Blog | Synergy SKY

Benefits of adding Synergy SKY Suite to Cisco TMS XE

Written by Vemun Waksvik | Jan 23, 2021 1:31:00 PM

Experienced Videoconferencing and Collaboration/Workspace Technology teams have long understood the value of endpoint management tools such as Cisco TelePresence Management Suite (Cisco TMS).

Cisco TMS has been relied upon for years in organizations as a portal for managing and monitoring videoconferencing endpoints, call registrars, firewall traversal and bridging infrastructure from a single, structured interface. Cisco TMS provides centralized control for on-site and remote video systems, deployment, and scheduling for your entire video network. It has been a trusted and relied upon tool for organizations for many years.

However, organizations are experiencing a rapid introduction of new videoconferencing platforms. Similarly, they are met with expectations and requirements to allow their users to equally join Zoom, Webex, MS Teams, Google Meet, Amazon Chime, etc., with one button to push/auto-dial out simplicity from Cisco Meeting Rooms and home-based devices (Cisco Deskpro, etc.).    

Which videoconference management tools will ensure successful self-supported user experiences?

As employees are returning to the office and hybrid working accelerates, this presents a new challenge for IT, Facilities, and Conferencing teams. The individuals responsible for making videoconferencing easy to use from meeting rooms require modern software tools which provide TMS-like capabilities or more across multiple meeting platforms. A perfect storm of change has occurred at the same time Cisco TMS is retiring.  

Fortunately, by augmenting your Cisco TMS with the Synergy SKY Suite, you gain the necessary management and control of Cisco endpoints used with multiple meeting platforms, which is what Synergy SKY customer Foley & Lardner has gotten to experience:

“Synergy SKY Suite has enabled me to manage my Cisco and Poly SIP endpoints in MS Teams meeting via a single dashboard. I can now troubleshoot and resolve issues in real-time and also analyze the root cause using post-meeting call detail records which can be correlated to other data points. We are saving hours in our day with Synergy SKY Suite.” – Heather Pawlak, Videoconferencing Administrator, Foley & Lardner

The combination brings several benefits to your Cisco and Poly SIP endpoints, including:

Improved Endpoint Control

Give your administrators visibility and access to participants regardless of meeting type. Endpoints registered to the Synergy SKY Suite can now be added/removed and muted/unmuted from Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other boutique providers.

Rapidly Search for any meeting occurring within your organization

Search from a single dashboard for all videoconference meetings regardless of platform, and gain the ability to resolve issues quickly

Pre-meeting warning alerts for potential One Button to Push issues

Be proactive and address OBTP and endpoint issues prior to the actual meeting

Post-meeting statistics for data correlation and trend analysis

Correlate data from Microsoft Teams Call Detail Records with Cisco data to identify potential issues or simply positive trends

Synergy SKY Suite is a full-featured solution that can also be deployed as a self-hosted option and is ideal for clients unable to deploy Cisco TMS due to technical/security limitations with Cisco TMS. With our most recent software release, Synergy SKY allows Synergy SKY Suite supports:

  • Different calendaring systems
  • Transitions from on-prem to hybrid or cloud deployments
  • Multi-vendor devices
  • Multi-vendor meeting platforms
  • Need for more flexible deployment options
  • Need for facility and room support for non-video conferencing resources
  • Hybrid workspace 

Synergy SKY Suite is deployed as a self-hosted virtual machine within your data center or within the leading private cloud solutions.

In addition to gaining TMS-like management and control, you also gain extra value by enabling One Button to Push (OBTP), where Cisco TMSXE is unable. Situations that Synergy SKY uniquely supports include:

  • Easy Join OBTP for multi-vendor meeting platforms (Webex, Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Pexip, etc)
  • OBTP with on-premise CMS
  • OBTP on C-series, CTS, DX, EX, MX, SX, IX on-prem and cloud
  • Provide Click-to-Join on POLY to easily join Webex or CMS meetings
  • Calendars supported: Exchange, O365, Google
  • High availability
  • Linux based
  •  

One thing is for sure – change is the only constant and Synergy SKY is multi-vendor.

 

 

Also read: 

"Synergy SKY is a Cisco Solutions Plus partner"

"Join any Microsoft Teams meetings on Cisco Webex devices with WebRTC"