LCS Quick Start Service
Making the most of communication, collaboration, convergence
BT’s Quick Start service is a set of engagements
that will enable you to deploy Microsoft
®Office
Live Communications Server 2005 (LCS) into your
network, providing an enterprise-grade, real-time
communication solution for your organisation.
At the end of the service you will have complete
visibility of your existing environment’s adaptability;
a comprehensive view of the technology available
to deploy new capabilities; and, having worked
with BT, the reassurance to introduce new server
capabilities to your network that will deliver
the benefits of innovations in converged
communications.
LCS Quick Start is a structured engagement provided by BT that takes you through the stages necessary to understand your existing infrastructure environment; plan and design new system requirements; and set out the necessary rules for future system management.
Why use the Quick Start service?
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Accurate, upfront planning reduces the risks of infrastructure deployment and minimises impact to your organisation.•
Investing upfront allows for reductions in the longer-term costs of deployment.•
Short but concise workshops cover thenecessary elements and remove the problems of long, expensive consultancy engagements.
Quick Start provides you with the necessary technical advice that puts you in a position to be able to make firm decisions about, and the confidence for, starting deployment.
Using a modular approach the key areas include:
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Assessment of the benefits and goals of introducing Microsoft Office LiveCommunications Server 2005, through to providing a detailed implementation plan.
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Auditing of the current infrastructure inorder to establish the required changes.
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Comprehensive system designs thatclearly maps out how Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 will integrate into your infrastructure.
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Planning of the necessary education and management required for future maintenance.•
Detailed listings of the most suitable components needed for the most efficient outcome.How Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 facilitates collaborative working:
About Quick Start
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Stage 1: Overview
The starting point for the exercise, the overview section allows for the full vision and scope of the project to be established. Examining the benefits of introducing Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, it identifies the desired goals and out-comes, the success criteria, the potential risks and establishes likely timescales.
This is perhaps one of the most important stages: as a general rule, projects that run into difficulties do so because they were not fully scoped out in the first place; or additions are made to the plan that were not considered in the planning stage.
Once the roles and responsibilities have been allocated, the next steps for the project are laid out and the Quick Start workshop moves to the next stage.
Stage 2: Existing environment
In order to consider the implementation of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, how and where it will fit into your existing infrastructure needs to be identified.Therefore, stage 2 produces a clear picture of the existing environment within you organisation. The information concerning the existing environment enables Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 to be planned in through system design.Network infrastructure: Where are the users, where are the servers and how do they connect?
Server infrastructure: Identifying Active Directory, Domain Name System (DNS), Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and group policies. Application infrastructure: What clients are running on desktops and which
applications are being run on the servers; what, if any, presence aware applications are being used?
The process
The 5 stage, modular approach of the LCS Quick Start service allows for a
complimentary set of stages that link together in the most efficient way.
Stage 3: System design
A system design is unique to an organisation, each with their own way of working and specific needs. However, the topics covered in the system design stage have been put in place to cover the main elements relevant to any infrastructure.
Users: Defined users, usage model and user groups.
Active Directory: Selecting Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 and Active Directory topology.
Server roles: Front and back-end servers, Standard or Enterprise edition, Archiving servers, Director servers and Access Proxy servers.
Servers: Their location and connection.
Performance & availability: Resilience, capacity and disaster recovery. Connectivity: Considering remote access, federation and
Public IM Connection (PIM).
Security: Setting group policy for clients and authentication, monitoring and regulatory compliance.
Complimentary products: Components including anti-virus, Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), audio and video, multi-party video and telephony integration.
Deployment options: On-site, managed service or hosted by BT. Migration tactics: Detailing the deployment and migration tactics for
Stage 4: Planning for management
This stage looks at the necessary operations and support options required for deploying and running Microsoft Office LiveCommunications Server 2005 within your infrastructure. Ensuring the correct proce-dures are in place is critical to the successful deployment of such enterprise solutions.
The planning for management section will identify any new administrative roles and how they will integrate into existing monitoring environments and practices. In turn, this will identify where training and educational resources will be required for both the implementation and operational stages.
The final stage covers all loose ends by resolving any outstanding issues that may have arisen. All references are logged, and information and links provided on relevant documentation used through-out the process or that may be of further use.
The overall aim behind the Quick Start service is to rapidly be in a position to make actual decisions and begin the process of deploying Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005. The process is designed to be complet-ed in 5 days, making it an efficient method for you to cover the necessary planning of such a deployment.
The outcome
Stage 5: Review and feedback
Ultimately you will have:
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A system design, specific to your organisation, that is the basis for deployment activity.•
A test plan to use in order to ensure the system design is watertight.•
A comprehensive list of componentsrequired to make deployment possible.
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Reassurance that, having worked withBT’s Microsoft trained consultants, you are fully equipped to drive through the changes.
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Knowledge of where and how you may wish to engage BT for assistance with the actual deployment.Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 provides a manageable and scalable enterprise-grade real-time communication solution for your organisation. Extending from the same Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE)-based indus-try standard platform as Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003, LCS 2005 will enable better business by allowing you to share presence, instant messaging (IM), and real-time communication capabilities with partners, customers, and suppliers.
Key benefits are:
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Microsoft Office Live Communications Server helps your organisation increase individual productivity using presence, Instant Messaging (IM) and real-time communication capabilities such as voice, video, and data collaboration.•
With LCS, you can add real-timecollaboration capabilities and presence, enabling higher productivity from users' favourite Microsoft Office applications.
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Presence information from the servercan also be integrated into productivity applications and enterprise line-of-business (LOB) applications.
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Allow person-to-person communication across your organisation without expensive business travel or costly phone bills. Microsoft Office Live Communications 2005 Server can help you dramatically reduce your operating costs by using pres-ence and IM to replace some travel and long distance or international calls.•
Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 enables the ability to communi-cate and collaborate with remote users, via the Remote User option, which provides security enhanced IM and presence for users outside the corporate firewall—without requiring a Virtual Private Network (VPN).•
Federation—the ability of one organizationto connect its LCS deployment to the LCS deployment of another organisation – is perhaps the most compelling new feature of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005.
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A key benefit for IT managers using Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 is the control of sensitive corporate information. When users have public IM clients at work (such as those from MSN, AOL, and Yahoo), conversations are exposed rather than encrypted. These public IM services do not provide logging or archiving capabilities, which could make it impossible to company with regulations that may require such compliance.•
Control and manage telephony functionality from the desktop. These abilities simplify the complex functions of the PBX, making them easier to use and manage.About Microsoft Live
Communications Server 2005
Offices worldwide
The telecommunications services described in this publication are subject to availability and may be modified from time to time. Services and equipment are provided subject to British Telecommunications plc’s respective standard conditions of contract. Nothing in this publication forms any part of any contract. © British Telecommunications plc 2005
Registered office: 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJ Registered in England No. 1800000
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PHME 47753
About the BT Quick Start Series
BT’s Quick Starts are concise, service-led engagements focused on key technologies, in a particular area of convergence within the digital networked economy. These technologies combine to form a wider infrastructure model, each representing significant advances and long-term efficiency for the organisations deploying them. The Quick Starts can be used as an integral part within an organisations’ roadmap along their convergence journey.BT Quick Starts enable the customer to assess, test, plan and establish the validity of each technology in manageable parts. Each Quick Start is formed of defined stages with clear outcomes and will provide the necessary information, not only for the technical aspects of deployment, but also for the commercial justification of infrastructure or network changes.
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Quick Starts help an organisation to gain a real technical understanding and an ‘action plan’ around a specific area of convergence.•
A Quick Start will help your organisation to plan how to solve a key business objective or pain point.•
Quick Starts could help you avoid big, expensive, time-consuming engagements•
Quick Starts offer real value, quickly.•
Quick Starts give you the business caseand rationale to take new initiatives and projects to other stakeholders for buy in.
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Quick Starts are a highly flexible set ofservices. By using them in combination, an organisation can deliver business value in the right area of convergence for their priorities.
Quick Start Services
Supporting convergence in the digital networked economy BT iBridge Security Healthcheck Mobile BT Web Conferencing Messaging IP Telephony Application Assured Infrastructure (AAI) Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005
What next?
We can take you through the benefits and implications that would directly affect your organisation, as well as help to build tangible examples that are more valuable to your business stakeholders.
To arrange a meeting to discuss collaborative working in more detail, contact your BT Account Manager.
