Communications Infrastructure in a Cloudy World (separate registration is required)

The world of communications technology experienced rapid change over the past few decades as telephony exploded into networking and network-based services, and the pace of change continues to accelerate. This interactive workshop will explore a set of topics including:

1. Ecosystems Collide: Campus Perspectives A panel of higher education participants will discuss issues and strategies associated with the large numbers of overlapping communication services that are in use on all of our campuses. For example, how does a campus position MS Skype/Teams, Cisco Jabber / Spark / Webex Teams, Zoom, Blue Jeans, Polycom / Real Presence, Blackboard Collaboration, etc., in the UC/video/collaboration space.

2. Internet of Things Speakers will discuss the potential scale for the Internet of Things (IoT) on campus and in health care, for both consumer and enterprise devices. Healthcare is presently using IoT technologies to improve efficiencies, increase patient safety and reduce errors, automate processes, and harvest data. How can these translate to educational institutions? What is being done now and what can we expect in the future in terms of security, energy management, ip addressing, network segmentation, general campus infrastructure and other applications of IoT.

3. Ecosystems Collide: Industry Perspectives A presentation on the current and future directions of key industry UC/collaboration/video platform providers including Avaya, Cisco/Broadsoft, Microsoft, and others.

4. Legislative Update What are the current key telecommunications legislative and regulatory changes? How are these likely to impact campus operations? This presentation is from a principal at a Washington D.C. law firm specializing telecom regulation.

5. Discussion Session A highly interactive facilitated session where workshop participants discuss current projects and issues from their institutions. Please come prepared with any topics for which you'd like to discuss solutions, hear about others pitfalls and hopefully glean tips towards pitfall avoidance, and do some general peer benchmarking and networking.

Outcomes: Understand the present state of converging (and sometimes colliding) communication technologies * Identify how network, communication, and collaboration systems and devices are evolving * Learn how communication technologies are enhancing, or have the potential to enhance, collaboration around teaching, research, and global problem-solving