Telephone System Upgrades

Summary

In order to ensure continued vendor support, CCS will be upgrading various components of the telephone system which have been identified as end of life. These components include the underlying call control software, the backup auto-attendant software used at the Guelph, Kemptville and Ridgetown campuses as well as the call centre software used by a number of departments on campus. In addition to software upgrades, hardware that has been identified as end of support will also be replaced. The upgrades will also reduce operational requirements by replacing Windows based solutions with appliance based solutions (Linux, Cisco O/S) where available and reduce (if not elminate) the need for system restarts improving service uptime. Time permitting, a number of new features may also be released.

Update: Telephone Upgrades Project is now closed. Any outstanding tasks will be completed as operational tasks within the Data Centre and Communications Facilities cluster. (Friday July 22, 2011)

Update: The migration plan has now been published. (March 16, 2011)

Update: The post-migration task list has now been published. (May 4, 2011)

Important Dates:

Notes:

Recreating UserID/Telephone Association: As part of the upgrade process CCS will be synchronizing the telephone system with the central Active Directory in order to simplify the telephone self-administration process. As a result, the relationship between what userIDs are currently controlling which telephones will be lost and there is no way to export this information before hand. Part of the project will include requesting a list of userIDs from departments which are currently using the telephone self-administration features. Back to Top

Telephone Firmware Updates: Before the telephone cutover occurs, all telephones on campus must have their firmware upgraded. In some instances, the telephones will need to go through multiple firmware upgrades due to compatibility issues. The telephone firmware upgrades will happen over three days, before the start of the business day. During the upgrade process, the phones will restart, begin downloading the software, install the software and restart once more. The phones will be unavailable for approximately 5 to 10 minutes during each upgrade event. After each upgrade event some phone settings will be reset, including the missed, received and placed calls log.  NOTE: On-campus calls in progress will not be interrupted during this process, however, calls to/from off-campus may be interrupted as the off-campus telephone gateways are also updated. Back to Top

Telephone Change Freeze Window: In order to minimize the service interruption on the weekend of the cutover, the new telephone systems will be built in parallel on new hardware. Data migration must occur at the time the systems are built. In order to minimize potential errors and duplication of effort, a telephone change freeze will begin approximately 3 weeks before the migration date. CCS will make every effort to implement any changes received before that date, however, please send any requests in as soon as possible in order to see those changes completed. CCS will continue to process requests for new phones for new faculty and staff (name changes for existing phones not included). Back to Top

Service Interruption During Upgrade/Migration Weekend: It is our goal to minimize service interruption during the upgrade/migration weekend. Closer to the upgrade/migration weekend, CCS will post a summary of the steps we will be taking and the impact they will have. As the upgrades and migration take place the status of each task will be updated. Where possible, an estimate of time to complete will be included, but since some tasks can not be tested and/or simulated before hand, an estimated time to completion may not be available. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we complete the tasks as quickly as possible. Our intention is to complete most of the tasks on the first day of the migration weekend, however, time constraints may require us to delay completion of some tasks until the next day. Back to Top

Delay in Processing Change Requests After the Upgrades: The change freeze will be lifted approximately one week after the migration date, however, you may see a delay in processing time until the Help Centre begins processing the bulk of changes requests. Before that, the Data Centre and Communications Facilities cluster will be processing requests to ensure that procedures are validated and training has been completed. Back to Top