Multiplatform case

We see a big shift in the market from standardization on collaboration tools towards the acceptance of the multi-vendor world. In other words, it needs to be easy and safe to connect between collaboration platforms. This case describes how Duppal advised and implemented a Multiplatform solution for a global organization.

Customer

A global consulting firm with 22,000 employees and 90 offices in 50 countries and regions.

Challenge

The Customer strategically uses multiple collaboration tools to support a variety of internal and external usage scenarios. Collaboration platforms in use are Bluejeans, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Customer has a mix of videoconferencing enabled meeting rooms, ranging from generic Cisco videoconferencing rooms to platform-specific Microsoft Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms. The users of these rooms increasingly encountered difficulties in starting their online meetings to a variety of collaboration platforms.

Duppal was asked to help the Customer plan for their desired multi-vendor approach to collaboration tools. This approach had to support:

• Interoperability to their top three collaboration platforms.
• An easy single tap start of the planned meetings in the Customer’s meeting rooms.
• Assist Customer with the communication of the meeting room setup to the users globally.

Solution

The solution proposed was a combination of optimizing existing collaboration platform settings, and the addition of new gateway and meeting join technology of Pexip.

• A secure integration was delivered to Customer’s calendaring environment, making sure Customer meeting data remain within the Customer environment.
• Support for internal and external meeting invites and a variety of meeting platforms was created. The room calendar is used as a source to create a simple one-touch join for any online meeting (provided a SIP dial-in address is present in the meeting invite).
• Installation of several nodes globally, to secure the redundancy of the solution.
• Customer’s internal conferencing rooms are marked trusted, and therefore are allowed to enter a Microsoft Teams meeting directly (the meeting lobby is enforced for external participants).

After a successful Proof of Concept involving offices in three regions of the Customer, it was decided to implement the solution to all offices worldwide.

Results

• A secure and very reliable multiplatform meeting environment was implemented, maximally supporting the Customer strategy to simplify meetings with external participants.
• A standardized and stress-free meeting joining experience in all (1000+) conference rooms.
• Support for a variety of meeting platforms, even beyond Customer’s defined top three.

Duppal added value

The Customer selected Duppal because of the following strengths:

• Broad knowledge of the top 3 collaboration platforms (Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams and Zoom).
• The strong relation and in-depth knowledge of the Pexip collaboration suite, the interoperability specialist among the vendors and the 2021 Challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions.
• The Customer experience with the high level of support, as Duppal is providing 24/5 global helpdesk support since 2016.