With the world of Voice over IP (VoIP) comes an incredible number of options for how we configure our voice systems. Telephony can now be massively distributed over large networks. Remote workers or agents can be easily linked in to the rest of the office system. And many options exist to connect your VoIP telecom system to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

 

In the midst of all of this is the challenge that application servers, such as those used for Interactive Voice Response (IVR), typically sit on a server somewhere in your network. And you need to make these application servers accessible to all the distributed parts of your network.

 

 

What if your IVR was out “in the network?” Accessible from all of your sites and from the PSTN? What if you could do this without adding to the load of your IT department?

 

In this four-part series, I'm going to explore what we are calling cloud computing and how you can push your IVR applications out into the network cloud. First, in this article, I'll look at what cloud computing is and why people should think about it for IVR. Second, I'll look at the security issues and what questions you need to be asking when considering a vendor for pushing your application into the cloud. After that I'll discuss the key role that open standards play in allowing you to avoid vendor lock-in and I'll conclude with steps you can take to make the move into the cloud.

 

In recent months, it has become hard to escape the term cloud computing. Articles about the cloud are appearing everywhere. Conferences have been formed. Media Web sites have launched new cloud computing blogs and portals. Yet like any new term, the precise definition varies depending upon who you talk to. At a fundamental level, though, most definitions ultimately come down to this:

 

 

Basically, you can run your apps on someone else's system on their network. Rather than having to maintain your own servers, you can push that computing out into someone else's network and make the system administration their problem. The platform you use can be some massively distributed and massively scalable network — you don't actually care as long as it works.

 

We've been on this path for quite some time. In the early days of the Web, it was common for companies to run their own Web servers on their network. Over time though, more and more companies are opting to use Web hosting providers to host their Web sites. Similarly, almost all companies at some point hosted their own e-mail servers. While many businesses still do, increasingly companies, especially in the small/medium space, are looking at hosted alternatives for e-mail. The world of instant messaging started out primarily all in the cloud with AOL, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, Skype (News - Alert), etc., and while corporate equivalents have certainly emerged, a very significant amount of corporate IM traffic is still run by hosted systems.

 

Now we've reached this fascinating intersection of incredible amounts of available bandwidth, the easy distribution of telecommunications and workers available through Voice over IP, incredibly fast computers and vast amounts of storage where it becomes possible to think about moving entire applications out into the hosted cloud. That, ultimately, is what cloud computing is all about... moving from thinking purely about running servers on your LAN to running applications anywhere out on massively interconnected networks. Note one distinction here: there are many hosting providers who will let you move a server from your LAN to the provider's network. While this may help in many ways, it's only a step toward what I would really consider cloud computing. In cloud computing, the whole concept of servers fades away... you just upload and run your application in the cloud, not caring at all about where the application code is actually executed.

 

So why should you consider pushing your IVR applications out into the cloud? Talk to any provider of IVR hosting and several key themes emerge:

 

Scalability — With traditional IVR solutions, you have limitations related to the number of servers and lines you have in your facility. With IVR in the cloud, those are issues for your hosting provider. If necessary, you can scale massively to address seasonal concerns or other events. You can quickly add “lines” and capacity on demand. With some cloud-based providers, you may need to contact them to add capacity while in other cases that capacity may just automatically be added without you having to do a thing.

 

Deployment Speed — With cloud-based IVR, deploying IVR applications is no longer an issue of provisioning servers or adding lines to your telephony system. You simply upload your applications to your hosting provider, connect that application to inbound phone numbers or outbound calling —and start taking calls.

Ease Of Experimentation — Because of the deployment speed and the lack of need for equipment, it is extremely easy to “experiment” with new IVR applications. Want to try out a new call flow? A new application? It's easy to do. Want to see changes to your application happen in “real time”? Want to instantly deploy a prototype for people to try out? Again, the cloud makes all this easy.

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery — With traditional IVR systems, what happens if you have some kind of natural disaster that impacts the office where the IVR servers are located? What if the proverbial backhoe slices through the network connection to that office? One of the strengths of cloud-based IVR is that providers typically have massively distributed and redundant networks that are specifically designed to always be there and to be able to survive these type of situations. With the right provider, you can be very sure that your IVR applications will be available to answer customer calls.

Cost Reduction — A key benefit of cloud-based IVR is, of course, reduced cost. With no equipment to purchase, there are basically no major up-front costs. By pushing the IVR applications out into a provider's network, the major IT costs are on the provider's end. You are really left with just usage costs.

 

In the end, you have the opportunity to very rapidly deploy massively scalable and always-available IVR applications — at a fraction of the cost of traditional IVR solutions.

 

At this point you may be asking: aren't there situations where cloud-based IVR might not be appropriate? Sure, there are certainly companies where, for security reasons, there are corporate policies dictating that all servers should be inside the corporate firewall. There are also situations where a high degree of integration is required — but where sufficient network bandwidth is not available to connect the local network out to a cloud-based solution. For situations like those, a premise-based product may be the right path to pursue.

 

The good news is that in the world of IP-based telephony, you don't necessarily have to choose between cloud-based/hosted IVR and premise-based IVR. Hybrid deployment models are now possible where you can have a premise IVR solution that routinely handles incoming/outgoing calls but the cloud can be used for scalability or business continuity. If network connectivity to the main site fails, the hosted IVR environment can take over, either handling the calls directly or potentially handing them off to another point on your network. Likewise, in times of heavy demand, the hosted IVR can take calls when your premise system is at capacity. With the move to IP, many different models are possible, really depending only on what capabilities your provider has.

With all of the cloud computing options out there, the giant elephant in the room can be summarized in one single question:

 

 

In Part 2, I'll explore that specific issue and provide a series of questions you should be asking your hosting provider before you consider pushing your IVR applications out into the cloud. With the right provider and well-designed applications, moving your IVR applications into the cloud can offer tremendous advantages for your business... but you need to know to ask those questions. After that, in Part 3, I'll address the incredible importance of open standards in avoiding vendor lock-in, and finally in Part 4, I'll lay out some concrete steps for making the move into the cloud.

 

Stay tuned... and please feel free to send me your questions and feedback.

 

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