10.09.2006 1 White Paper on Converged Communications Management Summary The market for Hosted IP is tremendously growing because it offers SMBs to benefit from the advantages of IP Communications without investing in the education of IT staff and investing in expensive hard and software infrastructure. In a typical SMB environment the relatively small IT department has to deal with all IT and phone issues. In the daily SMB business IT experts have no time to play with new technology and gather knowledge and experiences in the long run. To build up and host full IP Communications internally on corporate level would also mean investments in hardware and software and resulting in maintenance costs and time. Enabling the SMB to IMS within the SMB and using its own resources mean high TCO due to voice over IP being much more complex than standard messaging. How can SMBs take part in the VoIP adoption without huge investments? Like for messaging in the early 90s hosted services offer advanced applications while reducing costs on the SMB side. QoS (quality of service) is key for all IP Communications. Waiting 5 sec for an email to arrive in one’s inbox is acceptable while with Real Time Communications having a phone conversation and waiting for a voice packet 5 sec to arrive is unacceptable. , so relying on experts to host IP services and grant uptime and scalability is a fast and easy way to use and profit from IP Communications. What are the benefits of IP Communications? For some industry experts the main benefit of VoIP is reducing costs for long distance calls. But the benefits are far more. IP Communications centralizes all communications and provide flexibility in communications. This freedom will be enabled via SIP becoming the standard for IP Communications and providing registrar services. IP Communications become smart and provide freedom of clients and of ways to communicate. An example: Sales Manager John is travelling. Via IP Communications and SIP registrar services his clients can reach him via one single account: Being in the office he communicates via his SIP phone. Sitting in a hotel lobby while travelling and working with his laptop he can take the call via a softphone or even via Windows Messenger and a headset. He also can chat with his colleagues via Instant Messaging securely with TLS encryption. Being not available for a call he receives the voice mail in his inbox. He can archive the message, forward etc. Being without internet access he routes incoming calls to his mobile. Our vision is for everyone, everywhere to have one single account for all types of communications (IM, voice, email). Users will be enabled to enjoy the flexibility, convenience and cost savings of direct IP to IP and IP to PSTN communications such as IM, VoIP, video conferencing and presence, without having to first ask their contacts which system they’re using.
Transcript
10.09.2006 1
White Paper on Converged Communications
Management Summary
The market for Hosted IP is tremendously growing because it offers SMBs to benefit from the advantages of IP Communications without investing in the education of IT staff and investing in expensive hard and software infrastructure.
In a typical SMB environment the relatively small IT department has to deal with all IT and phone issues. In the daily SMB business IT experts have no time to play with new technology and gather knowledge and experiences in the long run. To build up and host full IP Communications internally on corporate level would also mean investments in hardware and software and resulting in maintenance costs and time. Enabling the SMB to IMS within the SMB and using its own resources mean high TCO due to voice over IP being much more complex than standard messaging.
How can SMBs take part in the VoIP adoption without huge investments?
Like for messaging in the early 90s hosted services offer advanced applications while reducing costs on the SMB side. QoS (quality of service) is key for all IP Communications. Waiting 5 sec for an email to arrive in one’s inbox is acceptable while with Real Time Communications having a phone conversation and waiting for a voice packet 5 sec to arrive is unacceptable. , so relying on experts to host IP services and grant uptime and scalability is a fast and easy way to use and profit from IP Communications.
What are the benefits of IP Communications?
For some industry experts the main benefit of VoIP is reducing costs for long distance calls. But the benefits are far more. IP Communications centralizes all communications and provide flexibility in communications. This freedom will be enabled via SIP becoming the standard for IP Communications and providing registrar services. IP Communications become smart and provide freedom of clients and of ways to communicate.
An example: Sales Manager John is travelling. Via IP Communications and SIP registrar services his clients can reach him via one single account:
� Being in the office he communicates via his SIP phone.
� Sitting in a hotel lobby while travelling and working with his laptop he can take the call via a softphone or even via Windows Messenger and a headset. He also can chat with his colleagues via Instant Messaging securely with TLS encryption.
� Being not available for a call he receives the voice mail in his inbox. He can archive the message, forward etc.
� Being without internet access he routes incoming calls to his mobile.
Our vision is for everyone, everywhere to have one single account for all types of communications (IM, voice, email). Users will be enabled to enjoy the flexibility, convenience and cost savings of direct IP to IP and IP to PSTN communications such as IM, VoIP, video conferencing and presence, without having to first ask their contacts which system they’re using.
10.09.2006 2
Fastmetrics VoIP Prioritization on Private Layer 2 Network
The diagram to the left illustrates a logical wide area network connection. PSTN stands for Public Standard Telephone Network.
Fastmetrics delivers converged services over its own layer 2 network to the end-user. Ideally the customer is subscribed with T1 or T Square type service, which is more reliable then ADSL connection and can support more seats due to the symmetric nature of the bandwidth.
What technology will be the backbone for Hosted IP in SMBs?
To make Real Time Communications reality an infrastructure based on SIP is key to next generation IP Communications. MetricCom Pro is the only tightly integrated application server that provides all IP Communication levels from email and calendaring, to instant messaging, VoIP, Conferencing Server (voice and video) and IP PBX, with extensibility through a full development environment. Over 115 million end users, including 40 million voice customers, rely upon MetricCom Pro (MCP) for their voice and data communication needs. MCP’s platform for truly unified Internet Communications solves objectives of scalability, security and interoperability of all IP Communications and IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS). MCP maintains the highest customer satisfaction level in the industry and has won more awards than any other Internet Communications solution. MCP holds the world record for scalability.
1) MetricComMetricCom Pro - Messaging: Mail and collaboration
Using Standards-based Mail User Agents
CMCP is fully compatible with any standards-based mail user agent (MUA) like Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express (using POP or IMAP), Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird, Pine, Netscape and lots of others.
Using collaboration clients like Outlook
MetricCom Pro provides robust cross-platform groupware applications, enabling a cost effective, easy to manage communications platform. MCP runs in corporate 'workgroup' mode; sending and receiving email, creating filters, managing contacts, sharing folders, and scheduling people and resources just as they would with Exchange. Outlook maintains a real-time connection to the MetricCom Pro Core Server, providing an experience comparable to connectivity with an Exchange server. There is no need to perform manual synchs and no extra buttons to clutter the Outlook interface. Secure connections (SSL with secure authentication) for sending and receiving mail since the MAPI
10.09.2006 3
connector runs everything over imap/s including sending messages. This allows enterprises the ability to reduce the need for complex VPN setups for email.
It allows sophisticated collaboration services, regardless of their desktop or client:
- Compose, send and receive email
- Calendar Schedule meetings, events and appointments. Invite attendees, receive and respond to invitations. Reschedule or make changes to appointments. Imagine a Windows user instantly checking the availability of a Mac user before scheduling a meeting, a manager with an Evolution client sharing folders with a remote user thru the Web interface, and each of them accessing a single corporate address book.
- Shared Address Book
- Shared tasks
- Shared Folders
- Set up mailbox filters
Like when using Outlook users can define custom rules within the client like auto replies when going on holidays. They can share folders and address books. Within the address book click-to-call functionality establishes VoIP calls direct from the address book. All data can be synchronized with mobile phones and other devices.
Using Webmail
MetricCom Pro Core Server extends groupware productivity beyond the Windows desktop by providing collaborative functionality via the multi-language Web interface. The user can select among 14 different languages in the Webmail interface. He can chose among different look&feel of his webmail (so called skins). The supported skins have more capabilities than Exchange, such as personal Mailing list management, S/MIME controls, and SIP 'place call' capabilities. In the new version (July 06) a rich media Flash based client will offer an interface like Outlook on the desktop with drag & drop functionality and click-to-call from any web browser.
The integrated Web interface is a secure groupware client, supporting messaging, calendaring, scheduling, electronic discussions, and address book with contact creation and maintenance. Users can access the same mailboxes, folders and calendars from any browser, just as they would with Outlook.
- Compose, send and receive emails
- Proofread work with integrated multi-language spell checker
- Use calendar like in desktop client with ability to schedule meetings, send invitations etc
2) MetricCom Pro - Instant Messaging
MCP is an IM Server with Presence aggregation for multiple clients (e.g. WIN Messenger). MCP currently supports the SIP protocol for IM clients and presence status on some devices such as Polycom phones. IM client's you may want to try are Windows Messenger 5.x with SIP capabilities (not msn Messenger), Windows Messenger for OSX, and the SJlabs softclient.
All users need to do is to download Windows Messenger version 5.x and set it up to use SIP communication services. Then point the IM server to your MCP server (using tcp or TLS for secure IM) on the advanced settings. Your MCP users and authentication are the same as your MCP users. Other external users should be able to see your presence if they add you to their buddies list. MCP
10.09.2006 4
has a built in Session Border Controller that will handle most near and far end NAT traversal for the clients. This means users can communicate via Instant Messaging even behind a firewall in a hotel.
The free/buzy information shows what buddies are online. If the user A tries to send the user B, who is offline or buzy, an IM, the email client e.g. Outlook opens a new email window and enters the SIP / email address of the recipient automatically.
Via Instant Messaging users / buddies can chat and can also do voice communications (headset with micro needed). IM also allows to invite more people to the conversation (other buddies) like in a conference call situation. Files or pictures can be exchanged in real time as well as applications shared or a whiteboard be accessed by the members in the current IM conversation.
With a webcam activated, also video can be added to the IM.
3) MetricCom Pro - VoIP and video calls
SIP based desktop phone
MCP integrates with all SIP-standards-based IP phones. Phones tested to date include SNOM, Polycom, Grandstream, Zyxel, Hitachi Cable and Cisco and various lesser known. The SIP desktop phone is used like any other desktop phone. Individual answering text for the answering machine can be recorded, calls can be routed, group calls can be set etc.
In the user administration within MCP users can define how often the phone should ring before the answering machine or any routing should take place as well as the line it should route to. If a user can not be reached the caller may leave a message which will be sent attached to an email to the user. The user then can archive the voice mail or work with it e.g. forward to a colleague.
If the SIP desktop phone provides video also video calls can be done.
Softphone
MCP works with standards-based softphones like Xten (Counterpath) X-Lite. On the market are free and non-free softphones available. With the new release of MCP (July 2006) a free softphone named Communify will be integrated.
In addition to the softphone software the PC/laptop needs speaker/micro or a headset. For users feeling more comfortable with a “real” phone, SIP-based phones with USP are available.
Users can call to IP and to PSTN like with a desktop phone.
Also when a call is not answered via the softphone a voice mail is sent to the user’s inbox.
If the softphone allows video and a webcam is connected to the softphone, users can like with Instant Messaging via WIN Messanger start a video conference.
Initiate calls via Outlook or Webmail Interface
MCP is an IM Server with Presence aggregation for multiple clients (e.g. WIN Messenger). MCP Users in Outlook and the Webmail can place VoIP Calls directly from the Outlook address book, often calles Click-to-call. This technology allows a soft phone or desktop SIP based phone that are registered to the user to be used rapidly from contact lists. Right clicking on any phone number or email address within Outlook.
MetricCom Pro - conferencing (voice and video)
MCP offers SIP based conferencing. Users can send out invitations with dial-in information like with any other conferencing service.
Scenario – How to benefit from MCP from a user perspective
Paul is sales manager with an SMB. He travels a lot but needs to be reachable for his customers and team members.
10.09.2006 5
- At work he has a PC and a SIP desktop phone. He’s using Outlook for collaboration
- At home he has a PC and is accessing email via Mozilla Thunderbird
- When travelling he uses his laptop and webmail to access his emails.
No matter what client he uses and where he is, with MCP he receives all emails and voice mails (IMAP). Also at home or when travelling he can access all of his emails, view his calendar and work with his address book.
At work
Paul is using all collaboration features of Outlook like arranging meetings, sharing the corporate address book. From his SIP phone he can do calls via VoIP or to the PSTN. When his line is buzy whil bing on another call, callers can leave him a voice mail which he will receive in his Inbox in Outlook. Paul is exchanging quick questions with his team members via an IM chat, IM is secure (TLS) and much faster than sending/receiving emails. Sometimes he is starting after a brief chat in IM a voice conversation directly in IM. When needed more participants to this voice conversation are invited. With remote team members applications can be shared in IM, savin time to send/receive via email and with the ability to have a direct live voice conversation parallel.
On the road
Paul is in Los Angeles in a hotel lobby waiting for a meeting. The hotel has a WIFI connection so Paul is checking his emails. The important customer X is calling Paul’s number. His SIP desktop phone in the office rings plus his softphone on his laptop is ringing – so even in the hotel lobby Paul can take this call. X did not need to try to call a) the office b) Paul’s mobile c) try to call him in the hotel in Los Angeles.
After the call with X Paul still has some time left before his meeting. Via IM he chats with his secretary in real time what letters need to be answered.
Paul sees in WIN Messenger that his other VIP customer Y is online. As he needs to check with him an important question he drops him an IM and start to chat.
Finally Paul’s meeting starts. In IM (e.g.WIN Messenger) he is shown now as buzy or offline or on the phone (status can be set by user). When someone tries to call him now, he’s directed to his answering machine where he can leave a voice message. After the meeting when Paul is accessing the internet again via Webmail, he sees an email from Z with a voice mail attached. He replies via email or calls Z with his softphone and headset.
At home
Paul is working from home as one of his children is sick. He can take any incoming call with his softphone and the caller thinks Paul is in the office. Customer X is calling again, and wants to confirm a scheduled meeting. At his home PC and via Thunderbird Paul can see all emails they have been exchanging for this meeting and he can look up the address of another participant of this meeting.
