ShoreTel Business Continuity Best Practices: Resiliency, High Availability and Disaster Planning with a ShoreTel IP-PBX

The definitive work on architecting a reliable ShoreTel Unified Communication system

This book provides best practices and detailed information on configuring the fault tolerance, high-availability, resiliency and redundancy features of the ShoreTel Unified Communications system.

At 125-pages, this book covers all aspects of the ShoreTel Unified Communication system through ShoreTel version 13.

100% of proceeds are donated to the American Red Cross.

Contents include:

ShoreTel Components and the ShoreTel Distributed Architecture

Design Features, Benefits and Best Practices

• ShoreGear Voice Appliances: Hardware Features
• Full Mesh Connectivity and Distributed Intelligence
• Location Service Protocol (LSP)
• Selection of Primary and Secondary End Points for Application Services
• Backup Auto Attendant
• Peer-to-Peer Audio Path

Single Site Redundancy

• Distributed Call Control
• Redundant Call Control
• Analog Phone and SIP Phone Failover
• Power Fail Transfer Ports
• Single Site Redundancy: Summary

Application Services

• Explicit Backup Extensions
• Replicated Services: Auto Attendants and Account Code Collection
• Distributed Services: Workgroups
• Distributed Services: Voice Mail
• Services that Failover: Call Detail Record (CDR) Collection
• Services that Do Not Failover

Multi-site Redundancy

• Multi-site Configuration
• Call Control and PSTN Access
• Application Services
• Redundant Call Control
• IP Phone Configuration Switches

Database Changes and Server Redundancy

• "Call Forward Always" Override (*72/*73)
• Distributed Database
• Server Redundancy
• Physical Component Redundancy with Stratus Technologies
• HQ Server Redundancy with Double-Take
• Multiple Server Redundancy with VMware

Analyzing Failure Scenarios

Network Call Routing

• Outbound Call Routing
• Call Scenarios
• Inbound Call Routing
• Parent as Proxy
• Call Cost Promotion
• PSTN Failover

Site Tree Hierarchy

• 4, 5, and 6-Party Conferencing
• Spare Switch Selection
• Selection of DRS Servers

Working with Schedules

• The Application of Schedules
• Accommodating Different Time Zones
• Schedules Applied to Call Handling Modes

Disaster Recovery Planning

• Accommodating Inaccessible Sites
• Accommodating Down Sites
• Preventing Total Loss of Services
• Extension Reassignment and SoftPhone Considerations
• Disaster Recovery (DR) Sites
• Hot-standby Sites
• Colocation Sites

Distributed Routing Service

• Extension Call Routing with DRS
• PSTN Call Routing with DRS
• Selecting DRS servers
• Extent of DRS involvement in Call Control
• Maintenance Pages when DRS is Enabled
• Design Considerations with DRS Enabled

Additional Considerations

• Event Filters and Alarm Notification
• Enterprise Contact Center
• SA-100 Appliances
• Redundant Power Supplies

Resources, References and Further Reading

Appendix A: HQ, DVS and V-switch Features

Appendix B: Voice Mail Prompt Behavior

Appendix C: Questions and Answers

• Rebooting Questions
• Colocation Site Questions
• Communicator Questions
• Hunt Group Questions

Appendix D: LSP Tables

• LSP Commands
• LSP Examples
• LSP Status During an Outage

Jefferson M. Rowley has been providing networking solutions for businesses since 1988. With 25 years of experience in the data networking and Voice-over-IP industries, he has considerable skill in all aspects of network design and implementation ranging from small LANs to large, multi-national wide-area networks. He is a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE #6564, inactive) and holds numerous security, voice and network vendor certifications including Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks and ShoreTel. He has spent the last decade specializing in enterprise Voice-over-IP designs and deployments. He is currently the Global Technical Lead for the Sales Engineering department at ShoreTel, focusing on knowledge creation and transfer, as well as sales enablement for the ShoreTel Sales teams in Asia, ANZ, CALA and EMEA regions.