Abstract

Collaboration holds the promise of facilitating “anytime, anywhere” communications, allowing employees to work from home, in a remote office or on the road for improved productivity and morale. It also enhances communication in companies that are increasingly spread across continents and time zones. But what exactly are the nuts and bolts of implementing a collaboration solution?

This article examines how Cisco’s IT department created an enterprise-class collaboration solution for employees working at home. The Cisco telecommuting program increases employee collaboration, as well as their efficiency and productivity, while contributing to Cisco's corporate green initiative for carbon reduction. The solution had to meet four key requirements:

• A highly secure VPN remote-access service
• A global deployment and support model
• Global management capabilities
• A low total cost of ownership

By evaluating several approaches, the Cisco IT department was able to create a solution that encompassed end-to-end support – not just from a networking perspective but also from a lifecycle perspective. In addition, the solution met Cisco IT’s charter to deliver value in support of overall business objectives. This article describes some of the approaches the team considered and which components ultimately resulted in the automated rollout of a model that can support the addition of 35,000 new remote users on the corporate network.

Deploying Global Collaboration without Overtaxing IT Resources

Cisco’s IT department faces challenges shared by very few organizations: it must implement the processes, tools and network infrastructure needed to enable collaboration among thousands of globally distributed offices and remote workers. Today, more companies realize that allowing employees to work from home, in a remote office, or on the road can improve productivity and morale, improve corporate agility and competitiveness, and reduce greenhouse emissions. Gartner Dataquest predicts that by 2010, nearly 47 million corporate employees around the world will spend at least one day a week working from home, and more than 100 million will telework at least once a month^*. Collaboration also enhances communication in companies that are increasingly spread across continents and time zones.