Working in a school district gives me a limited budget to build/maintain our Infrastructure. I have to weigh the expense of every service contract with less computers for student use. Shortly after I started working for the schools, I realized the saving we would receive by shedding off SmartNet on almost all of our Cisco equipment and carrying a spares. The spare option has saved us thousands in yearly service contracts over that past 6 years. Rarely do we have a switch break and when they do they are still covered under Cisco’s warranty. It just takes two weeks for the replacement switch to arrive. I also had no Cisco software assurance contracts in place for the required software updates. This allowed for us to save money year over year, but gave us an outdated system in the long run. Migrating from an out dated Cisco Call Manager CCM 4.1. We have been running our system for almost 6 years and know we need an updated system.

Investigating my phone system upgrade options. I had a few things I wanted to have fixed permanently. 1) I wanted a system that I could keep update with relatively low overhead cost. 2) I would need the same level of reliability that cisco provided. 3) The feature set would need to be similar if not better.

I came up with a few options when we budgeted for the upgrade last year.

• Migrating CCM 4.1 –  CCM 8.6 – Paying cisco
• Moving to Cisco Call Manager Express
• Alternative Phone Systems with less overhead cost.

Migration of CCM 4.1 CCM 8.6

This would the first pick, since we are running the system currently and would require the least impact to our users.

Pros

• Least amount of new hardware
• We could continue to use our old Cisco 7902 IP Phones
• Infrastructure already in place

Cons

• Upgrade license cost
• High yearly support contracts for SmartNet/Software assurance on the servers.
• Manageability of system.
• Support contracts

Migration Conclusion – 

 

Do we need to stay cisco? I began looking for other solutions that might be able to come in at a lower price for the entire replacement of the system.

Cisco Call Manager Express – Cisco smaller solution for phone systems CME is included on most routers they provide. The cisco router will manage calls, hold the config and store voicemail. This would certainly answer my simplicity needs, but will it be scalable for my network.

Pros

• Cost
• Up front simplicity

Cons

• Additional routers to support phones.

Barracuda – This product is fresh out of development. It was hard to find much information about it besides talking with barracuda. I received a demo unit and was very impressed by far the simplest phone system in a box I have used. The system is based on Asterisk an open source PBX solution.

Pros

• Cost
• Up front simplicity

Cons

• Replacement of all 7902
• Very new in the market
• Limited feature set

Barracuda Conclusion –

Avaya

Pros

• Developed system
• Cost
• Huge feature set
• Easy to maintain

Cons

• Replacement of all phones
• Redesign of voice networks for new phones.
• Price

Avaya Conclusion –