Circuits to Packets: Converting a phone system at a small college

Submitted By: wkunitz
Scheduled For: Monday @ 1:00 PM in Water Oaks I
Session Type: Session - Presentation (includes keynote & business mtg)
Target Audience: college personnel contemplating a VoIP conversion

Abstract:

In January, Bowdoin College completed a major conversion from an aging Siemans/Rolm telephone switch to a Cisco VoIP system. The paper will briefly touch on the design (fully redundant, strict firewall requirements, outfitting a second room for redundant servers) then move on to planning (information gathering, finding resources, infrastructure planning, equipment delivery, dealing with institutional calendar restrictions); explore potential stumbling blocks (anticipating resource needs, understanding technical issues relating to the differences between systems, constituencies, infrastructure issues, collateral costs, institutional politics, etc.); review surprises encountered (ranging from delayed delivery of equipment to specification snafus to licensing issues to evolving end user needs); highlight invaluable resources that turned out to be critical to the completion of the project (including technical gurus, data conversion experts, the importance of choosing the correct integrator and finding bodies to deliver, install and do post-installation support).

Presenter Bio: William Kunitz is Manager of Data Systems at Bowdoin College. He has worked there for 18 years, five years as the technical person in the Development Department; the remainder in IT, primarily supporting administrative applications. He was the project manager a year ago on a Sun-to-MS Exchange mail conversion. Failing to learn from that experience, he ended up managing the IPTel project. In his spare time, he herds cats.