What to Consider in Cloud-Based Unified Communications

1
Businesses should expand the access of their
collaboration and communication applications and
services so as to enable employees to be more
productive from any location and with any
devices they have. The cloud is a powerful tool
to provide Unified Communication (UC)
applications and many options now exist from
vendors who are tapping into this development.
In this basic guide, we will look at the UC
applications which are most appropriate for
the cloud and summarize the possible issues that
can arise while moving to the cloud. These can
be security, integration and enterprise support.
This guide should help you to evaluate the
providers and qualify the products and services
to short list. Part 1 What is Cloud-based
Unified Communications (UC)? Hosted unified
communications (UC), likewise called unified
communications as a service (UCaaS), keeps on
getting attractive to businesses that depend on
voice, collaboration and presence, messaging to
make their businesses click. Hosted UC has such
benefits as Low capital requirement, low total
cost of ownership and quick implementation.
2
Companies with small budgets can consolidate
their UC services cheaply by adopting hosted UC.
Some of the things that make this idea attractive
is the centralized, flexible and scalable user
management, less administrative effort, and
assured service-level- agreements (SLAs). A
hosted UC provider also provides special expert
labor that is hard for smaller companies to
attain by themselves. A good provider usually has
invaluable knowledge from handling many clients
with diverse challenges, and can utilize this
knowledge to new clients so as to ensure their
cloud adoption is fluid and profitable. Part 2
How does Cloud-based UC work? UC service
provider either leases or owns a data center from
where the infrastructure for UC hosting is
housed. The service provider keeps the data
center running by maintaining the software and
hardware, doing updates and patches on time and
performing necessary upgrades in a timely
manner. The provider also assures uptime by means
of an SLA. One of the most attractive things
about a cloud-based UC is scalability - customers
can alter the applications to access and also
the users who are able to access, as the needs
of the business fluctuate. Part 3 Features of
a Cloud-based UC Hosted UC applications comprise
voice/telephony unified messaging (UM), which
consists of email and faxing instant messaging
(IM) presence Conferencing (video, audio and
web) and social tools and content sharing. These
are all accessible through a single user
interface, either on mobile or a desktop
device. A provider may include all of these
applications or some of them and let you pick
applications or simply a single UC package. UC
applications especially video and web
conferencing consume a lot more bandwidth.
Companies with wireless networks would need to
procure more bandwidth and wider coverage for
Cloud-based UC to work properly.
3
Cloud-based UC can be integrated severally, with
many using UC system directories like Active
directory or customer management applications.
This allows the company to manage all their
business communications through a single
interface. For purposes of security, Cloud-based
UC providers usually utilize single-instance also
known as private cloud, or multi tenant
architecture. In a single-instance setup, every
customer has its own virtual instance and
on-premises applications can be integrated or
customize it as they deem fit. ezTalks is one
good example of a cloud-based UC provider
offering video conferencing, medical treatment,
online interview, customer service, etc. ezTalks
offers on-premise video collaboration option
that gives companies a flexible and scalable
solution that's customizable to their specific
business needs.
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t-to-consider-in-cloudE28094based-
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