This document is published in the Battlebox.


Telephony BCP

What to do in certain scenarios to keep the LiveWest telephony working even if only for Customer calls to CSC.

We have lost Claranet (Connection to the Internet):

If we lose Claranet we lose all telephony as all SIP trunks route through.  This includes Mitel and Teams.  For CSC calls we can re-route the 0300 number and the 0845 number using MyInbound (0300) and Inbound architect (0845).  These should be re-routed to somewhere that can take 100 calls per hour, e.g., Mango. Calls to 01934526000 can be re-routed by request to Claranet… this should only be considered in the event of a long outage.

For all standard numbers, they will not function until the network is up.

If Claranet is partially up (the MPLS is working) then internally Mitel will continue to function.  Teams will work if you have a connection to the Internet but not telephony.

We have lost Claranet (Total loss):

In this situation the Mitel system would be dead.     Re-route as above to external, e.g., Mango.  Teams only requires an Internet connection so can work without Claranet but there will be no Telephony.

We lose the Claranet Cloud (Mitel service):

Mitel will be down.  We will need to re-route all calls via Teams plus provide a simple CSC service with Teams Call groups.

We have lost Skypark

Total power outage.  Mitel will pretty much continue to function.  Some account mods will need to be made and voicemail will be down.  Teams will continue to function with an Internet connection but with no telephony.  In theory the SIPs into Skypark will be diverted to run over the other SIPs for both Mitel and Teams but this has never been tested.

Loss of Windows servers.  If we have a network and clients, then theoretically the phone systems will continue to function.  We will need to make some adjustments to telephony routing on the SBCs or better still failover the SIPs to the other sites, both Mitel and Teams.   We will lose some functionality in Skypark. If the servers are down this may have side effects on the laptops that cause issues generally (and therefore to softphone apps).

Losing the Exeter VPN server will be an issue although if we still have Claranet then we should be OK. (Note: as of August 2024 we still don’t have a way to switch VPNs successfully on a Windows 11 laptop.

Losing the SBCs at Skypark will cause the SIP trunks to drop.

We have lost Tolvaddon:

Assuming in this case the CSC staff can work from home.   In theory this is fine. For Mitel, we will have to divert all calls to the other SIPs and make some modifications to Softphone setup so we can host all softphones through Skypark.

For Teams, calls should divert to one of the other SIPs automatically.  

We have lost Weston:

If we lose the Weston office, there would be no problems for Mitel, except if the agent is in the office and unable to use their computer/get into the MPLS/Internet.  

For Teams as long as we have Internet and the SBC the calls will function.

 

 

 

We Lose Active Directory:

Mitel does not use AD so there would be no issues, other than if agents are unable to log into their computer.  Teams does not rely on local AD so will continue to function.

Generally

  • The Mitel SIP are deliberately split at Gamma so if one of the hosts fails the other SIP will continue and the numbers fail over.  I have also never seen this occur and am not sure whether it would function or not.
  • We cannot rely on Mango for support unless we arrange it in advance.  They don’t normally run with the capacity (any ARC) to instantly manage a huge surge in calls.
  • The CSC will not be able to achieve very much without access to all there systems and colleagues.
  • With Teams calls (and possibly Mitel) we can, on the SBCs, redirect incoming calls to specific numbers to another solution, specifically Mitel or Mobiles).  This a manual process and would take a while to achieve, although could easily be done for specific staff.
  • The new Teams telephony uses on site SBC’s and therefore Claranet Internet.  If either of these fails then Teams telephone calls will not connect.

Support

  • Datasharp – Mitel, SIPs and SBCs.
  • Nexus – SIPs and SBCs for Teams, but not Teams.
  • Claranet – Internet, VPN and Netscalar hosting, Mitel Director and ECC primary hosting.

Future: 

Telephony via Teams with SBC(s) in the cloud.  This will mean that any issues we have will not affect the phone system (as long as it is not a Microsoft Issue).  Similarly with the Contact Centre, as long as the cloud provider remains then the system will still function for any staff member with an internet connection.  In theory this will include running the whole thing off a phone app or two.

August 2024 – Transferring all our Telephony to Vonage will mean that as long as we can get access to the internet and connect then Telephony will still work, independent of any office or Claranet.