Case Study I-3 • The VoIP Adoption at Butler University 151The IR team considered leasing the new telephony
system, but after analysis chose to purchase and finance it
in-house by redeploying the monthly fees they had been
paying for the Centrex solution.
Butler’s business model for its original data network
replacement investment was a three-year funding plan.
However, given the change from an outsourced telephony
solution to an in-house solution that depended on the data
network, there would have been a lot of risks if Butler con-
tinued on the three-year implementation plan for the data
network. Instead, Butler decided to compress its three-year
network replacement project into one year, using the bulk
of their allotted funds at the beginning of the project to
reduce the total implementation time.
After the new telephony system was chosen, Butler had
to select a vendor to supply local voice circuits. Another RFP
had to be initiated for the circuits, and the decision was made
to change to a new voice carrier, Time Warner Telecom. The
university negotiated the installation of two independent
communication links to the campus, and Berbee helped split
the new telephony servers between two campus locations—a
capability not possible with traditional PBX systems. A total
of 17 Windows servers ranging from Call Managers, to an
E911 Emergency Responder, to a Call Accounting Database
server, were implemented between the two onsite locations to
provide backup and disaster recovery capabilities. The
Berbee InformaCast software would make it possible for
university-wide alerts to be made in audio and/or text,
simultaneously or by zone, within seconds, to all IP phones.
The new focus became deploying a single network
that would continue to provide reliable service for voice as
well as provide more reliable services for traditional com-
puter applications. Butler already had the necessary fiber
backbone in place but needed to replace selected old wiring
with new Ethernet cable. Improvements in the new con-
verged network, such as installing an uninterruptible power
supply (UPS^6 ) in all network closets and replacing old
wiring, would now benefit the new telephony system as well
as aid in the support of the traditional data network services.
Contract work began during the holiday break, and
the contracts were signed in mid-January 2005.
Additionally, the department accelerated the pace on the
network replacement project and began to implement new
routers and switches across campus. To mitigate the relia-
bility risks of the new system, the new network design
included more segmentation, protections such as intrusion
detection, and quality of service (QoS^7 ) levels. With
functions such as QoS levels—new for Butler—the network
would be able to logically separate traffic on the converged
network to protect voice transmissions from other traffic,
including malicious activity. New monitoring tools would
be incorporated in the VoIP system as well to observe where
calls were originating and going, and to measure the quality
of calls placed through the university. This would help the
IR group pinpoint where problems were occurring and help
them manage the network in order to provide a level of
quality for voice communications similar to what was
traditionally provided via old-style analog lines.Implementing the VoIP System
The number of people formally involved in the project
quickly began to increase. Berbee assigned a full-time
project manager to the Butler project in January 2005. The
director of network and systems, Joe Indiano, would serve
as Butler project coordinator and play a key role by ensur-
ing integration with other existing systems. The CIO
would serve as project sponsor and had the role to elimi-
nate roadblocks within the organization and to facilitate
communication between key stakeholders in the university,
such as the deans and other vice presidents. The CIO
would also need to communicate the strategic vision of the
project and address any concerns that staff, faculty, and
student users had with regard to the new system.
The newly formed IP Implementation Team included
other key IR personnel as well—telephony staff, network
engineers, PeopleSoft developers, and help desk staff, as
well as Butler’s Facilities Management staff to help with
the logistics of the installation. A majority of the IP
Implementation Team members were from the implementa-
tion partner, Berbee Information Networks with Cisco staff
helping as needed. Additionally, Berbee Information
Networks’s security practice was engaged to ensure that the
new network design would allow data and voice traffic to
coexist but with telephony servers that were protected from
student desktops and outside security threats. While not
anticipated at the beginning of the project, it was also
decided to keep the Dietrich Lockard Group consultant on
the team to ensure that Berbee and Cisco implemented a
system with all the items defined by the RFP and vendor
contracts. Lastly, some 18 students were used to help with
the testing and rollout.
Through this implementation, not only were data
and voice network technologies converging, but also the
former data and telecommunications personnel that had
previously worked in separate units were merging:You have to keep in mind that convergence within
the project not only refers to the convergence of
technologies but also the integration of processes
and people as well. When you have voice and data(^6) Uninterruptible Power Supply provides a backup power supply for a
cable voice adapter and the telephone attached to it. [Cisco]
(^7) Quality of service is the set of techniques to manage network resources.
[Cisco]