UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has partnered with Cinos to deliver a secure, reliable and robust unified communications service. Deploying its Cisco-powered, sovereign UC service based within the Cinos Cloud, Cinos migrated 2,000 users and handsets to the all staff across its main site in Culham, South Oxfordshire and remote site in Rotherham.
UKAEA carries out fusion energy research on behalf of the UK Government. Its mission is to lead the delivery of sustainable fusion energy, and achieving this involves working at the forefront of science, engineering, and technology.
In line with UKAEA’s requirements and as part of the implementation process, Cinos also rolled out Cisco Jabber softphones to enable integration with Microsoft Teams. This allows landline or mobile phone calls to be made and taken through the application, functionality that wasn’t available previously. It introduced the reliability and robustness of Cinos’ telephony services to Microsoft Teams.
“The challenge with our previous cloud-based solution was that it wasn’t very flexible,” said Andrew Hynes, head of CODAS and IT at UKAEA. “We needed a much more agile service to enable our staff to collaborate more effectively with the hybrid working approach that we implemented during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Video conferencing and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom are a big part of how we collaborate as an organisation but we were missing functionality that would allow us to integrate softphones. It was important to unify our services and enable phone lines to be forwarded to mobile devices and computers, while being able to integrate with Microsoft Teams.”
Working in partnership with Cinos, UKAEA has been able to maximise functionality and put in place a flexible UC system that is robust and enables collaboration as well as giving the organisation room to grow and innovate in the future. By utilising Cisco Jabber, UKAEA’s telephone services have been unified under one solution giving increased control and allowing users to select a device of choice to answer calls on. This functionality complements flexible working, providing access to the system irrespective of geographical location. As a result of being able to reroute calls between devices, UKAEA was able to retain its existing investment in handsets, without the need to purchase additional devices and therefore avoiding additional costs.
“It was really important to us that the new solution would enable us to integrate Cisco telephony with Microsoft Teams and unify our services,” continued Hynes. “Cisco Jabber has given us the best of both worlds as our staff are now using Jabber more than they are their desk phones, so the level of engagement has been high.”
Benefitting from Cinos’ expertise in full resilience and critical communications solutions, UKAEA has a robust, reliable and always-on service which it can access at all times. As part of the project, Cinos also deployed a built-in internal emergency line, instilling confidence that emergency calls would be routed quickly and efficiently.
“The support that we’ve received from Cinos throughout and post go-live has been fantastic,” concluded Hynes. “Not only did they almost immediately answer any queries we may have had, they also took ownership and responsibility of any communication with our previous supplier. The technical expertise demonstrated by the Cinos team meant that we were able to easily manage the migration from the previous provider and deliver the project in a timely fashion. With a lot of careful planning and testing, it was seamless, and they ensured that we felt confident throughout the process.”
