Unified Communication and Collaboration as a Service (UCCaaS) Welcome Kit

Your UCCaaS team will help guide you through the full scope of services from contract signature to the eventual implementation of your service. Below are the Verizon representatives that will be primarily working to get your service up and running.

Implementation Team

UCCaaS Delivery Coordinator

Your UCCaaS Delivery Coordinator will be your primary point of contact moving forward until the completion of your UCCaaS Implementation. At the Kick-Off call, technical details will be reviewed, project plans will be discussed and critical team members will be introduced. 

Your Delivery Coordinator will coordinate between you and the Verizon teams to:

• Execute UCCaaS SOW (Statement of Work)/SOR (Statement of Requirements)
• Manage UCCaaS deliverables
• Customer communications for project planning
• Build the UCCaaS implementation schedule
• Complete UCCaaS orders
• Administrator training and data collection coordination

Your Delivery Coordinator will work with you to establish a communication plan throughout the life of the project. Your Delivery Coordinator will help you prepare the following:

• Schedule a kick-off meeting to discuss project scope and review key deliverables.
• Create a Project Team list.
• Create, manage and maintain a weekly project schedule.
  • Project schedule will be produced in Microsoft® Project format.
• Create Verizon and customer escalation contact lists.
• Schedule and facilitate a weekly meeting via teleconference to review progress to date, upcoming events and issue resolution.
  • Meeting to include members of the project team identified by the Verizon Project Manager and customer’s project lead.

UCCaaS Engineer

The UCCaaS Engineer will be responsible for the following:

• Designing and delivering your UCCaaS solution
• Technical project lead
• Creating a Low Level Design
  • For the Low Level Design, Verizon’s UCCaaS Engineer will work with you to create a “blueprint of your UCCaaS.” The Low Level Design phase takes approximately 30 days.
  • Your approval of the low level design is required.
• Configure apps and users, as described later in this document
• System testing
• Provide Day 1 support

Customer Support Transition

The UCCaaS Customer Support Transition team will be responsible for the following:

• CAP (Customer Administrative Portal) Training
  • Pre-training platform validation and custom use-case preparation
  • Comprehensive training on the UCCaaS administrative platform
• VEC (Verizon Enterprise Center) Overview Training
  • Private session tailored to provide a solid foundation in registering, accessing & navigating the VEC
  • Providing the necessary in advance knowledge in terms of opening Repair & Service/Change tickets via the VEC
• Day 2 Support Model Training
  • Providing in depth customer preparatory education on their respective UCCaaS Day 2 Support Model processes
  • Consolidating the concept of Lifecycle Support resources i.e. spectrum of Service Assurance Teams & Service Portals
• Week 1 Acclimation Support
  • On demand personalized hands-on customer administrative support for the first post-cutover week during business hours

Other Verizon Support Functions

If applicable, there may be other support involved with your UCCaaS implementation. The following represent other support functions, as applicable.

• CPE PM - Manage CPE site surveys, ordering, shipping, CPE installation and onsite Day 1 support, as defined in a SOW.
• Verizon Field Services or TPV - On-premises site surveys, on-premises data collection, phone placement, on-site cut support, training as defined in a SOW.
• MPLS OM/PM - Manage MPLS orders/activations to meet UCCaaS implementation schedule.
• Order Manager - Your Order Manager will communicate as needed in the form of periodic emails and/or follow up calls to provide status on key information regarding the implementation and activation of your UCCaaS. The Order Manager will work all aspects of the order directly with you and will gather any additional information needed. The Order Manager will be in full communication with each other to help move your order to provisioning. Although your UCCaaS Delivery Coordinator is your primary contact for your UCCaaS implementation, you may contact your Order Manager via email or phone at any time.
• VoIP OM/ PM - Manage VoIP orders/activations to meet UCCaaS implementation schedule.
• Cross-Tower PM - Manages delivery of all the UC components, particularly where the overall solution extends into UC components beyond UCCaaS, as defined in a SOW.

Post Install/Lifecycle Team

Customer Success Specialist

• Provides resources for you to facilitate your employee end-user product education and consulting on end-user training collateral, as well as end-user awareness campaigns post-sale.
• Overall Training and Ongoing Adoption Strategy.
  • Monthly Usage Analysis Reviews (health check)
  • Ongoing Adoption Strategy to increase awareness, training, and analytics
• Validation of end-user experience and productivity gains.
• Provide consulting to help you focus on your business priorities, reduce pain points and drive toward solutions.

Collaboration Consultant/Account Team

Support customer relations, submit associated Verizon orders, provide contract management, and technical sales related tasks.

UCCaaS Service Desk

• Provide Day 2 support (service/change (ie: MACD ) and fault management).
• The administrators for your UCCaaS installation can receive Level 2 and Level 3 support from the Verizon Repair Service Desk, and Network Operations Center (NOC) in the following ways:
  • Web-based tools
  • Customer service centers
  • Expert support centers
  • Project engineers

To successfully deliver your UCCaaS, there are some activities that must be completed by both Verizon and you. Our goal is to keep you informed and aware of all the steps.

Verizon Steps

Verizon will take the following actions to provide a smooth implementation of your UCCaaS:

• Assign UCCaaS Delivery Coordinator to be your primary point of contact moving forward until the completion of your UCCaaS Implementation.
• Schedule a kickoff meeting to discuss project scope and review key deliverables.
• Create a Project Team list.
• Create, manage and maintain weekly project schedule.
• Project schedule will be produced in Microsoft® Project format.
• Create Verizon and customer escalation contact lists.
• Schedule and facilitate a weekly meeting to review progress to date, upcoming events and issue resolution.
• Coordinate with customer on tracking of orders for MPLS, VoIP, CPE and UCCaaS (as required).
• Initiate your data gathering of network, phone, and internet information required for UCCaaS.
• Coordinate project design reviews in preparation for low-level design.
• Coordinate customer’s gathering and verification of end-user/station details.
• Coordinate Verizon-procured customer premises hardware shipment, phone registration and delivery (if required).
• Coordinate test and activation plans and Day 1 activities up to hand over to Day 2.

Customer Steps

The following steps on your part will also lead to a successful and timely delivery of your UCCaaS:

• Assign a primary point of contact (POC) within your organization to complete data gathering and station review forms.
  • Primary POC should be reasonably knowledgeable about telephony.
  • If adding many sites (especially small sites), primary POC will likely need POC at each location to discuss timing and the project plan, and to help with station reviews.
  • Verizon will provide templates and assist with questions remotely.
    • If you need a resource to complete station reviews, this will be a separate engagement.
• Prepare for Cisco Expressway for Mobility Services (if applicable) Cisco Expressway is an advanced collaboration gateway that provides session-based access for remote workers, without the need for a separate VPN client. Please see the “Pre-Implementation Checklist” for an overview of Expressway requirements.
• Review your device choices with your Verizon Account Team to confirm your devices are compatible with both the UCCaaS environment and packages purchased.
  • Some devices may require a telepresence license.
  • Non-Cisco devices are supported as best effort.
• Ensure your VoIP and/or Private IP services are activated.
• Delays in completing VoIP (Delays in porting/CSRs for VoIP) and Private IP (delays in IP addressing) may delay UCCaaS implementation.

Kickoff Call

The Customer Kickoff Call is the first gathering set up by your UCCaaS Delivery Coordinator after your UCCaaS contract has been signed. The call would consist of:

• Verizon UCCaaS Project team introductions (UCCaaS Delivery Coordinator, UCCaaS Engineer, and other team members as applicable.)
• If there are other Verizon teams involved as part of the UCCaaS project team (CPE PM, VOIP PM, MPLS PM, etc), they would be included. However, not all solutions have these team members.
• Customer project team introduction.
• Review scope/solution as defined in the Statement of Work (SOW)/Statement of Requirements (SOR).
• Explain high-level project lifecycle.
• Review Verizon and Customer deliverables.
• Discuss Change Management process (changes to SOR/SOW).
• Discuss next steps (communication plans, pick dates for weekly status calls, etc).

Note: Your Delivery Coordinator will be your primary point of contact moving forward until the completion of your UCCaaS.

It is your responsibility to have a local contact to be present on the due dates provided to avoid re-scheduling and potential service downtime.

The Delivery Coordinator will participate in the Customer Kickoff Call(s) and will host additional UCCaaS calls as required to collect and verify technical details required to complete the UCCaaS implementation.

Based on the final UCCaaS order submission tasks will be systematically created and assigned for remaining implementation work.

Note: In addition to the Customer Kickoff Call, you may be invited to other product order verification calls (i.e. Access, Private IP, Internet Dedicated Service, Voice over IP (VoIP), and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) etc…). Those respective order teams will reach out to you, if needed.

Pre-Implementation Checklist

Be prepared for a successful implementation by doing the following:

• Understand your business requirements and how end users will interact with your systems.
• Review the SOR to ensure all the LAN, IP addressing and other customer requirements are complete.
• To avoid delays, have a phone vendor or someone familiar with your phone system review and complete the Station Reviews for each end user.

Note: If you need assistance Verizon can offer this service as an additional engagement.

• Provide three /24 subnets.
• Provide Site list.
• Provide capacity detail – final growth expectations with timelines.
• Be prepared to open firewalls.
• Provide Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server Internet Protocol (IP) address(es).
• Identify the Virtual Private Network (VPN) for use with UCCaaS, if applicable.
• Be sure to stay on top of VoIP and PIP deployments.
• Your account team will provide information regarding these deployments and your responsibilities.
• Delays in completing VoIP and PIP can delay UCCaaS implementation.
  • Delays in porting/CSRs for VoIP.
  • Delays in IP addressing.

Prepare to Order Cisco Expressway for Mobility Services, if applicable. Cisco Expressway is an advanced collaboration gateway that provides session-based access for remote workers, without the need for a separate VPN client. Verizon will need the following information:

• All necessary DNS and security policy information for federations
• Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) for UCCaaS server names
• DNS server IP addresses for UCCaaS servers
• Approximately 15-20 CA-signed certificates (Verizon will provide a Customer Service Representative for this task)
• You will own the configuration of DNS SRV:
  • Local internal
  • Local DNS A records
  • Public DNS A records
  • Public SRV records
• Workstation certificates
• Must purchase CMR add-on for WebEx if integrating with WebEx

Note: Not all devices work on Expressway. Please ask your Verizon Account Team for further details on supported devices.

Provisioning

Once your UCCaaS order is submitted, the provisioning of your service will occur. The activation process may vary depending on the scope of your UCCaaS.

Below is a list of the UCCaaS functions Verizon will provision for you, if applicable.

1. Call Control and/or Voice Mail and/or Presence/IM.
2. Voice on premises ISR Gateway(s) (Verizon must be provided remote access to these devices).
3. Single Number Reach (SNR).
4. Survivable Remote Site Telephony Basic-mode / Failover on existing premises router (1 per site) (Verizon must be provided remote access to these devices).
5. One remote Administrator Training Session.
6. Integration with customer LDAP / Active Directory.
7. Cisco analog / Cisco IP phones.
8. One Music on Hold (MoH) per site.
9. One Auto Attendant per site (Unity Connection Call Handler).
10. One Hunt Group per site.
11. 911 via failover ports for each site.
12. SIP Trunking via Verizon Data Centers.
13. Extension Mobility Profiles (not to include Cross Cluster).
14. Soft Client (IP Communicator / Jabber for Windows / Jabber Mobility Client / CUCILync).
15. Fax devices.
16. CER to include ELINs and CUCM Configuration.
17. CUAC Standard and/or Advanced.
18. Expressway for Mobile and Remote Access (MRA).
19. Inter-Domain Federation.
20. Off-Net Video Calling.
21. Integrated Virtual Machine Management.

For an in depth overview of all aspects of the services provided during the installation, please ask your account team for a copy of the Statement of Requirements (SOR).

For details on the above as described in the Service Attachment, please click on the following URL: http://www.verizonenterprise.com/external/service_guide/reg/cp_uccaas_plus_toc.htm

Estimated UCCaaS Implementation Timeline

There may be additional recurring tasks required for any additional sites with your UCCaaS. Some tasks may have an additional cost if outsourced to Verizon:

• Data collection, including station reviews (additional cost)
• MPLS activation
• VoIP activation
• Porting
• Phone placement (additional cost)
• Configuring devices which cannot utilize auto-registration (additional cost)
• User acceptance testing, including onsite emergency calling, per site (additional cost)
• End user training (additional cost)
• UCCaaS customized activation tasks (additional cost)
• Additional Day 1 support (additional cost other than the included 8 hours remote support)

The graphic above outlines each phase of the UCCaaS Project lifecycle.

Be prepared with your station reviews for the fastest implementation experience. A Station Review includes site level detail such as: user by user inventory of phone numbers, MAC address, package etc. You should assign a point of contact (POC) to complete data gathering and station review forms.

• Primary POC should be reasonably knowledgeable about telephony.
• If adding many sites (especially small sites), primary POC will likely need POC at each location to discuss timing and the project plan, and to help with station reviews.
• Verizon will provide templates and assist with questions remotely.
• If you need a resource to complete station reviews, this will be a separate engagement.

Be advised that when configuring the Call Manager we will work with you to configure the dial plan. However, certain elements of the call manager cannot be changed.  Intra-enterprise partitioning of the call manager cannot be supported.  However, intra-enterprise partitioning can be supported by use of the administrative portal with the call manager.  Additionally, the dial plan is an enterprise wide function and enterprise wide features such as the following cannot be changed:

• Number of digits of extensions
• 911 and emergency calling
• Route and translation patterns

Administrators can change users and devices, and within devices can change descriptions.  Features such as the following can be changed:

• Certain Voicemail elements (see the service description for specifics)
• Can change and add lines
• Can change line number
• Can add speed dials
• Can change busy lamp fields
• Can change line text labels
• Can change Caller ID

Customer Provided Device Requirements

Verizon suggests reviewing your device choices with your Verizon Account Team to confirm devices are compatible with both the HCS environment and packages purchased.

• Some devices may require a telepresence license.
• Non-Cisco devices are supported as best effort.
  • For devices that do not support extension mobility, you will be responsible for providing the device information necessary to configure the endpoint, such as the MAC address.

If applicable, please be aware that not all devices may work on Expressway. Please ensure your devices are Expressway compatible.

Preparing for the Cutover

• You are responsible for the physical placement and connectivity of the phones to the network. For phones that do not support extension mobility, you will be responsible for providing the device information necessary to configure the endpoint, such as the MAC address.
• Freezing data
  • A two-week data freeze will go into effect once completed data collection workbook is received from you.
  • No changes to user configurations or adds/deletes can be performed during implementation. Changes will be made during Day 2 as service/changes (ie: MACDs).

Operational Readiness Testing (ORT)

Upon completion of the system implementation, Verizon will conduct system testing as agreed upon in the Design Phase. This system testing is known as Operation Readiness Testing. To support this testing Verizon will create a test plan to validate that the functionality and technical requirements of the UC solution matches what was identified in the Low Level Design which you signed off on as part of the project execution. ORT will confirm readiness for migration into the production environment.

To support ORT your responsibilities include:

• Selection of site
• Feature testing as defined by Operational Readiness Test (ORT) plan. You must be prepared to make calls as part of the test plan execution. This requirement can be fulfilled by employee resources or purchased via an additional engagement.

Issues uncovered during system testing directly related to Verizon’s responsibilities will be resolved, and then re-tested. Any additional issues discovered during system testing that are related to your responsibilities will be documented and turned over to you for resolution.

Activation Date and Site Acceptance Testing / User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

Verizon will notify you when UCCaaS is ready for your use. The readiness for use date is known as the “Activation Date”. There will be an Activation Date at each site. 

You will have one business day after the Activation Date to test UCCaaS at your site. This user acceptance testing is a critical step before final hand-over. Depending on the test, Verizon may be able to perform the testing remotely and will assist where possible. However, some tests require resources on site to perform testing. This requirement can be fulfilled by your employee resources or purchased via an additional engagement.

Verizon will provide 8 hours (“Day 1”) of remote support to you the next business day after the Activation Date to help you assess and remedy your reported service issues, if any.

• Testing includes standard tests and tests customized to your features.
  • The goal is configuration testing of 10% of all phones.
  • Typically, some tests can be performed immediately after Activation and some tests can be performed during the Day 1 period, when Verizon provides 8 hours of remote support.
  • Verizon can perform some test functions remotely, if remote access to devices is made available and if the test plan supports remote testing.
  • Verizon will work with on-site personnel to complete testing. You will receive a copy of the test plan and you must perform testing with remote assistance from Verizon.
    • Verizon provided on-site testing is only available if on-site field services have been purchased. These services may be purchased via a Statement of Work (SOW).
    • If no field services have been purchased, you must coordinate with remote Verizon resources to perform final testing per site, including emergency calling testing.
      • You must emergency call test both native and ported numbers to ensure employee safety.
• All subsequent sites will follow an agreed-upon test plan prior to activation, focusing on the specific users and functionalities of each location.
• If issues are found, depending on the issue, Verizon will either resolve or refer to an alternate resource (such as recommend additional training, refer questions to account team, etc.).
• When all issues that affect overall service availability are resolved, you are ready to transition to lifecycle support.

At the completion of Day 1, the services shall be deemed accepted by you, and billing shall commence, unless you notify Verizon of any known critical issues with the overall service prior to the completion of Day 1. Individual user issues that do not affect the overall service availability will not be considered critical.

Preparing for Day 2

Your Support Transition team will provide guidance as you move to Day 2:

• CAP Training Team (Customer Administrator Portal):
  • Performs a review, and validation testing, of the Customer’s administrator portal environment as a “pre-training preparation” step
  • Trains Customer User Administrators based on a defined set of Use Cases identified for the administrative portal curriculum
  • Provides Week 1 Overlay support to the previously trained portal Administrators during business hours, after cutover
  • CAP training will be recorded, and an indexed version of the recording provided to the Customer, as a reference tool
• VEC Overlay Team:
  • Hosts a comprehensive Day 2 Support Model overview during cutover ramp up, for identified Customer Support Admins
  • Provides Week 1 Overlay support to the previously trained Customer Support POC’s during business hours
  • Day 2 Support Model training will be recorded, and the recording provided to the Customer, as a reference tool

Continue To Launch More Sites

Did you know that formalizing your rollout of UCCaaS is one of the best ways to drive better business outcomes?

Start with outcome planning – what are the goals you need to achieve a successful rollout with additional sites?

• Find an executive sponsor within your organization to drive adoption and use.
• Maintain a project plan for activations.
• Find a pilot group within your organization and support them through the following:
  • Training
  • Validating they have the support information they require
• Follow up with survey and review after pilot is complete.
  • Review the survey, metrics and feedback.
• Make project plan adjustments/tweaks.
• Evaluate against desired business outcomes.
• Launch and expand to Phase 2 with more end users.

Preparing for Lifecycle: Day 1/Day 2

Day 1

Day 1 ends when performance-impacting issues are resolved (per your contract). Following completion of the implementation phase, the service becomes operational and transitions to Day 2 managed support for the ongoing service.

Day 2

Day 2 verifies that our customers continue to achieve exceptional value with Verizon as their UC&C partner.

• Get status, 24x7, from virtually anywhere in the world.
• Save time by viewing and resolving billing, repair and service/change questions online.
• Create, view, and update repair tickets without the need to make a phone call.
• Create, view, and update service/change tickets without the need to make a phone call.

Registration is easy. Click here for detailed instructions. Or view the Verizon Enterprise Center Registration Tutorial. You will be provided with access to online billing, repairs and ordering capabilities.

For additional help or to obtain entitlements for usage of Verizon Enterprise Center tools, you can call Verizon Enterprise Center Support at 1-800-569-8799.

Using Your Service Instance ID (SIID)

In Verizon Enterprise Center you can enter the Service Instance ID (SIID) to open a repair ticket or a Service/Change (ie: MACD). A SIID is a site location identifier specific to UCCaaS provided to you by your Customer Success Specialist. You should have one SIID per installed UCCaaS location. It is important to use the correct SIID that applies to the location for which you are opening a ticket. Using the correct SIID will aid in routing and tracking your tickets. 

Opening Repair and Service/Change Tickets

You can create, view, update, and escalate tickets in Verizon Enterprise Center. 

With its direct link to Verizon back-end systems, Verizon Enterprise Center makes it easy to track and manage your tickets. Other functionality includes:

• Manage the ticketing process without calling customer service.
• Get emails or pages when certain ticket conditions occur by setting up notification rules.
• Receive standardized updates quickly without ever logging in by using “Quick Tasks” (Repair tickets only)

Once a ticket is received, the UCCaaS Service Desk owns the trouble ticket. The Service Desk will be the point of contact for updates on tickets or to request escalations.

Checking the Status of Your Ticket (Repair tickets only)

There may be instances that you need to check on the status of your ticket within Verizon Enterprise Center. The information below outlines ways to check the status.

Quick Tasks – Once a ticket is created, you can also use Quick Tasks through Verizon Enterprise Center for status updates and much more throughout the incident process.

Then, access the Quick Tasks tool by entering the 13 digit Verizon ticket number and the first 3 characters of the customer contact name on the ticket into the “PIN Code” field. For example, Lonnie from the help desk reports an issue to Verizon and opens a ticket. Jim at the site location can use the Quick Tasks tool to check the status using the full ticket number and “LON” as the PIN code. 

Automated Notifications – You can elect to receive automated notifications via email from the Verizon repair services ticket. When opening a ticket, an email address will need to be provided and you can choose to receive automated notifications on a number of different ticket events (e.g. status updates, testing results, dispatch information, or ticket resolution). You can also add contacts through Verizon Enterprise Center or Quick Tasks. 

Proactive Monitoring (Repair tickets only)

Most incidents are proactively detected and ticketed by the Verizon management systems. Whether reactively or proactively received the Service Desk will be the main POC for all tickets and ticket resolutions.

Please note: Proactive notifications are only sent for issues within the main applications (call manager, IM/P and voicemail).

You may occasionally encounter issues that aren’t detected by Verizon systems. In those situations, please report the problem using one of the methods listed.

Administrative Portal

The Administrative Portal empowers large enterprises to manage their UC services and applications, and the various disparate network elements, from a single platform. Some of the most important benefits are:

• Flexibility - Deploy the latest collaboration applications in a flexible way.
• Agility - Quickly scale to add or remove users and applications with ease.
• Security - Maintain integrity and privacy to protect your business, employees, and customers using powered cloud services based on validated designs.
• Manageability & Reliability - Reduce management complexity, retain visibility and control, and know that application services remain available so business continues.
• Productivity - Multi-level controls allow for end user self-service, enabling minor changes to be made more quickly and reducing the administrative burden on system administrators.

Important Notes:

• The Administrative Portal is only accessible on a private network; it cannot be accessed over the public internet.
• Verizon will use your private addressing space to enable Administrative Portal access.
• Please note, each customer can have no more than 35 concurrent administrative logins to the Administrative Portal (not applicable to the end user self-service portal).
• BCE (Business Customer Exemption) /CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information) must be in place before credentials to maintain security and privacy will be handed over. See “Changes to Your Service” for more information.

The Administrative Portal core functionality includes:

• Manage Users
• Add a Subscriber (QAS)
• Add a Service to an Existing Subscriber
• Voicemail PIN Change
• Call Forward a Line
• Replace a Phone
• Move a Subscriber (If applicable to your environment)
• Delete A Subscriber (2 steps)
• Hunt Groups (If applicable to your environment)
• Pickup Groups (If applicable to your environment)
• Failed Transactions

The Verizon provided administrative portal is the only administrative portal access which shall be granted.  Administrators will not be granted direct access to CUCM or other applications.

Note: See Reporting for additional detail on how the Administrative Portal can help you with site and subscriber level reporting.

Keeping Your Contacts Up To Date

It is important to keep your contacts up to date for notification about the following important events:

Service/Change (ie: MACD) Ticket and Repairs Tickets:

• Entered via the Verizon Enterprise Center for a user who has been entitled to see the UCCaaS service in the Verizon Enterprise Center.
• The Verizon Enterprise Center maintains the user’s contact details.
• If a user needs to be changed, please work with your account team to set up a new user in the Verizon Enterprise Center
• Please note that tickets called in will use the contact detail of the caller, which will not automatically be saved.

Site and Data Center Maintenance Announcements:

• Please ensure that your account team has all the correct contacts for maintenance announcements.
• If this contact leaves, please work with your account team to update your site contact so we can keep you informed of events.

You are responsible for ensuring that all systems and equipment are at the minimum revision levels that we have certified for use with Verizon’s VoIP service.

Monitoring and Management

Verizon uses world-class Unified Communications application management platforms to provide both reactive and proactive application monitoring, trouble alerting, trouble identification, trouble resolution and remediation.

The following is monitored with a default polling rate of 30 sec:

• VM health (CPU, Memory, Disk, etc)
• UC Application health (critical service crash, DB health, device registration drop threshold, media resource exhaustion, route (SIP trunk) exhaustion, license exhaustion, etc)

If a critical event is discovered (ex: High CPU, critical service crash, memory exhaustion, VM down, etc…) an alert is automatically generated. Alarms go to the service monitoring tool which automatically creates proactive service tickets. The proactive service tickets get assigned to support engineers on duty for a resolution.

Proactive notifications are only sent for issues within the main applications (call manager, IM/P and voicemail).

Patch Management

Verizon maintains overall responsibility for patching. The customer will receive security patches and bug fixes via regular periodically scheduled release management, within versions that are available and certified for use in HCS deployments. Patches will stay within current versions of certified HCS releases as a general practice to ensure that only the most secure software available for the solution is being utilized. Emergency patching will be applied as necessary. You may request a specific patch application, if required, due to a specific functionality issue in your environment, and it will be considered, but not guaranteed, for use.

There are defined operational procedures in place, and Cisco’s publically stated vulnerability policies are here:

https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/resources/security_vulnerability_policy.html#asr

Certificate Management

UCCaaS certificates were installed during the installation process process with your cooperation. To ensure your certificates continue to function properly we will periodically need your organization’s assistance to renew them. Certificates typically expire in one, two or three year intervals.

Certificates are used to validate the identity of your organization and are used to insure secure communication between devices at your location(s). Since certificates require use of your domain, Verizon is unable to purchase these certificates on your behalf. 

We will provide multiple CSRs (Certificate Signing Requests) to you whereupon you should have the certificates signed using your normal processes. Certificate signings are usually handled by the Security or IT teams within your organization. We need you to provide the email address of a contact within your organization that will be responsible for this process and we will provide these CSRs directly to this contact. You will need to pass the signed certificates back to us so we can install them within your UCCaaS environment. 

Please note, some certificates, for example certificates used with single sign on, are not exclusively used with UCCaaS or managed by Verizon.  Therefore additional customer internal steps may be required to manage these certificates.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why do I need a certificate? A certificate validates the authenticity of the servers used within the UCCaaS service architecture, insuring secure communications between devices and endpoints. Third party certificates are required for activities using encryption such as Expressway since this is further proof of the integrity of the product. 
2. What happens if I don’t have the certificates signed? If the certificate is allowed to expire, the end-user will receive a warning that their connection is not secure or is not trusted each time they log in to Jabber. While the warning message can be bypassed, this end-user experience is likely to be considered annoying and distracting by most organizations.
3. What do I need to do? Please provide the email address of a contact within your organization that will be responsible for the signing of certificates and we will provide the necessary CSRs directly to that contact. The certificates should be signed using your usual processes and then passed back to us after signing. The signing is usually handled by an IT or security technical team within your organization.
4. What will be the end-user experience when the certificates are updated in the data center?

a. End-user devices will reboot.

b. If PCs are daisy chained to the phones they will experience a very brief interruption in service but, PCs should not reboot.

c. Please note, the certificate is applied at the cluster level, so we can’t schedule how/when individual phones will reboot. However, the application of the new certificate will be coordinated with your organization to insure it is done at a time that works best for you.

d. Users who are using Jabber will have to log back in after the certificate is applied, and they will be prompted to accept the new certificate.

Please note, phones which do not have the security necessary to support a certificate would be excluded from this process. These phones will often be end of support as well.

Ongoing Capacity Management

Verizon reviews capacity across a variety of software and hardware elements to ensure optimum performance for all data centers in all regions.  Factors such as computing power (available CPUs), available storage, licenses, bandwidth, call capacity etc are analyzed to determine which factors need short and long term attention. Appropriate remediation is then scheduled and executed based upon the analysis.

Upgrades

Verizon will perform up to one major software upgrade of the UCCaaS application and features per year, if available and as specified in the upgrade SOR. Such software upgrades will be communicated to, and wherever possible, coordinated with Customer. UCCaaS applications and features versions must be kept to within 2 versions of the most current version supported by the UCCaaS datacenter (example: If UCCaaS platform is at 11.x, Customer version cannot be less than 9.x). It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that Customer maintained applications, devices, hardware and CPE are compatible with the most current version supported by the UCCaaS datacenter. If Customer does not maintain the software upgrade of the UCCaaS application and features, Verizon may terminate Customer’s Services for cause, upon written notice to Customer.

Please note that Verizon prefers to upgrade at the X.5 version of software, to allow time for early bugs and concerns to be removed.  Additionally, we test releases on internal versions of the platform prior to customer release.

Please see the “UCCaaS Upgrade Experience” deck for a complete overview of the upgrade process and your responsibilities. A simple overview of the steps required during an upgrade is as follows:

Cisco UCM implements the concept of active and inactive partitions. When performing an upgrade of CUCM, the upgrade is performed on the inactive partition. CUCM does this by copying the configuration database and applying the new version of the software on the inactive partition. This allows the “upgrade” of the platform to be done anytime, even during business hours. Once the upgrade has completed in the background, all that remains is a reboot of the platform to then begin using the new version of the software. In the interim, there will be the need to impose a change moratorium to ensure that the configuration database doesn’t change from the time the upgrade begins until the time the swap to the newly active partition is performed.

During the reboot of the publisher the customer will experience no service outage, except the inability to make platform changes until the upgrade has fully completed. When the subscriber servers are rebooted, the customer will experience brief, intermittent periods where phones will failover between the active and backup subscribers. For this reason, it is recommended that the swap to the active partition be done outside of regular business hours for the customer.

Ongoing Maintenance Process

We will periodically have to perform maintenance on your service to ensure the best possible experience.

A maintenance event occurs when a change to the UCCaaS platform is necessary to update critical system infrastructure and it supports our ability to continuously provide high-availability service to the entire base. As part of preparation for maintenance events, all work is approved by a collective change board comprised of Network, Data Center, Operations and Product teams.

Verizon has official blackout dates over Thanksgiving weekend as well as an extended black out period over Christmas and New Year’s.  During this time we do not perform network changes or maintenance, and any emergency event[CJE1]  requires an executive level approver before it can be performed.

Unofficially, we do not perform maintenance over major public holidays, specifically over Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day.  Maintenance over these dates do not require executive approval, but we avoid these dates except for emergencies so as not to disrupt customer networks.

Verizon is not able to accommodate individual customer schedules for maintenance events which impacts multiple customers.  Verizon can usually be flexible on the timing for any customer specific only maintenance.

Please note, customers who have just been on boarded may not be notified of scheduled maintenance since the announcements may have preceded the onboarding.  While we will work to notify all customers, we cannot guarantee the creation announcements for the one month following onboarding.

Note that HCS version upgrades do not follow the below detail, but are rather scheduled individually by a DECCx Delivery Coordinator as part of your project.

The below outlines our process and definitions.

Maintenance activities are assigned a L1, L2 or, L3 classification. The classification impacts your experience.

L1 – Customer Affecting/High Risk Activities

• Maintenance occurs between 12am-6am local time of the data center being impacted
• L1 maintenance includes anything which causes an interruption of the following services: calling (Call Manager), voicemail (Unity) and instant messaging and presence (Unity Connection) and Attendant Console.
• Please note, any event which requires a re-registration of the above services due to an outage/failover is automatically considered an L1.
• At times, maintenance events may require exceptions to the above standard regarding advance notice:
  • Emergency maintenance events may require less than ten days advance notice to customers.
• At times, maintenance events may require exceptions to this standard with regards to the duration of the outage:
  • Maintenance events in which the time to complete the work exceeds the standard hours of 12am–6am.
  • In case of lengthier maintenance events, we will attempt to complete the event at 11pm – 7am local time of the data center being impacted, but endeavor to never start before 10pm local time of the data center being impacted.

L2 – Minimal Customer Affecting Activities

• Maintenance occurs between 10pm-7am local time of the data center being impacted
• L2 maintenance includes any outage to non-mission critical services such as: Corporate Directory, Federation, Extension Mobility, Administrative Portal, IPMA etc…
• L2 maintenance events require notification 48 hours in advance to customers
  • Please note, phones may re-register due to maintenance of the above services. Since calling, voicemail, instant messaging and presence and attendant console are not failing over, the maintenance is still considered an L2

L3 – Low Risk activities

• Maintenance occurs 5PM - 6AM local time of the data center being impacted
• L3 maintenance has no interruption of customer’s service or traffic
• Scheduled at least 48 hours in advance but Customers are not notified.

Communication for Maintenance Events

Verizon’s standard format will include the following outline of events. Please reference the Welcome Kit section on “Business Continuity Planning”, which includes expected behavior during failover events.

 Maintenance notifications will be sent prior to maintenance events via the MASTARS system and the ETMS ticketing system. 

The format of the ETMS notifications will be approximately as described below. When time permits Engineering will also send out ETMS notifications at the start and stop of events, as well as if event has been cancelled.

Verizon Maintenance Notification

Verizon UCCaaS Customer:

This email is to inform you of a maintenance event being done on our UCCaaS network. Below you will find detailed information on the maintenance and any impacts to your environment. If you have additional questions regarding this maintenance, please contact your Verizon Account Team or Service Manager.

Thank you for your business and your partnership.

Verizon Support Team

Maintenance Category:

Maintenance Impact

For the most up to data Business Continuity information, including impacts to specific services during maintenance and outage events, please see the UCCaaS Welcome Kit:

http://www.verizonenterprise.com/Support/welcome-kits/uccaas/