Replace Avaya CMS Supervisor with Cisco CM but keep our Avaya CM Switch

[dapetruz]

Hello,

The company I'm currently with has been fighting a battle with(Avaya) and from what they have told me, it's so costly to upgrade the CMS Supervisor application and hardware. They stated to upgrade CMS the entire switch needs to be upgraded and the cost was upwards of 5 -6 hundred thousand(large company 8000Employees). They are looking to keep our current switch and hardware but remove Avaya CMS supervisor and replace with the Cisco CM. I'm just curious what your guys thoughts are good/bad/ugly? I'll take them all. Also how would the new cisco platform negotiate/replace a skill based routing and hundreds of built vectors and VDN's?

 

[kyle555]

CMS Supervisor is a desktop application for managing your call center. It connects to the CMS server. The CMS server connects to Avaya CM, and reports on call center stuff all programmed in CM.

You're kinda stuck insofar as you can't rip and replace certain elements - its an all or nothing deal.

 

[montyzummer]

If this is the case there is a special bids process that you can utilize , if your company stipulates it is considering Cisco your avaya BP or Account manager can apply for a hefty discount.

APSS (SME)
ACSS (SME)
ACIS (UC)

 

[Stinney]

What are you running on right now?

What Avaya platform and CM?

What version of CMS?

Is the upgrade needed because it's end of life?

- Stinney
"Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est"

"To know where to find anything is, after all, the greatest part of education"

 

[dapetruz]

CMS Supervisor is a desktop application for managing your call center. It connects to the CMS server. The CMS server connects to Avaya CM, and reports on call center stuff all programmed in CM.

You're kinda stuck insofar as you can't rip and replace certain elements - its an all or nothing deal.

I've been told the same thing by our Avaya Partner. Thanks Kyle.

What are you running on right now?

What Avaya platform and CM?

What version of CMS?

Is the upgrade needed because it's end of life?

Avaya Platform System G3xV13 Software version R013x.00.1.346.0

CMS Supervisor 13.

I think the business wants to do it, to take advantage of some of the newer call center features like chatting, social media etc. I don't "belive" its end of life but I could be incorrect.

 

[Stinney]

Yeah, CM 3 and CMS 13, all end of sale and support. Your 3 releases back on CM and 4 on CMS.

If you upgrade to CM6. While I know that there is at least one person out there using CMS 13 with CM6, Avaya says it's only compatible up to CM5.0

Also if you want multichannel call center functionality like the Call Center Elite Multichannel, you would need to upgrade.

- Stinney
"Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est"

"To know where to find anything is, after all, the greatest part of education"

 

[fataldata]

We ended up buying a new CM6 and CMS with just enough licenses for our agents, we then tied the two systems together with Tie Trunks. The agents use OneXagent on CM6 in telecommuter mode which sends the voice traffic over the ties to the old CM3 extensions while utilizing the newer CM6 for call processing and call center features.

 

[dapetruz]

Yeah, CM 3 and CMS 13, all end of sale and support. Your 3 releases back on CM and 4 on CMS.

If you upgrade to CM6. While I know that there is at least one person out there using CMS 13 with CM6, Avaya says it's only compatible up to CM5.0

Also if you want multichannel call center functionality like the Call Center Elite Multichannel, you would need to upgrade.

Thanks Stinney for clearing that up. That's probably why they are pushing for this. I think the price tag we got to do a full upgrade was so insanely high that they feel we could just go to a competitor(cisco) for use in our call center, create tie-in trunks keep the switch running for our hotel phones(hospitality industry) and are back office phones. To me it seems easier to upgrade the Avaya, I know its pricey but it seems easier.

We ended up buying a new CM6 and CMS with just enough licenses for our agents, we then tied the two systems together with Tie Trunks. The agents use OneXagent on CM6 in telecommuter mode which sends the voice traffic over the ties to the old CM3 extensions while utilizing the newer CM6 for call processing and call center features.

This is such a great idea...I never thought of that! Was it cheaper this way? Do you have plans to fully remove or replace the cm3 eventually?

 

[fataldata]

Well it was around 300K for our 300 licenses but that included System Manager/Session Manager/Aura Messaging/CMS/ and duplicate CM's. This and the fact that when we purchased at 6.0.1 when Aura was not vmware compatible which it is now. So you could purchase now and only buy software if you have a VMWare environment. We have been moving our Call Centers to the cloud so we intend to re purpose the system as a replacement for our CM3.1.5.

In our deployment we used IP tie trunks which reduced our equipment cost. Can your CM3 do IP trunking?

 

[fataldata]

Oh and if I did this over again and the network is robust enough to support it I would have used the OneXAgent software in Roadwarrior mode, although if I recall correctly that was licensed differently than using telecommuter mode.

 

[Stinney]

Same licensing required for one-X Agent regardless of mode you use. It's an IP Agent 9.0 license.

- Stinney
"Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est"

"To know where to find anything is, after all, the greatest part of education"

 

[4merAvaya]

CM 3.x will work on a CMS R17. You didn't have to go as far as you did. The Avaya rep/Business Partner was looking to make some $$$$.

Kevin

http://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100170091

 

[fataldata]

CM 3.x will work on a CMS R17. You didn't have to go as far as you did. The Avaya rep/Business Partner was looking to make some

Our reason for pursuing this solution was not the same as the OP's and definitely not just to get CMS functionality. It involved a software corruption that was causing us to reboot the system on a weekly basis. The only solution provided by Avaya and several BP's was to upgrade. However your characterization of Avaya reps/Business Partners is probably spot on.

 

[jimbojimbo]

Fataklata is pointing in the right direction.

Also, you can virtualize the platform on VMware (especially beneficial if you already have a robust VMware environment in place). If you don't like that idea I would suggest migrating CMS to the Linux platform.

Move your agents to a new CM6 with CMS.

Separating into two systems provides you the flexibility to upgrade one or the other as needed/desired.

Many call centers are moving to a softphone only model. Just be sure to clearly define your desktop environment. Thin client and thick client have different challenges.

 

[dapetruz]

Thanks, virtualization is definitely a high priority for us as well. I appreciate everybody's feedback. I have a lot better understanding of the direction we "should" go.