Avaya PBX Move – Best Practices

6 strategies to help you succeed and make your customer love you

By the time you finish reading this post, you will realize what to complete in order to have a successful Avaya PBX move. Learn which steps I took that helped me impress the customer’s IT Team, which resulted in expanding our customer relationships.

As technicians, we see it all of the time, some of us are too busy or fail to see it. Customers always crave for excellence, no matter how big or small the job is. Recently, I was conducting a PBX move of which I had to help collect phone equipment and some data switches that were part of the VoIP solution. As we transitioned to the new building, we found that the Service Provider had failed to move their numbers to the right Cisco IAD Router, causing calls to land in the wrong location and making the customer very frustrated. Besides the Provider’s issues, the movers failed to bring the rest of the phones to the new location on time. They brought the phones the following Monday.

I wrote this post to give some ideas in what to do to avoid some of these issues from happening. The following are the 6 strategies= 

• 1.- Survey both Old and New Locations
• 2.- System Configuration
• 3.- Software Preparation
• 4.- Equipment Preparation
• 5.- Test before moving
• 6.- Day of the PBX Move

1.- Survey both existing and new Locations

This is one of the most important steps when relocating equipment from a site to another. When visiting the sites, look for elements that might interrupt or delay the PBX move. These could be related to those server dependencies such as DHCP, File, Centralized VMs,LDAP servers, among others.

Surveying the existing location – Collect a total number of phones and Servers, and any other adjuncts attached to the existing VoIP/PBX solution. Document the trunk circuit IDs and numbers, test existing battery backups, and remote access.

Surveying the new location – Ensure that Patch panels, floor-plans with seating arrangements and cutover information forms are provided. Schedule level of escalation for all of the Server elements and service provider included. Some of these folks can cover for you in case some VoIP, Network, Messaging, Call Center, Call Accounting, or Trunks aren’t working.

2.- System Configuration

We oftentimes run calling tests for new implementations, but fail to do so on existing ones. Test all of the dialing conditions  such as Local/Long Distance, Service, Emergency, and International calls. Besides the outbound test, you also need to understand the trunk group configuration. Afterwards, run a trace to see which routes are the end-user taking to access each trunk group. These are some of those conditions to look for=

Routes based on location (LSP or Remote Nodes). – For those handling systems connected to central / Core system. it is important to see how routing is configured on each system.

Signaling Groups – For Avaya Aura, there are many ways to configure redundancy. Find out if the the service provider has NFAS configured between the ISDN Trunk Groups.

Caller ID – The Avaya PBX can handle outbound caller ID. Individual extensions are able to send their corresponding DIDs as their own caller ID information.

Inbound call testing – For inbound calls, you need to run similar tests. You have to know which trunk groups are handling what numbers. From DID ranges, and Toll Free number affiliation, including traffic coming from any of the remote systems (LSPs and Remote Nodes)

When an Auto Attendant is involved, login to their voicemail system and analyze the Auto Attendant routing. You need to check schedules, Holiday Tables or Calendars, and Day and Night Routing.

NFAS (Non-Facility Associated Signalling) – You can have multiple trunk groups associated to a single D-Channel

Remember to test as much as you can before de-installing the phone system. This will help identify any problems at the new location.

3.- Software Preparation

Now that you understand the rules for incoming, outgoing and voicemail routing, move on to check firmware and software releases for the Avaya system. Verify the phone firmware. This is true for Digital, IP or SIP phones.

As a best practice download the phone and system firmware packages to your service laptop. This process helps you prepare any future File servers, reload any packages or upgrade existing ones.

4.- Equipment Preparation

When it comes to packing the equipment, there are some consideration that you should follow=

Phone Count – Depending on how many phones you are responsible for, you have to know how many phones are included in the PBX move. This gives you an idea how long it takes to pack, move and install the phones.

DHCP and File Servers – For those implementing around 50 phones, the PBX (Avaya Aura or IP Office) can be the one providing DHCP and serving files. 3rd party DHCP and HTTP/TFTP Servers are implemented usually for large IP Phone deployments. DHCP Options 242 and 176 for legacy phones need to be updated as needed with the new IP Address configuration, including HTTP/TFTP Servers File directory.

Lessons I learned…

Make arrangements to collect the phones. The IT Folks can help you throughout the moving process. If possible, do not  let the movers take/move them . In my case, we were able to gather 20% of the phones and couldn’t get to the rest of them in time. The movers brought the phones over the following week, causing confusion and aggravation to the customer.

5.- Test before moving

Before you decide to move the system, head over to the new location to check that all trunk circuits are installed where they are supposed to. You need to understand how the MDF will be feeding the IDFs. Normally, you are going to have switches connected via fiber or ethernet. For IP Phones, PoE switches will do better.

Schedule a pre-test of T1 circuits with the Service Provider. Ask the SysAdmin to test the network connectivity between closets (IDFs/MDF).

6.- Day of the PBX Move

When you arrive to the existing customer location, perform the following tasks=

Backups – Run your routine backups for both PBX and Voicemail Systems, as well as any File Servers.

Shutting Down Process – Start by gracefully shutting down both the PBX and Voicemail Servers. In the IP Office case, there is no power off button, but there are some commands that you can send from the SSA application. Honestly, as far as I know, pulling the power cord from the back of the control unit won’t hurt it.

New Location – Rack Configuration – Communicate with the IT administrators to see how they have their racks configured. If possible, have them provide you with Visio/CAD or drawing demonstrating where each devices will be installed.

Patch cords – In my case, we had 3 footer blue cords for both voice and data patches. This caused a lot of waisted time. I had installed the Phone System, where the IT Administrator wanted it, which it was right below the IAD Router. I found most of my patch panel ports that were too far to reach. This can be avoided by letting them know in the Site Survey phase.

Caution – You find that customers won’t always provide the materials requested by you.

Porting Numbers – Now with the equipment racked and the trunks connected, it is time to call the Service Provider and turn up the circuit(s) and port the numbers. As you port the numbers, randomly test numbers that belong to the range of DIDs.

I made the mistake to test the first and last of each DID range. I had over 3k numbers and they were not consistent. Some of the numbers were transferred to another switch, as I mentioned earlier. The main number was not even included in the main port order.

In the IP Office system, there is a way to create a default route to transfer all the calls without a specific destination to a default destination. In many cases, this can be an Operator or Automated Attendant.

For Avaya Aura Communications Manager use the “Incoming-Call-Handling-Treatment table to send calls to a desired destination. e.g. Vector, Auto Attendant, Operator, etc.

Outbound Testing – I recommend that you install a test phone for you to make outbound calls and test incoming calls. When testing outbound calls, start by dialing Local, Long Distance, International, Service, and Emergency calls.

Placing Phones – Now with the numbers ported over, it is time to start placing phones. However, before you start this process, check to see that the DHCP and HTTP/TFTP Servers are connected and ready to go.

Avoid Conflicts – In some cases, you may be asked to set services a little different in the new location. Check to see if the old DHCP/HTTP/TFTP Servers are doing what they are supposed to.

Voicemail Server – I recommend for those running a full auto attendant, to have the Voicemail server available before porting over numbers. This helps the inbound testing, avoiding busy signals.  The same goes for those DIDs assigned to phones without voicemails. If you don’t have a phone installed, you get busy signals.

Battery Backups – This should be one of the first items that you should install. Measure the PBX Power cord’s length. I suggest that you provide a PDU (Power Distribution Unit).

System Grounding – Just like the Battery Backups, this is also done prior to booting up the phone system. Connecting a 14′ AWG Ground Cable from the ground-bus bar to the back of the PBX (Media Gateway, G650, or IP Office).

Cross-over cables – A T1 crossover cable is needed to connect to the Service Provider’s equipment.

What types of issues have you experienced while moving a system?

Resources

Avaya File Serve Application – MV_IPTEL.

Even-though discontinued this application still works and is used in a lot of large deployments