SN Power AS (www.snpower.com) invests in clean, renewable energy on a commercial basis in emerging markets. The company focuses on investments in hydroelectricity and has several running plants in the Philippines, Zambia and Panama. The company operates in Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America and has established offices in Oslo, Netherlands, Singapore, Philippines, Zambia and Panama. The company is a joint venture between Statkraft and Norfund, both owned by the Government of Norway.
With its headquarters in Oslo, many offices located around the world and a growing number of mobile workers, efficient and reliable communications were becoming increasingly more important for SN Power. The company had been using hosted Microsoft Lync unified communications (UC) services from an Application Service Provider, with additional VoIP services from a leading telecommunication company for its Norwegian users. While the service delivered much of the UC functionality one would expect from Lync, the fact that it was hosted by the service provider meant that it had certain limitations. For example, it did not allow SN Power to create its own customized dial plan. In addition, outgoing calls made through the system were charged at the telecommunication company’s mobile call rates meaning that SN Power was not making any real cost savings using Lync.
Another area that SN Power was looking to improve was dial-in conferencing. With a highly mobile workforce dispersed across many different countries around the world, the company needed a solution which would enable its employees to join conferences simply and efficiently from wherever they were. SN Power was already using Microsoft Skype for Business unified communications via Office 365 in the cloud and the most logical solution was to expand that capability to include enterprise voice for its global employees.
The new solution needed to be fully integrated with the existing Office 365 setup, offer the capability of easily hooking up with cost-effective SIP trunking services and be easy to maintain and configure.
Highlights & Challenges
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All-in-one
All-in-one Skype for Business appliance
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Worldwide workforce
Provide full UC capabilities for worldwide workforce
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Reduce costs
Reduce overall communications costs
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Simplify conferencing
Simplify dial-in conferencing for employees
"The ease and speed with which we were able to deploy AudioCodes’ CloudBond 365 was very impressive, with no discernible downtime."
Solution
Together with local system integrator, CloudPro AB (www.cloudpro.se), SN Power evaluated a number of solutions, eventually selecting AudioCodes’ CloudBondTM 365. CloudBond 365 is an all-in-one Skype for Business enterprise voice solution that comprises a full Skype for Business server implementation, Microsoft-certified session border controller (SBC) and integrated management system, all packaged on a single hardware platform.
CloudBond 365 is available in three different models to suit different customer requirements in terms of scale, functionality and connectivity. SN Power deployed the CloudBond 365 Pro Box edition which supports up to 500 users, meeting current requirements and with plenty of capacity to spare for future expansion.
CloudBond enabled SN Power to migrate its users smoothly to the new platform and benefit immediately from its enterprise voice calling capabilities. The built-in SBC functionality ensures that it could connect seamlessly with SIP trunks for incoming and outgoing calls. SN Power connected its CloudBond 365 to SIP trunks from two different providers to ensure resiliency.
Results
Thanks to CloudBond 365’s integrated installation wizard and with assistance from CloudPro, SN Power was able to install CloudBond 365 and migrate its users to Skype for Business enterprise voice virtually overnight.
“The ease and speed with which we were able to deploy AudioCodes’ CloudBond 365 was very impressive, with no discernable downtime,” said Rajesh Khanikar, Head of IT at SN Power. “We believe CloudBond 365 will help us reduce implementation and operational costs while ensuring our employees can benefit from the best unified communications experience wherever they find themselves.”
