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  • 1.  Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 05-14-2019 03:28 PM
    Hey Folks,

    Don't know if this is the correct community for this, but we just had an 'impartial' business partner come in and sell the business our own shoes [AWS Connect]. Has anyone had any experience with AWS? I am scrambling to try and put together a document enumerating potential pitfalls of migrating to this system. 
    1. no full systems integration = no extension to extension dialing or voicemail integration
    2. voice recordings not encrypted. 


    Helphelphelp

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    Jessica P
    Contact Center Engineer
    New York
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  • 2.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 05-15-2019 06:24 PM
    Personal experience from AWS support calls is their service suffers from poor audio quality.  I'd make some random calls to their contact center to assess for yourself.





  • 3.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 05-20-2019 08:50 AM
    Funny enough, after I read this I went and spoke to the agents. Apparently they have been having audio issues but didn't tell anyone. -_-

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    Jessica Persico
    Call Center Engineer
    Hospital for Special Surgery
    New York
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  • 4.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 05-31-2019 08:56 AM
    Honestly, AWS's solution isn't bad.  Their contact-center experience is actually pretty nice -- and honestly a lot better UX than what Avaya has been providing out of the box lately.  That being said, like with any cloud solution you need to be very careful how you engineer it.  Otherwise, it is just like when we started throwing the phone system on an IP network without understanding what was going on.

    Engineering the right solution is key.  Doing it the right way costs money, and if you do it the right way, you won't save anything going to the cloud.  

    How critical is it that your call-center is up?  If you want to protect yourself from connectivity issues, you really need to get an MPLS circuit direct to AWS's data centers.  The MPLS should have uptime guarantees to cover what your expectation is for service.  Need more than 3 nine's of uptime?  Maybe you should get two MPLS circuits so you can rotate them during planned outages from your carrier.

    You should also consider locating your assets in multiple availability zones in AWS.  This will increase the cost, but will protect you from issues involving a particular data-center.  

    I can't speak to the encrypted voicemails.  But as far as integration, you should be able to simulate that.  

    The bigger question is why the move?  If there is a particular business reason to drive that direction other than "We need to move the cloud!  Everybody else is doing it!" than you should weigh that against what you currently have.  I know in our case, we are very sensitive to downtime for our voice services, so it already becomes less of a priority.  In our case, our org would much rather spend the million dollars we have in hand and own something rather than rent it for a million over 5 years.  We are also very weary when we are approached simply on the cost benefits alone (when you peel that onion and look at a 5 year ROI, it usually isn't there when you take in account EVERYTHING including the network access, etc). BUT you usually tend to get faster upgrades and more features on these types of products.

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    Nick Kwiatkowski
    Director of Design and Engineering
    Michigan State University
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  • 5.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 03-10-2021 12:22 AM
    Hi All,

    Its not related to similar discussion but I have working experience of 8 years in Avaya. Now I am on a level of SME in Avaya. I found Amazon Connect very impressive so decided to learn and somehow I have offer in hand for Amazon Connect. I am planning to change my profile from Avaya to Amazon Connect AWS. 

    Is it right time to move ? Will I have more opportunities in future.

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    Chirag
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  • 6.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 03-10-2021 07:11 AM
    One never knows if 'this is the right time' or not. You have to decide that...
    AWS connect is nice but personally, I found Twilio much better. Given the buzz of the call center industry, either or both is a good skill to have. Plus, you can build a demo, to showcase you ability, over the normal paper resume.
    Just my thoughts...
    Alan

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    Alan Williford
    Voice Engineer
    Liberty Mutual
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  • 7.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 03-10-2021 07:45 AM
    Hi Alan,

    Thanks for your kind response on my question. Yes you are right no body knows what will happen in future.  But rightly said that its good to have both the skills in resume. Tiwillio I am not sure but will surely try to AWS connect in my resume.

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    Chirag
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  • 8.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 06-24-2021 01:56 PM
    Agree with Nick, and he is spot on regarding actual savings going to the Cloud. Avaya isn't going anywhere, and personally I'd stay away from the Cloud unless you can guarantee your network is bulletproof. In terms of other tech, you will never go wrong to kick the tires on other solutions. A sales guy will always tell you the cloud saves you money and is always up..yeah right. Nick is right, the upgrades happen quicker but who will point the finger at who when voice quality is poor.

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    A B
    Sr. Telecom Engineer/UC Consultant
    AB Consulting
    Washington UT
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  • 9.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 06-24-2021 02:16 PM

    Learning and growing one's skill set is never a bad thing.   IMO – Twilio is a better choice. Close to Avaya CC than Connect.

    We are trying to migrate a CcaaS but most cannot provide an environment that can handle 5500 CC and the 1 that did, if it burped, all of our test calls dropped.

     

    Alan W. Williford
    Liberty Mutual Technologies

    MS Teams: 603.285.4276

     






  • 10.  RE: Amazon Connect Is Taking Over

    Posted 06-24-2021 06:21 PM
    Edited by A B 06-24-2021 06:25 PM
    Must be fun to troubleshoot....vendor on top of vendor (Ring Central to AWS or Azure for example). Reading those SIP messages has got to be a party.  ;)

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    A B
    Sr. Telecom Engineer/UC Consultant
    AB Consulting
    Washington UT
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