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Skype for Business Phone Deployment and Management Tools

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As you plan your migration to Skype for Business from a legacy PBX, one of the areas to research and plan are end user voice devices. This involves deciding how many desk phones and headsets to purchase, what features are required, which manufacturer, what models, etc. A question often over looked with desk phones is how to deploy and manage them. Certainly you don't want to manually deploy and manage a new fleet of 5,000 new phones.

Fortunately, there are deployment and management options offered by many of the Skype for Business VoIP phone manufacturers. This blog is not meant to be a critique of one manufacturer's deployment and management capabilities compared to another, but rather to provide awareness that these capabilities do exist. As part of your decision on the phone models to purchase for your new environment, consider requesting that each of the manufacturers review their capabilities for mass deployment and device management.

For an up to date list of Skype for Business certified phone manufacturers and models, be sure to review https://partnersolutions.skypeforbusiness.com/solutionscatalog/ip-phones.

AudioCodes

AudioCodes offers a management application called the IP Phone Manager. There are multiple versions of the product such as the IP Phone Manager Express designed for an environment with up to 500 devices. Also offered is a version called IP Phone Manager Pro for an environment larger than 500 devices.

Polycom

Polycom offers several options for deployment and management of their Skype for Business certified phones. The first option is the Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) "cloud-based provisioning solution to service providers and channel partners so they can more easily deploy VoIP Devices." Additional information is available in this faq sheet. For on-premises configuration and deployment server options, please review this blog.

Yealink

Yealink offers a cloud based provisioning server called Redirect to Provisioning Server (RPS). When the MAC address of your phones are registered with the specific Yealink URL, at boot the phones will automatically download and install your custom configuration. Additional information is available on this service in this PDF.