Petroleum Development Oman selects Avaya for major IP telephony deployment

PDO accounts for more than 80% of the Oman's crude-oil production and nearly all of its natural-gas supply.

PDO's primary reason for implementing IP Telephony was to replace an obsolete voice system but they also saw the need to pursue the added benefits of new communications capabilities which represent the future of voice communications.

Avaya's solution is based on open standards and will ride on PDO's existing data network infrastructure to integrate all of PDO's communications applications and scale them across the enterprise, using one single administration point.

"Having an always-on, user-friendly communications system is crucial for PDO, especially given our widespread 24x7 operations and the high percentage of staff who are mobile or work from remote locations," said Nd Uche, PDO IT Infrastructure Manager. "Faced with a growing reliance of the business on various forms of overlapping communications and collaboration tools and solutions, it became critical to pursue a solution that is converged, streamlined and easy-to-manage. The system being implemented for PDO provides opportunities to add more business-critical communications applications to the IP infrastructure and introduce rich communications features across all sites," added Nd Uche

Avaya's solution will enable users at PDO to merge all of their communications interactions on a single device -- their desktop or workstation. When fully implemented, Avaya Unified Communications will give users access to voice, video, voice mail, instant messaging, and their contacts directory through one interface. A modular messaging system will enable employees to access messages any time, anywhere from a wide array of access devices, improving a user's ability to respond quickly, while Avaya's Meeting Exchange will provide reliable and cost effective conferencing capabilities.

An IP Telephony solution that connects more than 18 sites and 12,000 end points will be realised in four project phases, the first of which has already been completed. When all phases are completed PDO employees who are constantly on the move or work from ADSL lines, or from remote locations will be able to use the Avaya IP Softphone - a software-based phone on one's PC or laptop - to access the corporate network and work as they do at the office. Using a telephone, PC or laptop computer, employees will be able to log into the PDO corporate network from any location and benefit from the same features and functionalities that they have at the office.

PDO employees will also benefit from the Avaya Extension to Cellular feature that connects callers to employees wherever they are. Extension to Cellular delivers one-number access by enabling calls bound for an employee's business number to ring simultaneously on both their office phone and on up to four mobile (or wireline) phones. While on a call, users can access advanced features such as transfer and conference.

The Avaya solution for PDO is based on Avaya Communication Manager, the company's industry-leading IP telephony software that delivers intelligent communications capabilities to businesses. Avaya Media Servers and Gateways are used to host the software and distribute more innovative communications features to employees, regardless of where they are based. Redundant servers provide seamless survivability if a connection to the primary server is lost.

"PDO is the largest and most recent addition to Avaya's growing portfolio of customers in the Middle East's public sector," said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, Area Vice President for Avaya MENA. "We are seeing more and more customers in the public sector implementing our solutions to maximize existing resources and reduce total cost of ownership. With a single communications system, PDO's maintenance requirements are now significantly reduced, freeing up IT resources for more productive work."

Jawad Sultan Technologies, Avaya's partner in Oman, undertook the implementation of this project. As part of the PDO deployment, Avaya provided a universal dial plan across the network, design consultancy, project and programme management, migration and implementation services, and onsite training.