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1. The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD)
is the National Conservatoire of Wales and a centre of
excellence for the performing arts, an institution of
national significance and a higher education institution
unique to Wales.
RWCMD specialises in training students for professional
performance and related careers. It not only contributes to
the cultural identity of Cardiff but Wales as a whole, and
attracts some of the most gifted students from around the
world. Past students include Sir Anthony Hopkins and Gavin
& Stacey stars Ruth Jones & Rob Brydon.
Case Study:
Royal Welsh College
of Music and Drama
MARKET: Education SOLUTION: IP Phone System
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama gains a
brilliantly simple IP Phone Solution with ShoreTel
Probably the best managed
project and certainly the smoothest
I have ever been involved in, I can’t talk
highly enough of Voyager’s project
delivery capabilities, they were excellent.”
Gareth Tottle, Information Systems Manager,
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
“

2. The Royal Welsh College of Music
and Drama is currently undergoing
a £22.5 million development project
to build a suite of world-class
training and performance facilities
for musicians, actors, theatre
designers and stage managers.
With over 600 students and an
events calendar that encompasses
over 300 public performances each
year, the college is embarking on
an exciting transition to become a
World Class Conservatoire.
Solution Provided in partnership with
Case Study:
Royal Welsh College
of Music and Drama
MARKET: Education SOLUTION: IP Phone System
“
“
“
The Challenge
Following the approval of a new five year
strategic plan in June 2008 the college
wanted to significantly advance the profile
and positioning of RWCMD amongst its peers
and specialist art schools both in the UK
and internationally. The purpose was to
significantly enhance the quality of services
for all stakeholders.
The challenge for the RWCMD was to ensure
their IT and communications systems
complemented the college’s strategic plan
and provide an IT infrastructure of ‘high
availability’, ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘flexible’ in
its provision. The existing BT Meridian
telephone system could no longer fulfil the
requirements of the College. Gareth Tottle
Information Systems Manager for RWCMD
decided that a new IP-based solution was
needed to ensure the IT infrastructure met the
aspirations of the college.
The College is going through the biggest
investment programme in its history to
become a World Class Conservatoire; the old
communications infrastructure would not
support these aspirations. The old phone
system was difficult to manage and time
consuming. We wanted a system that could
provide the most cost effective solution,
not necessarily the cheapest, but provide us
with all the communication features that we
desired whilst giving best value for RWCMD
both now and as we scale.”
The college approached various
VoIP vendors and evaluated their systems
for reliability, scalability, simplicity and a
robust feature set. Voyager Networks were
invitedtotenderforthesolutionandproposed
a ShoreTel Unified Communications (UC)
solution. ShoreTel was chosen due to its modular
architecture, flexibility and ease of use. In
addition to these, many features that RWCMD
required were included in the ShoreTel system
as standard therefore the total cost of
ownership was lower than its competitors.
The Solution
Voyager designed the ShoreTel system on 150
users, ensuring a fully resilient and scalable UC
solution that would seamlessly integrate with
Microsoft applications allowing users to easily
access and manage their own communications
across all of their devices.
The new solution comprised of various
ShoreGear voice switches. These voice
switches plug into a Cisco LAN and support
both IP and analogue devices phones, and are
deployed in an ‘N+1’ architecture, so that if a
switch fails or is isolated by a network fault,
the phones automatically failover to another
voice switch at the site. The resiliency of the
phone system was a key requirement for the
College and made ShoreTel stand out from the
competition because of its unique approach.
One of the things that really appealed to
me when looking at the ShoreTel system was
the whole N+1 solution, where comparing to
other systems if you wanted to add
resilience you’d need to add additional
servers, costs inevitably increased. The N+1
architecture gives RWCMD the resiliency but
without the costs that you would have with
other vendors”
The ShoreTel IP system was
deployed within a week and a half, and
configured for 150 users initially. The
deployment of the system went extremely
smoothly with the help of Voyager and
RWCMD staff working closely together.
The project delivery team from Voyager
were extremely helpful, at no time did I get
the impression that Voyager were not able
toassistanychangesthatwewanted.Asthe
project adapted and changed, Voyager were
brilliant in accommodating any twists or
turns. The success of this project was
undoubtedly down to the technical ability
andmanagementoftheprojectandhowwe
& Voyager worked together “

3. Contact us www.voyager.net.uk or call us on 02476 417 417T
Artist impressions of the new facilities at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
“
“
“
As part of the training Voyager suggested a
‘Train, the Trainer’ approach, where department
representatives become the focal points for
the training and support. This meant whilst
users were getting familiar with the system
there was always support available both from
the department representatives, the IT depart-
ment and Voyager engineers. On the go-live
date Voyager provided ‘flaw walkers’ on-site
during the first few days to ensure smooth
migration- although prior to the go-live date
staff had been using the system internally for
a number of days. Although training wasn’t
given to all users, most found the system very
easy to use and picked up using the system
straight away.
It is so straight forward to use, we picked
up a lot before we had the training and so
we found that we were able to ask a lot of
questions during the training session on
how to do some of the more advanced
features. It was so easy for all users to
pick up and certainly coming from a non
telephony background the administration
around the system and the interface is so
intuitive means it has saved us a huge
amount of time.
The Benefits
RWCMD has already realised significant cost
savings and benefits from the new ShoreTel
system. All of the college users now have a
single interface that is easy for everyone, from
receptionists to lecturers to use. The college
is also making use of ShoreTel’s Hunt Groups
capabilities to make sure that all phone calls
for a specific group are always answered. This
ensures someone from a department is always
contactable as calls are automatically routed
to multiple extensions depending
on availability.
The flexibility of the system has also been a
major benefit to users. With the ShoreTel
system, any user can login to a phone using
their personal extension to make a call or
access voicemail. And with ShoreWare Per-
sonal Call Manager integrated with Microsoft
Outlook, voicemail notifications are delivered
direct to the user’s inbox. Furthermore, the
college has incorporated the ShoreTel system
directory into its desktop Web application
– enabling users to search for contacts and
‘Click to dial’ direct from their PCs.
Amanda Townsend, Executive
Administrator for RWCMD also commented
“I think it’s brilliant and it’s good to be in the
21st Century at last! Having to monitor and
handle the calls of two other people as well
as my own, the Shoretel system has
completely simplified this process. I am
able to continually monitor both calls and
voicemails for all three extensions easily.
The way the system is connected to Outlook
and my contacts has certainly enhanced and
simplified the way in which I work. I think
it’s fair to say that I’m impressed!
The ShoreTel solution represents an
excellent platform for further development to
meet RWCMD long term plans. Together with
Voyager and ShoreTel, RWCMD is looking to
expand the system to the Box office for the
300+ events held by the RWCMD each year.
Our staff love the simplicity of the
ShoreTel system, this has helped us to
transform our communication services. I
can safely say this was probably the best
managed project and certainly the
smoothest I have ever been involved in, I
can’t talk highly enough of the ShoreTel
solution and certainly Voyager’s project
delivery capabilities, they were excellent”
One of the things that
really appealed to me when
looking at the ShoreTel
system was the whole N+1
solution, where comparing to
other systems if you
wanted to add resilience
you’d need to add additional
servers, costs inevitably
increased. The N+1
architecture gives
RWCMD the resiliency
but without the costs that
you would have with
other vendors”
Gareth Tottle, Information Systems
Manager, Royal Welsh College of
Music and Drama.
“

4. Network Infrastructure
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T F E W
Voyager has implemented a variety of solutions, many of which
are pioneering in their sector. For more information on these
projects please contact us using the methods below.
Talk to our team today on 02476 417 417
Or visit us online at www.voyager.net.uk