New York Organ Donor Network Chooses NacTel/ShoreTel as its Critical Communications Provider
NacTel,
a leading provider of
enterprise telecommunications and data systems has successfully
installed and integrated a new critical communications system for the
New York Organ Donor Network, the nation's second largest nonprofit,
federally designated organ procurement organization. The system they
installed is ShoreTel, the provider of a simple Unified Communication
(UC) solutions based on its award-winning IP business phone system.
"ShoreTel
provided exactly what we were looking for, a communications system that
offers complete availability and reliability," said Jim Aranda, the
Donor Network's vice president of administration and CFO. "Our mission
is to save lives through organ and tissue donation. ShoreTel's
resiliency is especially important because the events that might
compromise typical phone and data systems are exactly the circumstances
in which our organization might be most needed."
NacTel's
president, Jamie Buswell, explained that ShoreTel's system limits the
type of exposure Mr. Aranda was referring to by providing the ultimate
in redundancy, route diversity and mobility, the three keys to business
continuity.
"The reason
we are so high on ShoreTel is that they employ a unique N+1 Technology
-- it's a network that is not server-based, but appliance-based," Mr.
Buswell said. "In a typical Nx2 or 2N network, everything is doubled --
very expensive and highly inefficient. With N+1 there is a single image
across all appliances with distributed processing, so there is no
single point of failure. By adding just one additional appliance -- the
"1" of the N+1 technology -- any failure is handled, so essentially we
are creating redundancy throughout the entire system."
Mr.
Buswell added that there is no lack of fidelity, and because of the
peer-to-peer connectivity in lieu of client-controlled connectivity,
speed may actually increase.
Elaborating
on how NacTel went about the business of listing and understanding
every contingency for the New York Organ Donor Network, Mr. Buswell
said that NacTel worked diligently as a team. "The process for the
Donor Network entailed an analysis of every possible failure: from
carrier to LAN to system to business continuity issues and more," he
said. "From that data set, NacTel developed primary and secondary
solutions, all backed up and tested for compliance."
According
to Jim Valdez, the Donor Network's IT manager, what was compelling
about working with NacTel was the consultative nature of the
relationship, the installation and the ongoing support.
"NacTel
had the wherewithal to do a demo at our location, which showed their
expertise as well as the ease of the ShoreTel system," Mr. Valdez said.
"Also, as a nonprofit, we expected our vendor to work with us on price,
but what we did not expect was that the best technology would come in
at the lowest cost. Jamie and his team are patient and courteous to a
fault, even now during full-on operation and just not during the
installation."