HCS - Cisco's rich environment (but centralized)
Rating: 9 out of 10
September 15, 2016
RF
Vetted Review
4 years of experience
We are exploring Cisco Hosted Unified Communication Services (HCS) as a product for SMB and corporate clients (starting from 200 extensions), linking Cisco solutions capabilities (offering SIP trunk connections to the SBCs of IP Centrex platforms) with IP Centrex platforms. Cisco HCS solves the issue of having a centralized SIP platform where one can register Cisco phones, and not just the SMB series. The platform is very scalable and can offer a license number variation. The platform can allow for the implementation of Cisco portfolio using a solution with a reduced OPEX/CAPEX.
- VoIP best practices
- UC and IM
- Centralized management and provisioning
- Reduced OPEX/CAPEX in the implementation
- Security and integration with other UC platforms using SIP (Except Lync)
Cons
- Integration with contact center plaforms
- Integration with other UC platforms
- Lower the tennant size and clusters capacity
- Cisco's pressure to buy more and more licences, even not having a stale client pipeline (From the ISP point of view)
- Reduces the need to have a higher CAPEX in order to buy all the licenses at the start of the project.
- The licensing is perpetual, the only associated cost with the licenses are SWSS.
- Desktop sharing isn't a functionality.
- Cisco SMB series can be used only with the higher cost licensing (Foundation/Standard).
- Collab OneContact, Skype for Business, Cisco CallManager and Cisco Contact Center
Cisco HCS platform is to be seen as a centralized UC platforms, that can be scalable as an IP Centrex solution and as rich in functionalities as a Cisco CUCM.
If you're looking for a solution and your main focus is IM & P functionalities rather than voice, Lync is a good solution. If your focus is voice and telephony, Cisco is a better solution.
If you're looking for a solution and your main focus is IM & P functionalities rather than voice, Lync is a good solution. If your focus is voice and telephony, Cisco is a better solution.