Avaya Relies on Google Cloud for New UCaaS Platform

On Thursday the 30th of May one of the world's leading communication and collaboration providers, Avaya, announced that it will be launching a new UCaaS platform via the Google Cloud service. UCaaS, or Unified Communication as a Service, allows businesses to unlock the benefits of the cloud for their communication stack, without building their own back-end infrastructure.

The Avaya "Powered By" service will give the company's partners new opportunities to pursue potential customers across a range of verticals and industries. According to Avaya, the system, called Avaya IX, will initially be available in 24 markets around the world - taking advantage of Google's extensive collection of global data centers. With the GCP at the helm, Avaya is looking forward to providing customers with a more customizable environment for their cloud communications.

Adopting Containerization and Microservices

If a diverse and scalable new solution delivered through the GCP wasn't enough to delight Avaya customers, the company has also revealed that it will be adopting Kubernetes. The Kubernetes engine is an efficient, reliable, and highly secure solution for containerization at scale offered via Google Cloud. Since its launch in 2015, Kubernetes has built on Google's extensive experience in running services like YouTube and Gmail in containers for more than a decade.

Avaya's decision to use Kubernetes to support and power its new UCaaS offering means that the company can give containerization and microservices benefits to its customer. This will advance opportunities to multiple businesses, giving them new cloud deployment options that can adapt according to individual needs. Additionally, the Kubernetes format should mean that companies accessing Avaya UCaaS will be able to unlock cloud solutions without worrying about the one-size-fits-all cloud restrictions offered by other providers.

According to the senior manager of UC solutions marketing for Avaya, Scott Hanwell, Channel partners will be able to access an extensive and fully-featured cloud UC solution without having to increase the impact on their data center bandwidth. This should mean that a greater number of partners and even mid-sized solutions will be able to access and resell the new solution.

Why Take the Kubernetes Approach?

The Kubernetes Engine from Google is a fully managed and production-ready environment that businesses of all sizes - including Avaya - can use to deploy containerized applications. The leader suite behind Avaya claims that the containerized architecture supported by Kubernetes allows them to create a Powered by IX UCaaS solution that can reach even the lower end of the SMB market.

End-users with as few as 50 users and below will still be able to tap into the benefits of UC delivered over the cloud, without having to worry about budgetary restrictions. Kubernetes Engine is a unique solution for deploying, updating, and managing applications and services. It can be connected to persistent storage functionality and individual instances for companies around the world. With Kubernetes, Avaya IX Workplace will give even the smallest companies access to a mobile and flexible communication stack.

Celebrating the Growing Partnership Between Google and Avaya

Avaya's team announced in a press release that the decision to deepen the relationship with Google was driven by requests from the field. Avaya has always worked hand-in-hand with partners to enhance their solution over the years - a strategy that Google also embraces.

Senior Manager Scott Hanwell claimed that the partner community has been very interested in improving their reach to smaller companies, without disrupting the flexible solution that they provide to existing customers. Many partners also wanted Avaya to take more of a role when it came to better solution hosting, allowing for a greater focus on the core competencies associated with developing and managing customer relationships.

In April 2019, Avaya announced that it would be deepening its integrations with the Google Cloud Platform. The advanced collaboration strategy is designed to help Avaya leverage the cloud and AI capabilities that both companies are currently investing in. Avaya believes that new solutions provided through the Google Cloud will give them new opportunities to support their partners, and drive results for end-users too.

Avaya is just one of many Google partners taking advantage of the rising opportunities in the Google Cloud Platform this year.