1. Insights
I A U G
Issue 1 2012 | iaug.org
Unified Communications –
Group Collaboration
Page 12
The Official Magazine of the International Avaya Users Group
3. CONTENTS
spring 2012 | IAUG InsiGHTS 3
Insights
I A U G
Issue 1 2012
8 Moving into the Next Generation
of Collaboration
By Dan DeBacker
Avaya Technical Forum provides insight on solutions that
will move enterprises into the next generation of collaboration,
enabled with a cloud-grade network infrastructure.
12 Unified Communications –
Group Collaboration
By Dustin Donaldson
Here’s a closer look at Avaya’s web, audio and video collaboration
products, with a focus on reliability and interoperability.
14 “Going Green” Through Collaboration
By Wilson Karol
With its products and programs, Avaya is putting sustainability
into practice.
4 IAUG President’s Letter
6 From the Editor
7 Avaya Sharpens Focus
on Apps in Response
to Market Demands
18 Avaya Facilitates
Mobile Collaboration
for Enterprises With
Release of Avaya
Flare®
Communicator
for iPad Tablets
4. IAUG board of directors
PRESIDENT
Rod Sagarsee
VICE PRESIDENT
richard sullivan
SECRETARY/TREASURER
Frank Castro
IAUG Directors
Lonny Beck
Paula Brown-Hackett
brian chylik
John Gana
Jayne Hogle
Ulrich Huber
brenda nicolay
shana savell
Michael Vertefeuille
executive director
victor bohnert
4 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Insights
I A U G
Executive Editor
bill moore
associate editor
richard westlund
Art Director
William Wargo
Design/Production
rose thai
IAUG editorial board
Pete Foster
Jim Grinstead
Leif Haslund
Jayne Hogle
Christina Johnston
Holly King
IAUG Mission:
IAUG is the primary resource for
education, networking and advocacy for
Avaya’s global customer community.
C
ollaboration is a topic that is
close to my heart. After all,
collaboration is a key aspect
of our mission as a global
technology user group. Every day, our
members collaborate with each other via
email, voice, text, video and Web, sharing
ideas, discussing challenges and finding
solutions to their problems.
One of the things I like most about
collaboration technology is that it’s now
easier to meet “face to face” than ever
before. No longer do we have to walk
down the hall to a colleague’s office or sit
down in the conference room to watch the
projection screen. Instead, we can connect
with each other on our smartphones,
tablets, laptops and desktops from virtually
any remote location – as long as we have
the right tools at our disposal.
That’s why it’s so important to stay on
top of collaboration technology, which
continues to evolve at a rapid pace. In this
issue of IAUG Insights, we are focusing
on the latest developments from Avaya,
an innovative leader in the collaboration
space. One of our features covers the
challenging topic of infrastructure
integration – how to plan and implement
multivendor collaborative solutions.
Collaboration in Action:
Another article addresses the issue of
sustainability and how collaborative
solutions can support an organization’s
“green” initiatives, reducing the need
for travel, improving productivity and
reducing operating costs. That’s certainly a
winning combination for IAUG members
these days!
In our mobile world, it’s clear that
organizations will continue to move to a
decentralized approach to collaboration,
with solutions that will work on multiple
devices and platforms. This is the route
that Avaya is taking with an increased
concentration on mobile applications.
To learn more about Avaya’s collaboration
strategy as well as the latest advances in
mobile, UC, contact center, SIP and other
fields – make your plans today to attend
the IAUG Global Education Conference,
May 20-24 in Boston, MA. I hope you
will join me in Boston for this exceptional
learning experience.
Rod Sagarsee
IAUG President
rod@iaug.org
6. 6 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
FROM THE EDITOR
Collaborate Much?
A
sk the average executive how
much time is spent in meetings
every week and you’ll probably
be told “too much!” In fact,
the average executive spends 23 hours per
week in meetings and that doesn’t include
travel time to and from meeting locations.
Many studies have been done about wasted
time in meetings and the consensus is
that about one-half of all meeting time is
unproductive.
When you take into account that about
7.5 billion meetings are held annually in
the U.S. alone, it’s easy to see why smart
businesses are looking into advanced
collaboration tools to reduce time spent
in meetings while maximizing the focus
on business objectives. By reducing the
number, length or duration of face-to-
face meetings, our organizations can save
millions of dollars.
I would wager that nearly all of us are or
will soon be using desktop collaboration
tools that allow us to work closely with
an associate without having to book
a conference room, print out stacks
of documents to share and transport
everything to the meeting. With our new
tools, we can all work on documents at
the same time discuss them over an audio
or video link and produce reports or
presentations without ever having to leave
our offices.
As we move further into the collaborative
world, new tools like Avaya Flare®
allow
us to create virtual teams globally without
investing travel dollars and time out
of our offices. Document sharing and
conferencing are easily accomplished with
just a few clicks of a mouse or dragging an
icon on a screen. Our businesses become
more agile and more profitable.
This issue of IAUG Insights highlights
collaborative communications tools
available from Avaya and its business
partners. We hope you’ll find information
here that will help you assist your business
to become more collaborative.
Currently, plans are being finalized for the
IAUG Global Education Conference in
Boston, May 20-24. Our next issue will
provide you with a preview of some of the
sessions we’re eagerly anticipating at the
conference. I hope you’ll make plans now to
take part in this great educational event. ●
Bill Moore
Executive Editor
IAUG Publications
editor@iaug.org
212-708-9813
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7. issue 1 2012 | IAUG InsiGHTS 7
I
n December 2011, Avaya CEO Kevin
Kennedy announced significant
changes to our product and R&D
functions. As a result, Avaya is
reorganizing around three product divisions:
Avaya Networking, Avaya Collaboration
Infrastructure and Avaya Applications and
Emerging Technology. I have the honor of
leading the latter function, which combines
our former Unified Communications,
Contact Center and Emerging Products &
Technology groups.
This realignment of resources points toward
an increasing emphasis on applications.
Why are we moving in this direction?
It’s what Avaya users have been asking
for. In recent years, corporate users have
become more vocal about the applications
that support their work. In fact, the
“consumerization of IT” trend is having
a significant influence on our product
development, as corporate users increasingly
drive the adoption of consumer-oriented
technologies in the workplace.
Context-driven communications is another
good example. We live in an increasingly
mobile world where the lines between users’
work life and personal life are blurred. The
importance of the user experience is growing,
regardless of what device or application
is being used. As users move from one
environment to the next throughout the
day, they often move from one device to
another and from one software application
to another. Context-driven communications
provides the means by which we predict
which information is relevant to you –
for example, contacts, calendars, emails,
documents and calls – and ensure that this
information is at your fingertips as you move
from one device or application to another.
It helps users enjoy a consistent experience
regardless of where they are.
Another related concept involves cloud-
based or data center-based services that
keep those user experiences up to date and
synchronized. Such capabilities will help
users move from one location to another,
whether it’s between calls or in the midst
of calls. New applications and services,
such as enterprise short voice and video
messaging, will allow users to communicate
faster and more effectively, using a
paradigm that’s more like SMS text than
email or voicemail.
Bringing such capabilities to market in a
timely manner requires superior research,
development, product management and
delivery. This is why we are bringing
together the R&D capabilities of Avaya
Labs, our Emerging Products & Technology
team and our Unified Communications
and Contact Center lines of business. We
are creating an environment where we
can move much more aggressively from
ideas that are in research into testing and
validation with beachhead clients, and then
driving them into business unit applications.
In these ways, Avaya is focused on
delivering a consistent, extraordinary user
Avaya Sharpens Focus on Apps
in Response to Market Demands
experience across our different products
and applications. My commitment to you
is that our applications are going to make
your own employees dramatically more
effective in their internal collaboration
and increase the efficiency with which you
communicate with your customers. Not
only will the products and applications
themselves be better integrated and more
seamless in their operation, but the way
they are packaged and delivered to you as
end-to-end solutions will improve. ●
Brett Shockley
SVP
Corporate Development
and Strategy
AVAYA NEWS
8. 8 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
T
he North American 2012 Avaya
Technology Forum was held
February 6-9 in Orlando, FL. This
first annual event showcased the
brightest and the best technologies Avaya
has to offer. The three-day experience
centered on the Avaya Networking vision
and strategy, and featured subject matter
experts from Avaya providing insight on
solutions that will move enterprises into
the next generation of collaboration,
enabled with a cloud-grade network
infrastructure. The EMEA 2012 Avaya
Technology Forum will be held in Lisbon,
Portugal March 19-22. The following
provides a high level overview of Avaya’s
networking strategy.
Avaya VENA: The Avaya
Virtual Enterprise Network
Architecture
In today’s fast-paced environment, CIOs
are focused on saving money, enabling
new revenue streams, increasing customer
loyalty and creating competitive
differentiation. Further, customers are
asking for unique solutions tailored to
support their specific communications and
collaboration requirements. However, the
data network along with the applications
and services running on it are viewed
more as a necessary evil than a tool to
achieve these goals. The deployment of
applications, stability of the network and
the time it takes to make changes can drag
on for weeks or months or longer. The
network and the applications/services must
be leading the business and not lagging
Moving into the Next
Generation of Collaboration
FEATURE
News from the 2012 Avaya Technology Forum
9. issue 1 2012 | IAUG InsiGHTS 9
behind it. In the end, we must optimize
worker productivity for the enterprise
to become more competitive and more
profitable while at the same time reducing
cost and improving operational efficiency.
Avaya is focused on addressing these
needs with some of the most competitive
products and solutions in the industry.
The Avaya Virtual Enterprise Network
Architecture (VENA) is a revolutionary
end-to-end virtualization framework that
simplifies enterprise networking across the
data center, the campus and the branch.
The concept of “fabric networking” will
become a critical business success factor
to quickly and easily deploy advanced
business collaboration applications,
be it virtualized or not. Avaya VENA
incorporates proven and emerging Avaya
Networking products and functionality as
the architecture continues to mature and
evolve. By creating an open networking
infrastructure, Avaya also empowers
enterprises to incorporate third-party best-
of-breed technologies and thereby create
solutions that offer performance, scalability
and resiliency.
Avaya VENA empowers the enterprise to
create the private cloud, which will:
• Optimize business applications and
service deployments in and between
data centers and campuses
• Reduce costs and significantly improve
time-to-service by securely and
efficiently auto-provisioning network
connectivity between end users and
their applications
• Reduce risks for the IT department by
simplifying provisioning and policy
configurations, reducing network
redesigns, and providing streamlined
tools for network management
Avaya is committed to offering
unparalleled levels of simplicity around
virtualization and collaboration. Our
goal is to provide “Fit-for-Purpose”
networking that will redefine the IT value
proposition and offer a superior return
on business communication systems
investments. At the same time, we are
creating a next generation architecture
to support advanced capabilities and ease
the deployment of advanced business
collaboration applications.
Avaya VENA: The Dynamic
Data Center
Today’s enterprise data center network must
be flexible, less tree-centric and able to
support sustained east-west flows between
multiple servers/storage, in addition to
traditional client/server transactions.
Factors driving the transformation of
enterprise networks include the transition
to composite application architectures, an
adoption of business operations intelligence
applications (based on communications-
enabled business processes and complex-
event processing) and an increase in live
virtual machine migrations. With each
factor creating a unique challenge for the
data center network, ranging between
sensitivity to latency and loss, increased
traffic levels with the deployment of
technologies such as VDI and risk of
extended saturation of the common I/O
connection, what’s required is an agile,
latency-optimized networking solution that
delivers exceptionally high performance.
Avaya VENA offers the capability to
create a virtualized data center backbone
within or between physical data centers
via the virtual services fabric. Ethernet
switching products, such as the VSP 9000,
VSP 7000, ERS 8800, and ERS 5000,
are critical components for this long-
term architecture, along with software
capabilities such as Avaya’s Switch
Clustering and IEEE 802.1aq Shortest
Path Bridging. Add to this innovative
network management solutions in the form
of Avaya Configuration & Orchestration
The network and the applications/
services must be leading the business
and not lagging behind it. In the end, we
must optimize worker productivity for the
enterprise to become more competitive
and more profitable while at the same
time reducing cost and improving
operational efficiency.
Manager (COM) and Avaya Virtualization
Provisioning Service (VPS), and the
enterprise can implement an end-to
end-network virtualization solution. The
architecture helps eliminate the human
error factor by significantly reducing the
number of configuration touch points.
It also offers added security with traffic
separation and granular control over
applications and services, and most
importantly provides a migration path
from the existing network architecture to
the virtualized environment in the most
non-disruptive manner possible. This is
accomplished by running the virtualized
environment in parallel with the existing
environment (on the same switching
hardware) or by simply bookending the
existing infrastructure.
The virtual services fabric is powered
by an innovative, next-generation IEEE
Ethernet protocol classified as 802.1aq,
more commonly known as shortest path
bridging (SPB). Essentially a replacement
for the spanning tree protocol (STP)
and other point technologies, SPB’s real
value is its ability to enable unparalleled
flexibility when building, deploying
and managing Ethernet networks. A
natural evolution of Ethernet, SPB is all
about efficiency, virtualization and ease
of use. Minimizing complexity while
delivering vastly more functionality and
flexibility, SPB eliminates the need to
manage IP subnet overlays and/or to
provision complex topologies of tagged
trunks between switches. With SPB, new
network services are provisioned at the
10. 10 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
edge of the fabric and associated with a
virtual service network (VSN) that offers
traffic separation and an enhanced layer
of security. Traffic in one VSN is totally
segregated from traffic in all others. This
is especially important when centralizing
services into the data center, such as
Avaya Aura® and the need to create a
resilient SIP core. Geographic redundancy
is achieved seamlessly, and network
administrators now only need light touch
or even automated provisioning at the
edge of the fabric for new applications
and services. There is no need to redesign
or make any configuration changes to
the core. This simplified provisioning
greatly reduces the time-to-service and
the potential of the human-error factor
by eliminating a significant amount
of manual configuration. Decreasing
the configuration burden and reducing
errors, this model for simplified endpoint
provisioning leverages a proven carrier-
grade link state protocol to automatically
and instantaneously build the logical,
optimized topology between access points.
With SPB, you choose your migration path
and pace. By doing for next-generation
networks what the virtual machine did
for server virtualization, SPB enables truly
powerful and dynamic networks that are
easier to plan, build and run.
Avaya VENA: Extending to
the Campus and Beyond
Avaya continues to extend the private
cloud infrastructure further out into the
enterprise network. Presently, the virtual
services fabric can be easily extended to the
campus core and distribution layers. In the
simplification of the infrastructure.
Devices and users are fully authenticated
and automatically provisioned into the
appropriate network(s) based on device
and/or user. This accomplishes two major
goals – first, ensuring an increased level of
security, knowing that every device and
every user is authenticated; and second,
easing the use of corporate owned-assets
as well as supporting the ever-growing
BYOD initiatives. Avaya’s Identity Engines
network access portfolio provides the
tools needed to make full authentication
a reality in a simple and cost effective
manner. A centralized policy engine
can now control access to the network,
whether wired, wireless, local or remote.
Appropriate policies can be applied to
the network based on authentication and
these policies can adapt based on corporate
policies and rules.
Enabling the mobile workforce is another
imperative for all enterprises. Delivering
applications and services are not restricted
to the wired desktop, and therefore the
infrastructure must support real-time
By creating an open networking
infrastructure, Avaya empowers
enterprises to incorporate third-party
best-of-breed technologies and thereby
create solutions that offer performance,
scalability and resiliency.
near future, the private cloud will include
the edge closet and the remote/branch
office. The benefit of the cloud extension
will be a consistent and simplified
network infrastructure that optimizes
traffic separation and supports business-
grade mobility. It will also reduce the
configuration touch points in the network
and create a self-aware infrastructure that
no longer requires manual provisioning for
access, quality of service or security.
Plug-and-play provisioning of end points
in the network adds to the overall
applications for both wired and wireless
that are seamless to the end user. The
Avaya WLAN 8100 wireless networking
portfolio is changing the landscape for
802.11 networks with the introduction
of split-plane functionality that separates
the control plane from the data plane
and creates a truly unified wired/wireless
infrastructure. Couple this with new
network virtualization capabilities, and
Avaya will future-proof the WLAN
infrastructure to handle the next generation
of traffic that will be SIP-based and create
significantly more peer-to-peer, real-time
traffic across the enterprise network.
Branch office connectivity will also evolve,
becoming a transparent connection
from the campus. The same services that
appear for a user in the campus must also
appear at the branch, while providing the
same quality of experience. Extension
of the cloud to the branch will make
application and service delivery simple
and effective. Converged functionality of
unified communications (UC) and business
collaboration will necessitate a move to SIP
and further simplify the overall network as
this backend infrastructure will live within
the virtualized data center backbone.
Wired and wireless services will continue
to unify at the branch and the convergence
of services into a single platform will drive
total cost of ownership (TCO) lower while
offering more functionality.
With the Virtual Enterprise Network
Architecture, Avaya is improving network
uptime by delivering the infrastructure
that creates the private cloud and nearly
eliminate user-error network outages.
We are reducing the time to service with
simple one touch provisioning and we are
improving network efficiency with a tighter
integration between applications and
network virtualization and we are reliably
connecting users and content, with the
lowest TCO in the industry.
Bottom line...with an Avaya data network,
you get more IT work done for every dollar
you spend. ●
Dan DeBacker
Director
Networking Solutions Architecture
Avaya
ddebacke@savaya.com
11. connectcommunicate
collaborate
IAUG Global Education Conference
May 20-24, 2012 | Boston, MA
John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center
Keep your business connected and gain the knowledge to achieve maximum results
from your Avaya solutions at the IAUG Global Education Conference.
To learn more about the International Avaya Users Group or to register,
visit www.iaug.org. Register by March 31, 2012 and SAVE!
Conference Partner Follow us:
Product demonstrations
New technologies
Solution providers
Access to industry leaders
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Roadmaps
Peer-to-peer networking
Comprehensive learning
Innovation
Investment opportunities
12. 12 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
COVER STORY
Unified Communications –
Group Collaboration
T
o increase user productivity
with communication tools that
enable group collaboration, you
might explore items such as
instant messaging, audio conferencing,
web conferencing and possibly video
conferencing. These solutions are typically
multi-vendor, which means it takes a bit of
planning and research to make sure they
will integrate into your infrastructure. To
help with this task, the focus of this article
will be on Avaya’s web, audio and video
collaboration products, with a focus on
reliability and interoperability.
Avaya Has Consolidated
onto Single Platform for
Audio, Web and Video
You may be familiar with Avaya Meeting
Exchange, Avaya Web Conferencing
and maybe even Avaya Video, but maybe
you aren’t up to speed on Avaya Aura®
Conferencing? Actually, you may know
more about Aura Conferencing than you
think. Here is why. Avaya’s conferencing
solutions have made a significant, and in
my opinion an under-appreciated, move
to a single platform. Avaya has combined
the Avaya Meeting Exchange audio bridge,
Avaya Web Conferencing and Avaya Video
Conferencing into a single platform that
can run on a single server. This platform is
known as Avaya Aura Conferencing. This
single server approach allows you to easily
deploy on-premises audio-only conferencing,
then trial any combination of audio, video
or web conferencing at your own pace. You
can start with the Avaya Aura Conferencing
audio bridge in a single server configuration.
You can then enable a few trial users for
web and/or video conferencing and judge
the benefits for yourself, in your own
environment. I think this is a great move
and my hat is off to Avaya for this one.
Aura Conferencing and
Server Virtualization
Avaya Aura Conferencing leverages
the enterprise class, make that carrier
class, Meeting Exchange audio bridge
technology. In fact, Avaya Aura
Conferencing has almost all of the features
of Meeting Exchange, with the exception
of some advanced operator features,
which likely don’t apply to your enterprise
needs. The same applies to the imbedded
Avaya web conferencing and Avaya
video conferencing: These three mature
solutions are leveraged by virtualizing
them onto a single platform. Isn’t server
virtualization great? Virtualization of these
13. issue 1 2012 | IAUG InsiGHTS 13
mature products makes the complete audio/
video/web solution, feature rich, reliable
and much more affordable, especially
when considering server deployment and
maintenance costs.
Outsourcing vs. On-Premises
If you are outsourcing your audio and/
or web conferencing, you should take
a look at the ROI of in-house Avaya
Aura Conferencing. As collaboration
technology has matured and server
virtualization has become the “norm,” the
typical conferencing ROI has swung from
outsourcing to on-prem. It is likely in your
financial best interest to explore the ROI
associated with bringing your audio and
web conferencing back in-house. As a plus,
you will be able to integrate your on-prem
solution more tightly into your business
applications and processes. If the solution
is outsourced (in an external cloud), it is a
bit trickier to link the external platform to
your internal systems.
Integration with
Third-Party Applications
What if you choose a non-Avaya web
conferencing system and still want to
leverage the strengths of Avaya’s audio
bridge for the more frequent, larger audio
conferences? Maybe you decided on a web
conference system such as Adobe Connect,
or IBM/Lotus Sametime Web or Microsoft
Live Meeting? Did you know you can still
integrate the Avaya Aura audio bridge with
the non-Avaya web solution? Integrating
the multivendor conferencing systems can
enhance your UC solution by leveraging
the strengths of your vendors, rather than
making compromises by going “all-in” with
one vendor.
Integration with Your
Desktop and Smartphone
Avaya Aura Conferencing integrates with
your Outlook calendar to enable you to
schedule an Avaya conference when you
create an Outlook calendar appointment.
This integration allows your attendees to
just click a link to join your conference.
In addition to this, Avaya is working
on an advanced desktop integration
leveraging the ACE platform. This ACE-
based solution will extend the desktop
integration beyond Outlook to include
Microsoft Lync Presence/instant messaging
integration. This enables you to turn an
instant messaging collaboration session into
a multiparty audio/web/video collaboration
session, directly from the lync client. Stay
tuned for some exciting announcements in
this area.
A Tip for Verizon
iPhone Users
Because Verizon does not allow cellular
data during an iPhone call, you can only
join the audio portion of the meeting
from your Verizon iPhone. You cannot
join the audio and web portion at the
same time. However, you can work around
this limitation by connecting to a wifi
network. Here is a scenario: You join the
Collaboration technology has matured
and server virtualization has become
the norm.
audio portion of the call from your iPhone
while you are on the road. Keeping your
eyes on the road. When you arrive at a
safe spot with wifi, you can put the call on
speaker, press the home button and click
the web conference link from the calendar
appointment. The web conference will
display on your iPhone (via the wifi data)
and audio portion of the call will continue
uninterrupted via cellular.
Please keep in mind that it is probably
illegal, not to mention detrimental to your
health, to watch a web conference on your
smartphone while driving.
Emerging Collaboration
Technology
A collaboration discussion wouldn’t be
complete without taking a look at
emerging technology.
Avaya Web.alive certainly fits this
category. Web.alive is an innovative,
radically different approach to
collaboration. It mashes up traditional
PowerPoint-like presentations with
interactive communications in a 3d
environment that is difficult to appreciate
until you experience it. Avaya plans to
add video (and MAC support) to the
environment in spring 2012. So if you get
the urge to take an avatar out for a stroll
through a virtual learning environment,
check out http://avayalive.com/tryit.
I hope you found this information
useful. If you have any questions or need
personalized help, feel free to reach out. ●
Dustin Donaldson
dustin@spscom.com
Virtual Number:
(973)852-7282
14. 14 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
FEATURE
“
G
oing green” is a phrase that
has grown exponentially
in public awareness here
in the United States and
throughout much of the world. A simple
example is how one or both of these words
popped up nearly every other commercial
break while watching Monday Night
Football last fall.
Why has the importance of green/
sustainability increased significantly in the
corporate space? There are a number of
reasons, including:
• Shareholder interest: According to
research by Ernst & Young, the number
of corporate social responsibility (CSR)
related shareholder proposals rose
from 150 in 2000 to 191 in 2010, with
proposals in 2010 receiving an average
voting support of 18.4 percent of votes
cast, vs. just 7.5 percent a decade earlier.
(Ernst & Young).1
“Going Green” Through Collaboration
• Visibility: Climate change is a
mainstream term and, no matter your
beliefs on the topic, it is clear that the
impacts of climate and extreme weather
events have gained tangible traction in
the public consciousness. According to
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the U.S.
(just one country) sustained 85 weather-
related disasters between 1990 and
2010 that had damages of more than $1
billion each.2
• Energy consumption: According to the
International Energy Agency, U.S. energy
consumption has more than doubled since
1960 and global primary energy demand is
projected to grow by 1.6 percent per year
on average between 2006 and 2030 – an
increase of 45 percent.3
• Consumer preferences: The Nielsen
Company found that 83 percent of global
online consumers say that it is important
that companies implement programs to
improve the environment, but only 22
percent say they will pay more for an
eco-friendly product.4
Sustainability @ Avaya
The call to action for corporate
sustainability at Avaya is clear. As a large
global employer and a provider of enterprise-
class collaboration solutions, we are well
positioned to have a positive impact on both
sustainability and energy reduction.
Along with our broad base of customers,
as exemplified by the International
Avaya Users Group, we have witnessed
the increasing importance of corporate
sustainability along economic,
environmental and social dimensions.
These topics are of utmost importance
to many of you and we at Avaya ensure
that our own employees understand and
participate in our sustainability journey.
15. issue 1 2012 | IAUG InsiGHTS 15
This article gives a short history of the
sustainability program at Avaya, then
delves into our products and closes with an
example of sustainability in practice.
History
Avaya’s sustainability program has been
evolving and growing over the last five
years or so. It started with a number of
colleagues who were passionate about
the environment, which precipitated the
creation of a green core team dedicated to
driving efficiency through our operations,
reducing waste and ensuring that Avaya
was a responsible participant in the
environments and communities where
we operate. This team was volunteer-
based, with members taking on this role in
addition to their normal job responsibilities.
Over that first period, customer interest
in this space increased significantly, with
growth in both the quantity and depth
of inquiries from customers. Recognizing
this interest on the part of these essential
stakeholders, the green core team
expanded its reach, bringing in more
members from other parts of the company
and expanding its work and ambition.
Examples of this expansion include the
creation of a robust system for responding
to queries embedded in Request for
Proposals (RFPs) and the leveraging of
freeware software to capture the first
carbon footprint of the company.
As the scope of the program grew, the
sustainability program and green core
team transitioned to a second phase, as
the company brought in a subject matter
expert to work on these issues. Coinciding
with the Nortel Enterprise Solutions
purchase, a sustainability business leader
was hired to run the global core team
and push the program forward. This work
brought even more areas of the business
into the program and the global core team
has more than 20 members at this time,
with representatives from Environment,
Health and Safety, IT, HR, PR, Marketing,
Customer Support, Sales, Government
Relations, Services, Supply Chain,
Packaging, Real Estate/Facilities and
Employee Communications.
In the last 18 months, Avaya has won
awards for its sustainability work at the
2010 Vancouver Olympics, expanded
its carbon and energy program to
be recognized by the EPA Climate
Leaders program, and gained Energy
Star recognition for its Basking Ridge
headquarters. Additionally, we have sought
to make the program more transparent with
our stakeholders, such as the International
Avaya Users Group. Leveraging a number
of modes of communication, such as
Twitter, blogging and traditional media
outlets, we sought to share our journey
toward a more sustainable company, which
includes recognizing that there is still much
work to be done.
Sustainability Through
Avaya Products
For years, we have designed our products to
use less and less energy as a very tangible,
easy-to-understand, total cost of ownership
(TCO) play in the market. This strategy
reduces energy costs to run the product and
the subsequent cooling costs to remove
the heat the products generate. This
trend will continue. Several months ago,
Avaya launched a new suite of Class 1
POE IP telephones – Class 1 is the highest
energy usage designation. With the high
multiplier of phones in an installation, this
product enhancement is a very significant
sustainability story.
Products That Reduce Travel
In addition to ever increasing pressure to
become more sustainable, global businesses
are under increasing pressure to become
more economically efficient. A key expense
driver is the cost of business travel. Products
and solutions that eliminate the need for
travel while enhancing collaboration within
businesses without sacrifice are highly
sought after. Solutions from Avaya have
significantly bridged the gaps of yesterday’s
solutions, and, with these advances, it
becomes more difficult to justify the cost
and inconvenience of travel.
Products That Reduce
Resource Use
The direction of our portfolio minimizes
the use of our precious resources through
both reuse and efficiency. The Avaya
Aura® architecture seamlessly integrates
with our heritage equipment, eliminating
the requirement to conduct a rip-and-
replace upgrade in many instances. Avaya
Aura is also fit-for-purpose, being very
mindful of the deployment and operational
cost of server deployment. In fact, in
certain instances, an Avaya installation
requires 60 percent to 80 percent less
hardware than comparable solutions
from our competitors. This is achieved
through a centralized deployment that is
not only more energy efficient through
less cooling and power, but also simplifies
administration and ongoing maintenance.
Philosophy in Practice:
Digitization of Collaboration
We have also made significant investments
to drive the macro trend of digitization
of collaboration. The focus of these
investments is to offer simplified, seamless,
powerful and natural collaboration among
groups and teams of people across an
enterprise. To allow people to collaborate
quickly and efficiently from their workspaces
16. 16 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
anywhere in the world, we leverage
technologies such as high-definition video,
low bandwidth encoding, instant messaging,
and contextual collaboration.
We see a continual evolution and
progression in the migration to the
remote collaborative workspace in all
aspects of our lives, and Avaya is driving
this in the enterprise. In a world with
rising populations, constrained resources,
and volatile fossil fuel prices, none of us
can afford a ‘business as usual’ attitude.
Advanced collaboration solutions offer
higher productivity while using fewer
resources. A key enabler to this vision
is the standardized Session Initialization
Protocol, or SIP. SIP makes conversation
the centerpiece of the connection; whether
it is between two people or a large team.
Different communication modes, such as
video, can be easily added. Private sidebar
conversations across a continent are as
natural as leaning over and whispering
to participants in the next chair. This
enterprise-class, SIP-based collaboration
will fully unlock the long-promised
migration from physical to virtual meetings.
This transition will provide the opportunity
for productivity increases, reduced travel
expenses and tangible savings in energy.
Product Spotlight: web.alive
As background, Avaya web.alive™ is a
software service that provides an enterprise
ready, network secured platform for assisting
e-commerce, learning/training applications
and collaboration. Avaya web.alive allows
users to engage their audience in a virtual
space while allowing fluid and natural
communication and collaboration. With
a feature set designed specifically for the
enterprise, Avaya web.alive integrates
with a company’s existing network, security
and business software tools in order to
enhance communication, collaboration
and employee/consumer engagement.
What makes Avaya web.alive green?
The first aspect of the green credentials
in the migration to the digital realm
comes from savings that can be realized
by reducing office space. Office space
energy consumption really adds up,
especially considering that folks generally
work between 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a
week. Unlike physical conference rooms,
virtual ones do not require traditional
utilities (e.g., heating, cooling, lighting).
The second is that of avoiding business
travel. The Avaya Global Green Core
Team members work in locations across
the world; Tel Aviv, outside of London,
Denver, New Jersey, San Francisco, etc.
The cost and carbon footprint of getting
those people all in one space would be
huge. The virtual world of Avaya web.alive
can replace meetings that might otherwise
have been conducted face to face.
Philosophy in Practice:
Optimizing Operational
Energy and Sustainability
Strategies Internally
Equally important to Avaya is maximizing
energy efficiency in our own operations, a
key component of our overall sustainability
Key Avaya Sustainability Statistics
• Avaya Aura: 80% of your servers can be virtualized via Avaya Aura
Virtualization technology
• Tolly validated that Avaya VoIP solutions (gateways, servers, IP Phones) use 45%
less energy, produce 45% less CO2
, and lower electrical expense by 45% vs. Cisco5
• Avaya Video Conferencing Solution: 33-42% less bandwidth than competitors.6
Bandwidth = energy.
• Teleworking @Avaya: 13% of the company works remotely from virtual offices
and, in a survey conducted in 2008, we found that 46% of our employees worked
from home at least once a week
• Avaya Carbon Reduction Commitment: Reduce energy consumption and GHG
emissions by 15% by 2015 from a 2009 baseline
• Roughly 30% reduction in number of Avaya Data Centers from 2008
• More than 3,000 EPEAT Gold Certified and Energy Star qualified PCs distributed
in FY’10
• Packaging: Reduced 6.3 million square feet (585,000 square meters) of corrugated
fiberboard, 16.5 tons or 188,000 cubic feet removed from waste stream since
beginning of 2009 and reduced the volume of ocean containers and truck trailers
used by 19% from 2009 baseline
program. Avaya seeks to live the
sustainability ethos as we continue on our
journey to become a more environmentally
friendly company. A key component of that
journey is a complete understanding of our
carbon footprint, which captures in a single
measure our company’s energy and resource
usage. Historically, it has been difficult to
compile data from across the company in
a standard way, and even more difficult to
effectively analyze the data and derive an
action plan to drive efficiencies. A classic
example in a large tech company, and one
that we have certainly seen, is the diffuse
ownership of labs and data centers. With
this ownership, and its related data spread
across multiple organizations, getting
actionable data information into a single
environment can be very powerful. We
anticipate significant energy savings from
the holistic data that we are able to both
drill down as well as report at the executive
level. After all, a kilowatt or dollar saved
from IT efficiencies delivers the same result
as one saved from real estate.
In 2009, Avaya set a corporate goal to
reduce our carbon emissions by 15% of
our 2009 baseline by 2015. This goal is
expected to positively impact both the
environment and Avaya’s bottom line.
17. issue 1 2012 | IAUG InsiGHTS 17
The complexities and the breadth of
the challenge required us to establish an
expert partnership, and we are proud and
delighted to be working with a best in class
third-party carbon and energy management
service provider, Hara, for our carbon
management system.
Our global carbon management system
combines data from across our worldwide
operations, both at the facility level and
for our business travel. This aggregation
across various data sources provides
the company with an overall view of
its energy and resource consumption,
greenhouse gas emissions and
environmental impact. The solution will
enable Avaya to manage and optimize
further reduction strategies supporting
our 2015 goal. For 2010, we were down
2.4 percent from the 2009 baseline,
while reducing electricity use (the largest
input to our carbon footprint, by far) by
around 8 percent. On the reporting level,
we have automated previously manual
processes such as our annual Carbon
Disclosure Project submission; thus,
saving time and ensuring a consistent,
accurate report.
Conclusion
Avaya stands firm in our commitment
to help our customers meet their
environmental responsibilities, and we are
dedicated to continually improving the
sustainability of our own operations.
I hope this article can serve as an
introduction to the Avaya Sustainability
program to the International Avaya Users
Group. You are critical stakeholders for
the company and I imagine many of you
share my passion for the environment. It is
my pleasure to share the work that Avaya
is doing on its own journey toward a more
sustainable future.
Interested in learning more? Check out
our website, add the sustainability section
of the Avaya Connected Blog to your
internet reading or follow us on Twitter
at @greenavaya. I personally invite you
to reach out to me directly as well at
wilsonko@avaya.com. ●
Wilson Karol
Sustainability Business Leader
Avaya, Inc.
wilsonko@avaya.com
Sources
1
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/
CCaSS_social_environmental_risks/$FILE/
CCaSS_social_environmental_risks.pdf
2
http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=6668
3
http://www.eia.gov/state/seds/
4
http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/
us/en/reports-downloads/2011-Reports/nieslen-
sustainability-report.pdf
5
Modeled User Configurations for 400, 1,500,
4,000 and 10,000 Office Users testing Avaya 9608,
9611G, 9621G and 9641G IP Phones http://tolly.
com/DocDetail.aspx?DocNumber=210143
6
Avaya 1000 Series Endpoints, Internal
Avaya Research
18. 18 IAUG InsiGHTS | issue 1 2012
W
ith the recent release
of Avaya Flare®
Communicator for
iPad tablets, Avaya has
broadened the next-generation user
experience delivered on the Avaya Desktop
Video Device (ADVD), to include the
market-leading consumer tablet. Avaya
Flare Communicator provides mobile
workers with secure, next-generation,
unified communications and collaboration
capabilities over both wi-fi and 3G networks.
“With Avaya Flare Communicator on iPad,
enterprise users have a seamless mobile
collaboration experience that integrates
various methods of communication all at
their fingertips,” said Rich Costello, senior
research analyst, Unified Communications,
IDC. “As the mobile workforce continues to
grow, applications like Flare Communicator
ensure that the tools they use simultaneously
provide the consistency and flexibility needed
for these workers to be truly effective.”
By delivering the intuitive graphical design
of Avaya Flare® Experience —“spotlights,”
media menu, notification bar and contact
cards— Avaya Flare Communicator
for iPad Device provides a new level of
collaboration for users. The Avaya Flare
Experience and ADVD recently received
the 2011 Product Innovation Award for
Global Videoconferencing Endpoints from
Frost and Sullivan.
Avaya Flare Communicator for iPad
tablets is enabled by the Avaya Aura®
unified communications architecture,
which delivers integrated applications to
a broad range of fixed and mobile devices.
Now, Avaya has taken secure mobile
collaboration a step further by making
the Avaya Flare Communicator a free
download from the Apple App Store.
Additional consumer devices and operating
systems will be supported later this year.
“Avaya Flare Communicator combines
Avaya’s software engineering expertise
with all the strengths of the iPad tablet,”
said Dr. Richard Mendola, vice president,
Information Technology & CIO, Emory
University. The result is great voice quality,
high reliability and a beautiful user interface.”
Avaya Flare Communicator provides
employees and their companies with the
following capabilities:
• View the availability of enterprise
associates from the contacts card and
simply tap a single location to launch an
instant message (IM), voice call or email
• Manage two simultaneous voice calls
using the iPad while mobile
• Multi-task on the iPad tablet while
communicating, e.g. read email, attend a
web conference and use the iPad browser,
and attend a voice conference call and
IM, or use other productivity applications
• Search the corporate directory and
add associates to the Avaya Flare
Communicator contacts fan for easy access
• Engage in secure communication and
collaboration remotely using wi-fi
hotspots or 3G connectivity
• Reduce mobile expenses by using the
data channel and avoiding roaming
charges while traveling across different
cellular networks
Avaya Facilitates Mobile Collaboration for
Enterprises With Release of Avaya Flare®
Communicator for iPad Tablets
Businesses with Avaya Aura 6.1 or later can
obtain up to 50 Avaya Aura client access
licenses at no cost to connect users to Flare
Communicator during an introductory offer
from January 24 through April 30. Also,
a new Executive user Add-on promotion
offers 60 percent savings on the regular
U.S. list price and includes: Avaya Aura,
Avaya Aura Conferencing, Avaya Flare
Experience on the Avaya Desktop Video
Device, Avaya Flare Communicator
for iPad and services. The promotion
is available from February 6 through
September 30.
Finally, the Avaya Mobile Collaboration
Pack includes Avaya Aura, Avaya Flare
Communicator for iPad for 50 users,
Avaya one-X® Mobile for 50 users plus
implementation, training, along with 1 year
support and upgrade subscription.
To learn more, visit avaya.com. ●
AVAYA NEWS
19. IAUG Welcomes These 2012 Star Partners
Interested in learning more about the IAUG Partner Program?
Contact Jim Conlon, IAUG Director of Partner Engagement at jconlon@iaug.org.
