Migrations · BroadWorks
From BroadWorks to Thirdlane: a real plan, not a sales pitch.
Cisco announced end-of-sale for BroadWorks, with end-of-support timelines pushing operators toward Webex Calling — a platform with a fundamentally different commercial model. For service providers and carriers who built their UCaaS business on BroadWorks’ multi-tenant economics and channel autonomy, “just move to Webex” isn’t a strategy.
Thirdlane preserves what made BroadWorks viable for an operator: true multi-tenancy on one platform, channel-led white-label, and the ability to run your own NOC. What it changes is the licensing floor, the modernization rate, and how much capability ships in the platform vs. arrives as a partner integration.
Plan your move if…
End-of-sale doesn’t mean tomorrow, but the migration window is finite. Two or more of these usually means it’s already on the near-term roadmap, whether your team has put it on a slide yet.
- Your AS / NS upgrade path now requires re-procurement under Cisco’s post-EoL commercial model.
- You’re being steered toward Webex Calling, which loses the channel autonomy and reseller economics that made BroadWorks viable for you.
- Your reseller hierarchy can’t be replicated 1:1 in the proposed replacement, and your customers know it.
- Your UC-One / Webex client lineage needs replacement regardless of platform — you’re going to ship a new app to your customer base anyway.
- Your CDR and OSS pipeline assumes BroadWorks-shaped data. Any move requires re-plumbing, so doing it twice is worse than doing it once.
- Per-subscriber licensing math no longer works at your tier mix — small tenants are subsidizing the floor.
- Your roadmap conversations with the BroadWorks side of Cisco have gone quieter than they used to be.
What carries over cleanly
BroadWorks operators built deep operational discipline — provisioning automation, CDR pipelines, SBC integration, recording archival. Most of that translates. Some pieces get simpler.
Translates 1:1
Multi-tenant model, per-tenant isolation, reseller-style branding, DIDs/E.911 plumbing, STIR/SHAKEN attestation, integrated SBC, repository-based upgrades, OSS/BSS via APIs and webhooks, recording archival.
Gets simpler
Provisioning interface (one Configuration Manager vs. a fleet of OCI-P/OCI-C scripts), UC client (one branded Connect app, not three coexisting client lineages), AI voice intelligence and CRM (in-platform vs. separate procurements), and SSO (OIDC across every surface).
Mapping table
| Area | BroadWorks | Thirdlane |
|---|---|---|
| Tenancy model | Reseller ↔ group ↔ user hierarchy on a true multi-tenant carrier core. | Tenant ↔ user model with first-class Multi-Site Enterprise grouping for chain customers. Reseller branding via per-tenant white-label. |
| Subscriber footprint | BroadWorks subscribers and DIDs across application servers. | Tenant extensions and DIDs on a single Configuration Manager. Bulk migration via REST API + CSV import. |
| Hunt groups, call centers, IVRs | Hunt groups, Call Center Standard/Premium, Auto Attendants. | Ring groups, Contact Center queues with disposition codes and ACW, IVR + Routing Conditions + visual Call Flow editor. |
| Phones | BroadWorks Device Management System (DMS) with vendor-specific tags. | Phone Models management with per-model templates, multiple provisioning protocols, External Provisioning to retain a customer-managed DMS, S3 transport. |
| Recordings | BroadWorks Recording Server / partner recording platforms. | S3-compatible storage across seven providers (AWS, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Cloudflare R2, MinIO, Garage). Per-tenant BYOS for compliance-bound customers. |
| UC client | UC-One / Webex variants depending on era. | Connect: voice, video, chat, presence, file sharing, white-labeled per tenant on app stores under your brand. |
| Billing & OSS/BSS | CDR streams, BroadWorks Provisioning API (OCI-P/OCI-C). | OpenAPI 3.1 REST APIs (Organization, CRM, system management, telephony operations) plus webhooks. Separate reporting connection for OSS/BSS reads. |
| Identity | Per-system auth, partial SSO via partner integrations. | OIDC SSO with MFA across Configuration Manager, User Portal, and Connect. Pre-named: Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, Keycloak, Authentik, Zoho. Plus any OIDC IdP. |
| Routing & dialplan | Network and group dialplans, translation tables. | Per-tenant dial plans with country-aware E.164 normalization (51 pre-configured plans), per-user/per-trunk overrides, Routing Conditions for schedule/office-mode logic. |
| High availability | Carrier-grade redundant Application Servers, Network Servers, Network Function Manager. | Active/active and active/passive clustering with optional geo-redundancy. Service locations, role-separated management/proxy/PBX servers, tiered config sync, real-time topology view. |
How a migration runs
Operators with thousands of subscribers can’t flip a switch — and shouldn’t. Migrations run in four phases, on a schedule the operator controls.
Phase 1
Inventory & shape
We take an inventory of resellers, groups, subscribers, DIDs, recording footprint, and active integrations. The output is a per-tenant migration shape: what maps 1:1, what gets restructured, and what gets retired (legacy services that haven’t been touched in years are usually a third of the surface area).
Phase 2
Parallel platform
Stand up Thirdlane in your environment alongside BroadWorks. We pre-load tenants, phone templates, dial plans, and recording targets. Connect apps are white-labeled and published under your brand on iOS/Android while BroadWorks remains the active platform.
Phase 3
Tenant-by-tenant cutover
Cutover happens per tenant on a schedule the operator controls. Number routing flips, devices re-provision against Thirdlane (or stay on the customer-managed DMS via External Provisioning), and recordings move to S3. We keep BroadWorks live until the last tenant is comfortable.
Phase 4
Decommission & archive
Once all tenants are cut over, BroadWorks goes into read-only archival. We help you stand up a CDR / recording archive against the legacy platform for retention obligations, then sunset the application servers on your schedule.
Talk through your inventory
Send us a redacted reseller list, subscriber count, recording footprint, and a list of the BroadWorks add-ons you’ve been licensing. We’ll come back with a per-tenant migration shape, an honest read on what restructures, and a TCO across three years.
BroadWorks is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems. Mentions are for compatibility/migration context only.