing all of your voice, video and teleconferencing through the Internet include cost savings due to falling broadband pricing, ease of access and the ability to operate through an encrypted VPN connection for better security and control.

A hosted phone system takes the premise based equipment out of your computer room, equipment closet, or in the case of smaller organizations, basement, damp storage room or other unsuitable environment, and places it in a data center. In fact it places it in multiple data centers strategically designed to provide redundancy and eliminate failure. The connection between the phone on your desk and the "system" now goes through your broadband connection to the data center, in fact it goes through any Internet connection. Your telephone has an IP address just like your laptop, cellphone or tablet which incidentally are all components on the system, this means that you can unplug the phone from your desk and take it with you anywhere that you can connect to the Internet and plug it in and it operates the same as if it were on your desk.

So now a little about "WHY MITEL":

Mitel powers 2 billion connections every day, Mitel currently supports upwards of 1.6 million subscribers, almost a quarter of all global cloud users and nearly twice the number of their nearest competitor.

With a Mitel hosted solution you are dealing with one provider from end to end. Mitel manufactures the telephones and has 40 years of experience doing so. Mitel manufactures the system that resides in the data centers, Mitel wrote the software, owns and operates multiple data centers strategically located across the country and controls research and development. With other hosted solutions you will find a telephone manufactured by one company connected to a system that was manufactured by another company running software by yet a third party and support contracted out to a data center. That scenario can lead to an awful lot of finger pointing in the event of a problem or service interruption.

Now lets examine the benefits of a hosted solution versus premised based equipment from a service point of view; with premise based equipment the responsibility for maintenance usually falls to your already overworked IT department. The cost of this service must be covered by your organization with a service agreement or risky "time and material" based repairs. When your system is hosted there are technicians in the data center around the clock monitoring, repairing and upgrading the system as necessary.

Also remember that with a premise based system you must purchase "room for expansion" that you will not use for some period of time and when you do use it that will mean it's time for another expansion. With a hosted system you use only what you need and pay for only what you use and that is always the best way to go!

Contact us for more information.....................

The Cloud Mystery Cleared Up

What does "in the cloud" mean?

Are my pictures, files and data somehow stored in midair?

The "cloud" is simply internet connectivity to a data center where your pictures, files and data (or in our case your telephone system) are stored on computer servers in multiple data centers around the country surrounded by technicians 24/7. In the cloud makes many people nervous because they do not understand how much more secure this is than storing your data on your own computer wherever it is located.

From webopedia.com:

Cloud computing is a type of computing that relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personaldevices to handle applications. Cloud computing is comparable togrid computing, a type of computing where unused processing cycles of all computers in a network are harnesses to solve problems too intensive for any stand-alone machine.

Internet-Based Computing

In cloud computing, the word cloud (also phrased as "the cloud") is used as a metaphor for "the Internet," so the phrase cloud computing means "a type of Internet-based computing," where different services — such as servers, storage and applications — are delivered to an organization's computers and devices through the Internet.