Clarus Systems (News - Alert), a provider of integrated management and testing solutions for IP Communication deployments, upgrades, and transformations, has launched a new initiative to transfer the success of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework into standards of excellence within the IP Telephony environments of its customers. 

 

“In recent years, the market has witnessed a surge in Unified Communications (News - Alert) and the disruptive enabling technology of IP Telephony has created a convergence between Voice Engineering and IT departments that is unprecedented — even since the advent of computer telephony integration,” said Richard Whitehead (News - Alert), Chief Technology Officer of Clarus Systems. “Despite rapid and significant advances within these technologies, many enterprises, even the early adopters, have not fully embraced the alignment of these two worlds.”

Whitehead noted that ITIL has emerged as a powerful initiative that is rapidly making inroads, as this set of best practices has the ability to create a high-level IT services workflow in order to accommodate both environments.

 

“The ITIL mindshare is phenomenal within the IT world. However, in the universe of IP Telephony, ITIL has been virtually non-existent since most have incorporated the traditional Prepare/Plan Design Implement Operate Optimize (PDIOO) methodology,” Whitehead added.

As organizations reap the benefits of a UC strategy, Whitehead believes the paradigm shift becomes apparent as these large, complex deployments are rivaling the largest of IT project implementations within the enterprise.

IT departments are increasingly adopting the internationally recognized ITIL best practices to ensure large IT projects are successful. As such, the business-critical need to adapt the same mindset with UC deployments remains.

A transition and total transformation within the enterprise is needed to “unify” IT implementations led by the chief IT architects and UC deployments driven by their counterparts in voice or network engineering.

 

“Once these adversarial forces embrace a collaborative IT and IPT model, then a UC infrastructure, built on the commonalities of ITIL, can nurture the alignment between Voice and IT to truly bridge the gap,” said Whitehead.

He also noted that addressing the requirements around ITIL v3 cannot occur in an IPT environment without tools and technology. Those that play a pivotal role are end-to-end Business Service Management solutions, including automated testing, diagnostics, business intelligence, and performance management to support mission critical IP-based voice and Unified Communications.

With this latest launch, Clarus is likely to enjoy an extended reach as companies continue to look for ways to streamline the integration of voice and IT. For many organizations, this is still a new concept and to maximize the promised benefits, will turn to companies like Clarus for guidance.

In doing so, Clarus will strengthen its market stance and will be in a position to set the standard in the industry, driving further demand and revenue for its solutions.