| VoIP - most businesses plan to implement but business continuity risks not clear
VoIP is assumed by many market analysts to be the technology of the future, but have the business continuity risks really been considered? Continuity Central recently conducted a short survey to throw some light on this area. The survey, conducted throughout February, found that 80 percent of respondents either already have or plan to install VoIP solutions. 14 percent have fully implemented VoIP systems; 37 percent have partially implemented VoIP; 15 percent have not implemented it but expect to in the short term, while 14 percent expect to implement in the longer term (24 months+). There appears to be little consensus on the potential impacts of VoIP on business continuity. 30 percent of respondents thought that VoIP would reduce risks overall, with 23 percent thinking the opposite. 12 percent believe that VoIP will greatly reduce risks; 18 percent that it will slightly reduce risks. 14 percent see a slight increase in risks and 9 percent feel that risks will greatly increase once VoIP solutions are in place. 22 percent of respondents thought that risks would not change and 25 percent didn't know what impact VoIP implementation would have on their business. Continuity Central asked respondents to add some comments to explain their view on the risks of VoIP. A selection of responses are listed below: * This is an answer from one of my senior network analysts regarding this issue. There is no single thing that is going to provide business continuity and disaster recovery. Redundancy must be built into the production network so it can withstand multiple outage types. The strengths that convergence and VoIP bring are the agility and ability to recover quickly by bringing up sites fast and cheaply. It also allows you to layer in redundancy in the production LAN much easier and most cost effectively. * My own experience shows me that VOIP is prone
to: * VoIP will only be implemented as Voice-over-VPN for persons who will be required to work from home during an emergency or quarantine situation. This technology will permit the PC microphone and speakers to be used for voice communication at the same time that the PC is being used for business applications, and only one communications link is required. * As a consultant that installs VoIP and IP telephony systems, I find the biggest risk in their implementation usually comes from the customer not wanting to spend the extra money on the backup and redundancy systems. These systems are not just for the VoIP Network (i.e call manager clustering or remote site survivability with call manager express) but for the entire network, such as UPS for all routers and switches, and a proper stable routing protocol running. A VoIP or IP Telephony rollout is only as good as the network it overlays, and most of the time the existing network is vulnerable to outages. A properly designed and deployed VoIP system will give the same if not less risk due to the IP ability to find multiple paths to a given destination. In the TDM world, if a voice T1 goes down between two offices, that would usually be the end of calls, even if other types of WAN connections exist between the two points. In an IP world if part of a WAN network fails, so long as a back route is found the calls will go through (with a possible short delay for network change over), usually with no configuration to the VoIP or IP telephony system. The important message is that a properly designed and deployed VoIP can actually be more stable than a traditional PBX while still offering expanded functionality and cost savings. * Power requirements have become more important for VoIP continuity. The network now must support the entire company operations, an outage will affect more systems than prior to VoIP. A properly designed VoIP network will not create the much more risk. * I believe VoIP is the future. In the near future we should start seeing wireless technology integrating with VoIP. This is when I believe VoIP will hit the market hard worldwide. * VoIP is a backup to our present voice installation. Two call centres back each other up. If one centre goes down the other receives calls on the VoIP phones alerting team of problems at the other facility. * Currently our entire campus depends on a single PBX located in the data centre. If we lose that building or the data centre we lose all voice on the campus. Our new Cisco VoIP system is located in another building and can operate independently from the PBX and data centre. * With some companies, voice communication may be impacted in event of IT hardware outages, thus making emergency voice communications more difficult. However, if availability and recovery have been factored in at the design stage (very rare, I know) then use of alternative hard or mobile systems should mitigate. * We use VoIP as a backup to the switched PSTN. During the New York power failure, we were able to coordinate recovery with the folks in New York even though we couldn't get any calls through via cellular or the PSTN. I would never recommend using VOIP exclusively however. It's just one more layer of redundancy that has become available at a very competitive cost, although not as cheap as some would suggest. * VoIP solutions are often based on the Microsoft operating systems, and while virus writers continue to target Microsoft, there will always be a risk. For example both Code Red and the blaster viruses also attacked Cisco networking equipment, and Blaster in particular Cisco VOIP solutions - see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/32340.html * My company is a lending organisation that is divided into wholesale and retail operations. The company maintains several hundred retail operations nationwide all supported from a single headquarters location. A fear of losing voice communications has made VoIP a dirty word. And that is before the concept of recovery is considered. * Our SP can re-route inbound calls from DDI to associated mobiles or PSTN lines. I argue that this is reduces risks. * Risks may not increase or decrease but they will certainly differ compared to today’s situation. * There is some question as to whether VoIP will perform in high volume environments. * We have had VoIP for some two years now with Cisco IP Phone 7960. There is no integration with the desktop as yet. When true convergence of voice, data and video occurs then the risks will become significant because of the reliance that people will place on the technologies. Without the convergence it is just a smart phone. * VoIP technology, although saving considerable sums of money, has huge implications, as far a business continuity goes. The very fact that IP addressed voice routing is systems and networks based, means that it has an inherent single point of failure - overload, damage, or take out part of a network, and you've taken the communications system. Which is why the bank I work for restricts communications to hard wired solutions which (hopefully) have greater operational resilience. * Instead of having only data over the network we would rely on the network for voice also. If a fully meshed multi-vendors network were not established we could face once again a single point of failure. * More eggs into one basket. When voice was separate it was a separate recovery and separate resources. Now it is dependent on IP being available. Perhaps I am staid in my opinions, and once it settles down and beds in - I will feel better. * VoIP is great in a production mode. The recovery of the Call Manager has yet to be determined by Cisco. When brought up at our company they acted like it was the first time they thought about recovery. Frustrating very ‘bleeding edge’ from a recovery standpoint. Remember, VoIP requires special handsets that have approx. costs of $350 each. To leverage VoIP in recovery mode means you need to have duplicate phones in storage. * With redundancy is the right places, there will only be a short term risk increase as there is with all new systems. It is being done as a business operations improvement rather than just a BCP action and it is felt that it will increase reliability. * We used VOIP as a backup when cell phones and circuit switched services were unavailable during the NYC power outage. We continue to implement it for low priority and backup services. * We will have trouble communicating during power outages, impacting our continuity and emergency response capabilities * With VOIP, if you lose the data link you lose it all. With separate systems, you can still maintain communications. * Use of VoIP reduces our risks as it allows for simpler switching of telephone lines in the event of disruption at one of our sites. * The technology is so new that risks have not been identified. Once risks are identified, then plans can be formulated.
•Date:
27th February 2004 •Region: Worldwide •Type:
Article •Topic: Telecoms
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