Considering migrating to IP? This tool will help you understand what you need to think about.
From the business benefits, to the specific types of applications you'll be looking to deliver over the network, to how your existing infrastructure will help support your migration, the following questions identify what you need to look at before planning your migration project.
Defining your IP migration objectives and requirements
1. What business challenges are driving your research into implementing an IP solution?
- Growth/capacity planning
- Application delivery
- Cost reduction
- Improved resource utilization
- Communication and collaboration capabilities
- Internal (teams within the enterprise)
- External (teams including partners, vendors and other external parties)
2. What are your long-term goals for your IP migration?
- Application delivery over the network
- Improved network performance levels
- Improved inventory management
- Consolidation and convergence of network infrastructure
- Consolidated view of network assets
- Reduced MAC (moves, additions and changes) costs related to desktop administration
- Savings on long distance
- Core uptime improvement
- Improved network security
- Standardized network admission control
- Improved network prioritization and performance
- Increased staff productivity
- Other: __________________________________
3. What types of applications will be delivered over the network?
- Voice
- Data
- Video (conferencing and streaming)
- Conferencing and collaboration
- Thin client (distributed computing)
- Hosted IP solutions (e.g., hosted IP contact centre)
- IP data centre
- Managed IP services (e.g., IP conferencing)
4. What applications are planned to be delivered over the network?
- In the next 2 years
- In the 2-5 years
- In the 5-10 years
5. What are the desired timelines?
6. Do you have an executive sponsor for the scope and budget portion of the initiative?
7. How will the cost-benefit analysis be measured?
Understanding the current IT environment
8. What applications are currently being run on the network?
9. How many network cores are now in place?
10. What network inefficiencies have been identified?
11. How are vendor contracts currently structured?
12. Has a detailed inventory of physical and logical network components been conducted?
13. Has an IT network environment study been done?
14. Has a network performance assessment been completed?
15. Have your current and future security and resiliency infrastructure and needs been assessed and scoped?
16. What are the network administration and management resources required to support the network today?
- Resources:
- Tasks:
- Hours:
Planning for migration
17. What kind of applications need to be available from the desktop, and to which employee groups?
- Executives
- IT staff
- Field/remote workers
- Mobile workers
- Specialized needs (e.g., call centre)
- Other groups:
18. How will the network be managed?
- In-house, outsourced, managed or hybrid?
19. What are the required new Service Level Agreements and Service Level Objectives?
20. How will new vendor contracts be structured?
21. How will end-user needs be assessed, prioritized and services rolled out to them?
22. What end-user training and adoption initiatives are in place?
23. What are your desired administration and management requirements?
- Resources: ____________________________________________
- Tasks: ________________________________________________
- Hours: ________________________________________________
24. What network administration tasks will be automated?
25. Are you planning to execute a proof of concept in a laboratory environment for your critical applications and network architecture? Will pilots be conducted? If so which groups will pilot?
26. What administration and management processes require standardization?
The Bell Enterprise Professional Services group can assist you in assessing your needs, auditing your existing infrastructure, and designing a migration program that is customized to your environment.
For more information visit bell.ca/enterprise, or request to be contacted by a Bell representative at bell.ca/contact-me.