CASE STUDY: Carleton University

Tens of thousands of students. Dozens of buildings. Countless systems. The numbers behind running a university are impressive. And it takes an impressive system to keep it all running smoothly. That’s why Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario deployed Mitel Performance Analytics (MPA) fault and performance management to monitor, alert and report on their communication systems — and ensure the jobs of learning, researching and changing the world are never disrupted. With Martello’s network monitoring software for education, this Canadian university was able to prevent outages on campus. 

Situation

• Large, multi-building campus
• Critical safety responsibilities
• Need for 24/7 system availability
• Need to prevent disruptions in service quality/performance
• Need to maximize in-house IT resources
• Desire for actionable system data

Solution

• MPA Network Management (Remote Monitoring and Access Service)
• MiVoice Business
• MiVoice Border Gateway
• MiCollab
• MiContact Center
• MiVoice Call Recording

Results

• Early detection
• Reduced downtime
• Assurance of meeting safety obligations
• Reduced burden on IT resources
• User satisfaction
• Improved reporting and system insight

“A failure of the MiContact Center server, particularly during the critical registration period, can mean losses for the university – so the Mitel Performance Analytics monitoring gives us confidence that we can avoid downtime.”
Richard Lefebvre
Voice Services Manager
Carleton University

Organization

Carleton University is a leading post-secondary educational institution in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa in the province of Ontario. The university has a rich history, graduating more than 130,000 students since it opened seven decades ago. Today, approximately 28,000 full- and part-time students are registered in more than 65 disciplines.

Situation

Carleton University uses a Mitel unified communication solution to provide voice, contact center and conferencing capabilities throughout the 35 buildings on its campus — including two of
its eight residence buildings.

Carleton has some unique considerations for its communication network. Students and staff are spread across a large network of buildings, and safety is a key concern. Operational telephones ensure a line out to emergency services when needed, so reliability of these systems is critical. It’s a 24/7 operation for Carleton’s IT team — onsite student housing means that there is inbound and outbound traffic at all hours of the day. Carleton wanted a solution that would give them confidence that these systems would be monitored around the clock for minimal downtime, and help them make better use of their in-house IT resources.

Solution

Carleton University chose MPA fault and performance management software, which now monitors Carleton University’s MiVoice Business, Mitel Border Gateway, MiCollab, MiContact Center and MiVoice Call Recorder systems. The software delivers 24/7 performance and availability monitoring, real-time alerts via email or SMS and secure remote access to a host of devices.

Carleton selected the Remote Monitoring & Access Service (RMAS) version of MPA, which is available in several Mitel offerings. RMAS allowed Carleton’s IT team to handle first level support during business hours, with Mitel’s RMAS team taking over during non-business hours.

MPA helps Carleton to proactively manage the performance of their business communications systems.

Results

With the help of MPA, Carleton University has been able to avoid downtime to critical systems, like the MiContact Center solution supporting the university’s registrar, recruitment, athletics and IT help desk. “A failure of the MiContact Center server, particularly during the critical registration period, can mean losses for the university – so the MPA monitoring gives us confidence that we can avoid downtime,” said Carleton University Voice Services Manager Richard Lefebvre.

The university also uses data provided by MPA to ensure it is meeting its safety obligations. For example, a failure in MiVoice Call Recording could jeopardize critical data in the case of an emergency. However, with MPA, the university can monitor this application around the clock and receive real-time alerts to avoid and minimize the effects of outages.

Carleton’s IT team has found that they’re able to use their time and resources more effectively with MPA — handling tasks more efficiently and freeing up IT resources for other projects.

“MPA monitors Mitel IP handsets and can tell us when a phone is disconnected – this eliminates wasted time visiting the site to simply connect the phone. We can advise someone in that building to connect the phone, and save our IT resources for core activities,” said Lefebvre.

MPA even helps the university detect problems that could impact the user experience, like a decline in voice quality.

“While our data network operates very reliably, it gives us peace of mind to know that if voice quality were to drop, we’ll know quickly, rather than relying on user reports,” said Lefebvre. “We also have access to actionable data on the problem, such as jitter, packet loss and latency statistics by call. This data can help us proactively prevent a more serious problem that could impact many users.”

Carleton University Voice Systems Administrator, Lily Qu, finds that the MPA dashboard presents useful information across all monitored systems at a glance. “Viewing alarms across all systems in a single screen makes it easier to pinpoint and access devices,” said Ms. Qu. “I can select one system to get a description of the alarm, connect to it directly and log into the system from MPA.”

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