The University of Sunderland (UoS) has a student FTE count of over 24,000 based across campuses in Sunderland, London and Hong Kong and, in addition UoS has many partnerships with learning institutions in various countries around the globe, extending its global teaching reach.  Sunderland is recognised internationally as a leading, digital first university, with a long-established commitment to widening participation, world-leading research, public and private sector collaborations, and a track-record for providing quality student experiences.

To underpin their digital first agenda, the university adopted a cloud first strategy, focussing on leveraging key skillsets offered by managed service providers to align activities that underpin core operational infrastructure.  This allows UoS to be more digitally transformational, adding greater value to the University and its customers.

To tie in with this strategy, in 2021 UoS made the decision to scale out its current investment within O365 and migrate telephony to a single unified communications platform, accessible from anywhere in the world, further supporting the aim to move away from data centres and an on-premise footprint.

In early 2021 the University began seeking a supplier to fully manage and support the design, implementation and migration of staff from their current telephony services to a hosted Microsoft Teams for telephony service. UoS’s telephony environment at the time was a mixture of Skype for Business 2015 and Astra MX1, with smaller legacy PBX systems also on-site in London and Hong Kong campuses. The Microsoft Teams app was used by the University, but for collaboration, and meetings only.

The university conducted a procurement process via CCS’s RM3808 Network Services 2. After an extensive review of the marketplace, they made the decision to partner with communications specialist Amillan for this project. Amillan is a communications integrator with over 30 years’ experience in enterprise voice technology, holding Microsoft’s Communication competency for 15 years. Amillan supports a number of other UK universities with their voice infrastructure, and it was decided they were the best fit to support the University in this digital transformation.

Amillan’s solution provides the University of Sunderland with a Cloud based Telephony Platform delivered from a Private Cloud which hosts Session Border Controller’s, PSTN SIP Trunks and for the migration phases, SIP Integration to the existing On-Premise Skype for Business deployment.  Session Border Controllers are configured in a resilient configuration to provide Microsoft Direct Routing towards the University of Sunderland’s M365 Tenant.  Amillan’s Direct Routing provides the Teams application with PSTN capabilities for all incoming and outgoing calls.

In the Amillan Data Centre, GAMMA SIP Trunks are provided in the form of Active / Standby.  This provides the University of Sunderland with a resilient PSTN service from the GAMMA Public SIP Infrastructure.  All DDI Numbers were be ported to the new GAMMA SIP Service.  These SIP Trunks and DDI Numbers are presented to Amillan’s Session Border Controllers which are also working in Active Standby mode.  The SBC’s send the DDI to the end user via Direct Routing into Microsoft’s M365 architecture, delivering “Dial Tone” into the Teams users.

Like all Universities, UoS required extra SIP Channel Capacity during the annual clearing period. Amillan’s solution has been built with the high clearing capacity in mind, however with the Gamma Portal the University can change the channel count instantly, meaning that outside of clearing the University can scale down the SIP Trunks from the Gamma network, only paying for what is required, meaning no wasted expenditure.

Due to the covid 19 pandemic and the immediate shift to home working, many university staff were already utilising teams for internal calling and Skype for Business for external calls, this made the transition to teams for all telephony significantly easier with regards to change management and user adaption. All staff already had the appropriate equipment to allow them to work in agile way from home or when on campus with laptops and headsets, and the project included replacing physical handsets with Teams compatible alternatives where required. This in itself was a remarkable achievement for the University and for Amillan, as the rollout and the configuration of YEALINK Teams handsets was a first for both. In addition, there are several communal analogue devices (e.g. corridor phones) which needed to be migrated to SIP as part of the overall design consideration. Amillan connected these endpoints to a SIP to Analogue convertor to provide a DDI and dial tone for this service.

Amillan fully managed the on-boarding procedure for the UK and Hong Kong sites to enable all campuses for Teams Telephony. A risk adverse approach was followed where Amillan connected to the on-site topology using Public IP Addresses from both the University of Sunderland and the Amillan data centre, allowing for a phased migration of users from Skype for Business to Teams, avoiding a “big bang” approach, resulting in a seamless and disruption free transition of services.

Following the successful upgrade to Microsoft Teams, Amillan now fully manages and supports the service for the University, with Amillan’s Service Centre and engineering resource supplementing UoS’s in-house skills. This includes Amillan having agent access to the University’s IT Service Desk, meaning any ticket that is submitted for telephony is sent to Amillan to resolve and close seamlessly.

“The upgrade to Teams for the University’s telephony is an important step forward for our Digital First agenda, providing staff with simplified communication and collaboration platform wherever they are in the world. Amillan’s management of the transition has been first-class with a true desire to understand our organisation needs and become a valued partner moving forward.” Jason Marshall IT Service Manager, University of Sunderland.

“We admire the University’s forward-thinking drive to invest in technologies which improve experiences for staff and students. We hope that this project will be the start of a long-term partnership between both organisations. ” Patrick Daly Managing Director, Amillan.