3CX case study
50,000 customers using 3CX products globally

50,000
customers using 3CX products, globally

190GB of daily traffic on 3CX

190 GB
of daily traffic on OVHcloud-hosted 3CX servers

51,000 weekly calls flow through the 3CX IP PBX system

51,000 
weekly calls flow through the 3CX IP PBX system

Executive summary

Since releasing their free IP PBX product in 2006, 3CX has grown to serve a global user-base of over 50,000 customers. With a mission to slash telco bills by up to 80%, the company is focusedon enabling its customers to install, run, and scale its united communications platform in a cost-effective manner and without down time.

With efficiency and savings as core features, 3CX adapted their product into a cloud-friendly solution that provides an alternative to the traditional “on premises” model of enterprise telephony. For today’s businesses, communication systems are mission-critical and rely on high-performance infrastructures. Cloud adoption for 3CX was a natural evolution that enables companies to self-manage their environment with ease, and without stepping outside the bounds of their IT budget.

A mix of OVHcloud technologies, delivered through high-capacity internet bandwidth, provides a dependable backbone for the large-scale requirements of multimedia communications services.

The challenge

Delivering fast, consistent multi-channel communication for growing businesses.

Digital PBX systems depend heavily on fast and secure infrastructures. Voice and video communication systems, especially when groups are involved, have a very low tolerance for network errors and latency. This is especially relevant to a platform that serves over 190GB of daily non-CDN cached traffic.

As a business grows in head-count, the importance of effective communication also grows considerably. More line extensions, more complex call flows, more video traffic, more call logs and voice messages, to name a few. For 3CX to efficiently process over 51,000 weekly calls, a reliable and scalable infrastructure is critical to service quality and customer satisfaction.

Companies that choose to avoid the costs of managing their own infrastructure can rely on a cloud-hosted service that is managed by the vendor. This presents 3CX with the opportunity to serve customers that might be limited by a more conservative IT budget. For a managed solution to remain affordable, 3CX requires a competitively-priced cloud provider that doesn’t compromise on performance and reliability.

A Private Cloud setup

 

The solution

A Private Cloud setup, designed to deliver maximum flexibility across multiple locations.

Among the requirements for their cloud infrastructure, 3CX needed a self-managed solution with high-bandwidth internet access. It was determined that a Private Cloud service, based on VMware, would offer the necessary flexibility and allow 3CX to manage all their services from one place.

“Now, our IT team is capable of managing all our IT services on a fixed budget. When the need arises, we can easily react to the growing demand and make the necessary changes at any time.”

Stefan Walther, Head of Customer Service and Support

The 3CX infrastructure consists of two environments in geographically-separate datacentres: one in Europe and the other in Canada. Both environments run on Dedicated Cloud hardware for continuously reliable performance with dedicated resources. The company’s PBX Express product, which enables 3CX customers to easily deploy a cloud PBX system, runs on two Public Cloud instances, with the OpenStack OS managing the resource pool.

A vRack link integrates the servers in both datacentres under the same virtual LAN to ensure all private traffic between the two regions remains secure. Exclusive to OVHcloud customers, vRack enables 3CX to ensure service continuity for its customers through a redundant connection to OVHcloud’s low-latency network.

The result

Leading the way in cloud-based communications.

This solution enables 3CX to offer a cloud-hosted communications platform to customers who might not have the expertise or resources to manage an on-premises PBX. With over 50,000 customers (among which we find American Express, Intercontinental, Mitsubishi Motors) and 10,000 resellers worldwide, 3CX has experienced an annual growth of 40%.

Using the OVHcloud Public Cloud to power the setup tools of the PBX Express product, 3CX customers can install a complete PBX system onto the servers of their preferred cloud provider. The OVHcloud Private Cloud provides an operating platform through which 3CX can run and manage their web services, storage, data management, and all the critical systems that underpin their catalogue of communications tools.

The 3CX server and network infrastructure is a critical contributor to the quality of their services, as well as their continuous expansion.

“In recent years the demand for anything in the cloud, not just PBXs, is growing rapidly. We saw this change and predicted it would be applied to our industry, and we responded accordingly in order to service the cloud market.”

Stefan Walther, Head of Customer Service and Support