Local Australian Government Department

Client

An Australian government department that is focused on industry and environmental development. Their key objective is to serve the local community by developing well-connected communities, preserving the environment, supporting industries, and contributing to a strong economy.

The department has multiple offices and teams across the country, working on long-term planning, assessments, infrastructure priorities, natural resources, the environment, energy, and growing local industries. They specifically work with the community, businesses, and local government to create places for their community to live and work, developing smart ways to support innovative and thriving industries.

Opportunity

Since experiencing a significant drop in the use of now-legacy video services, such as Cisco VC bridges and MS SFB Video meetings, because of staff working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the department needed to consolidate all outdated virtual meeting spaces onto a single user-friendly platform. They required the enabling of a Cisco video environment to operate seamlessly with Microsoft Teams and to provide a better end user experience for their multiple staff members. There was a need to provide a solution for the provision of CVI video interoperation services to allow traditional video conference end points to participate with MS Teams meetings.

The solution needed to cater for 120 unique video endpoints each month, most of which needed to join virtual meetings from their own laptops or mobile devices and needed secure access and the ability to join MS Teams and, additionally, have the corresponding web access to do so.

Solution

To help the department find a solution to meet their unique requirements, Outcomex strategically leveraged Microsoft and Cisco as the video call control platform, which enabled their staff and customers to collaborate seamlessly, both internally and externally. We delivered Cisco Meeting Service, enabling the video interop between Skype for Business and Cisco.

We deployed Cisco CVI, which is Cisco Webex Video Integration for Microsoft Teams – a Microsoft Certified third-party solution based on Cloud Video Interop (CVI) for Microsoft Teams. As other third-party software clients are not supported, using Cisco CVI will enable Cisco Webex Rooms and SIP video conferencing rooms or personal video devices (VTCs) to join Microsoft Teams meetings easily.

Cisco CVI provides a SIP dialable address that is hosted in the cloud with a service in Microsoft Azure, enabling connectivity to the department’s MS Teams tenant. The department’s video endpoints can join a Microsoft Teams meeting by either manually dialling into the provide SIP address and entering the VTC details or use the One Button to Push (OBTP) to simplify the joining experience to a MS Teams Meeting. By adopting MS Teams video calls as its key video communications method, and through the enablement of CVI, all of the devices of the department will be able to connect to MS Teams seamlessly.

The department’s video endpoints will then be onboarded into the Webex control hub for cloud awareness. This means that the Webex Control Hub will monitor any meeting invites in Office 365 resource mailbox of the video endpoint. When there is a meeting found, the Webex control hub will push the details onto the video endpoint to present the one button to push functionality for staff. This will make it easier for staff to join any virtual meetings as they simply need to press the ‘join’ button to connect to any of the MS Teams meetings.

MS Teams as a single video backend will reduce the number of systems that need support, and:

• Provide a single video back-end for simplified use
• Remove the need for complex on premise technologies
• Drive a return on investment in MS Teams, while still maintaining a Cisco investment for future innovative projects through a refreshed video endpoint deployment using Cisco instead of Microsoft Teams Rooms

The department’s video endpoints will continue to be registered to the Cisco Call Manager solution on-premise and operate as it is with the additional capability of joining a Microsoft Teams meeting. When their video endpoints joins a Microsoft Teams meeting, the traffic will traverse off the network via the existing expressway cluster that has been deployed.

Additionally, we provided the Cisco Call Manager Enterprise Agreement (EA). This simplifies license management by consolidating multiple subscriptions and renewal dates normally to a single agreement with unified terms and conditions. Essentially, making an easier software and services management agreement for the department.

Technologies used

• Wireless & Networking
• Collaboration
• Cloud Services
• Networking

Impact

By providing the collaboration tools and solutions required by the government department, they have the assurance that their staff will be able to connect securely from their devices remotely, or on-site, but also ensure that visitors have easy access. With the implementation and deployment of MS Teams as their core video communications method, the department has retired expensive, hard-to-manage on-premise video back-end, such as CMS VC bridges and SFB Video Calls.

They are now able to connect approved users to their network, to gain visibility into every user and device accessing their network, and grant permissions based on staff roles and requirements. Outcomex’s role was significant, helping the department create a secure remote workforce and streamline all virtual video platforms into one consolidated solution.

The departments collaboration systems now allow for effective cost-savings, and ensure their team stays connected digitally in a user-friendly, virtual environment.