Datek Online Holdings Corp.

Jersey City, N.J.

• Who they are: An online financial services vendor

• IT goal: Create a unified network infrastructure in a new building with IP telephony support for 1,000 users.

• Strategy: Replace Nortel Networks Ltd. PBXs with Cisco Systems Inc.'s AVVID IP telephony system and voice mail server. Implement fully redundant call processing servers, voice mail servers and gateways. Configure virtual LANs to separate voice and data traffic.

• Challenges: "We've been pretty fortunate in that we haven't had any major issues," says chief network architect Rolando Garcia.

• Results: Seven hundred employees have been using IP phones at headquarters for about one year, but Garcia left the call center running off the legacy PBX. He says he's hoping to get the call center on the IP network by midsummer.

• Benefits: "You don't need a huge room for telephony equipment," Garcia says. "This all fits into one rack vs. half a room for Nortel, [and] you can leverage the open architecture."

• Comments: "First and foremost, you need a sturdy network," advises Garcia. "If it's not stable, you'll see it right away with latency and jitter. Secondly, go in a phased approach. Try not to do the whole company in one shot."

Source: Computerworld