eTechHelp, a global technology consulting firm and Ingate® Systems certified consultant for their line of Session Border Controllers, has completed a project for North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) implementing a secure enterprise integration of their existing Cisco Unified Communications platform with Microsoft Office 365 online in the cloud. The UC environments were Cisco Unified Communications and Microsoft Exchange Online.
NCTCOG assists local governments in planning for common needs, cooperating for mutual benefit, and coordinating for sound regional development. NCTCOG serves a 16-county region of North Central Texas, including Dallas and Fort Worth working with more than 230 member governments.
eTechHelp designed and deployed a secure integration between dual Cisco Call Managers operating in redundancy for disaster recovery purposes and Microsoft Office 365/Exchange Online for voice mail and presence. The configuration supported over 900+ Cisco IP phones in 14 remote locations all connected via an MPLS network.
All VoIP traffic between the Cisco Call Managers and Office 365 in the cloud was fully encrypted for privacy and security. The configuration utilized an Ingate SIParator® Enterprise Session Border Controller (E-SBC) at the enterprise edge to protect and secure the internal network from undesired and unauthorized SIP traffic. Since the cloud connection is over the Internet, another key function of the Ingate E-SBC is to protect the enterprise and VoIP/UC solution against theft of service and DOS attacks. The Ingate SIParator also adds privacy by encrypting the SIP signaling and media traffic from NCTCOG’s 14 remote locations that use 900+ Cisco IP phones to Microsoft Office 365/Exchange Online for voicemail and presence.
eTechHelp also installed a secondary SIParator as a failover unit in NCTCOG’s disaster recovery location in the event of a power interruption or PBX failure at the primary location. “To be able to integrate all systems and services used by NCTCOG and to meet their stringent security requirements, eTechHelp installed the Ingate SBC in this combined Cisco and Microsoft environment on the enterprise LAN and in the cloud,” said eTechHelp President Rich Garboski. “With compatibility to more than 40 PBX platforms and 80+ SIP trunking providers, the Ingate SBC is our ‘go to’ solution to connect SIP globally, to resolve any interop issues with PBX platforms and SIP trunking providers in both small and also larger enterprise environments.”
Interoperability between competing platforms can quickly escalate into a finger-pointing match. NCTCOG worked with eTechHelp to remain platform-agnostic, allowing them to leverage both Cisco UCS as well the Office 365 Exchange Online environment. The next phase of the project will include connecting Lync/Skype for Business.
“Large-scale enterprise migrations to Office 365/Exchange Online need to be seamless. Businesses minimize risk in these migrations by using proven solutions like the Ingate SIParator and a proven technology consulting company such as eTechHelp, a trusted Ingate partner for more than a decade,” said Steven Johnson, President, Ingate Systems.
eTechHelp provides outsourced consulting, project management, and implementation services for information technology, telecommunications and internet infrastructure to small, medium and enterprise businesses. eTechHelp delivers services online via our websites and offline through onsite consultants in specific geographical markets.
If your looking to deploy an integration of Office365 with your present phone system, visit our Ingate Page or feel free Contact Us at any time for a no obligations initial consultation.
