IP Communications solutions are getting easier to create and deploy, thanks to a recent proliferation of purpose-built, open-standards-based toolkits and boxes built with high availability and flexibility as the core drivers.
If the sheer volume of product announcements in 2007 is a reliable metric, 2008 should be the year that IP-based enterprise communications becomes a DIY market. Call centers, hosted PBX providers, and enterprises small and large are being bombarded with a host of new devices and “building-block” application kits that will enable converged communications environments for business users with an increasingly sophisticated (and, dare I say it, carrier-class) palette of call-management and data-integration applications. Siemens Enterprise Communications recently launched HiPath OpenOffice ME, an IP-communications toolset for building unified communications applications for the sub-150 extension enterprise market. Grandstream Networks came out with a converged IP-PBX appliance, the GXE502x, aimed at the 50-extension and below market. It supports most voice/ video codecs in the market and allows a small business to integrate service offerings from third-party SIP and VoIP carriers. Further back from the business communication system front, technology companies are beginning to roll out suites of appliances. Aculab has made a tremendous splash with the launch of its wholly owned ApplianX appliance portfolio; the UK developer has released a IP-PSTN mediating gateway based on its Prosody-X technology and is planning on having a range of appliances including voice and video gateways, SIP trunking gateways, and media servers. The solutions-provider industry has taken a considerable bet that enterprises are looking for pre-installed, or quick-to-install, IP service environments, and carriers want to be able to enable hosted services that are quick to deploy and easy for enterprises to manage and customize. This rapid proliferation of purpose-built appliances has come about in large part because the industry has, in fact, grown up into an industry. The development of plug-and-play IP communications has been pushed into formality with the launch of Asterisk Business Edition and increasing plug-ins for Outlook and other enterprise-class Microsoft offerings–and of course the looming inevitability of Live Communication Server (LCS) itself. “The open-source industry has migrated over the last ten years from a hobby-based one to one where real companies are trying to make money by serving the needs of other real companies,” observes Terry Atwood, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Care at development-tool provider PIKA Technologies.
In the appliance explosion, we see clearly two trends that echo throughout the IP technology world. The first is the inexorable push into the small enterprise market. Just like every other hosted IP service or product offering today, most of the IP boxes and toolkits are built with bringing cost-conscious convergence to the KTS set. And this informs the second trend–delivering solutions with greater flexibility and much, much more functionality. As I reported in last month’s review of chip and board technology, the advent of System-on-a-Chip (SoC) has meant more applications are getting squeezed into silicon products even as commodity prices are maintained–meaning products enabling advanced functionality can be offered at price points small businesses can afford.
But unlike SoC, which folds multiple applications onto a general-purpose chip, the move toward IP appliances has taken the opposite route toward increased performance. “Applications have gone the other way and focus on a single network task,” says Aculab’s Faye McClenahan. “We’ve seen the proliferation of fit-for-purpose devices to address specific performance needs, and we’ll see more, such as purely for video transcoders, etc.” And increased numbers of devices also adds to an enterprise’s ability to build more resilience in its network. “Redundancy can be better achieved when you have many small boxes stacked.”
The multiple fit-for-purpose application design principles of appliances doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t some standardization in the boxes themselves. “We are pursuing single purpose to try to simplify the product, but we also are designing them with high availability in mind. All the ApplianX boxes have such standard elements as redundant Ethernet connections, power supply, and hot-swap stands,” says McClenahan. The ApplianX boxes are available in several T1/E1 trunk-card configuration (one, two, or four), and a variety of voice codecs are supported (G.711, G.723.1, G.726, G.729A&B, and iLBC). Although much of this is aspirational in anticipation of a maturing client base, McClenahan doesn’t yet see specific drivers from customers in favor of one configuration or another.
Aculab has been in the business of building network-access technology and proprietary APIs for 25 years, but it has recently seen a need to empower developers and enterprises with IP capability more quickly. “The ApplianX range allows buyers to take advantage of enabling applications without the nitty-gritty…. If, say, a call center needs a media gateway, [appliances] offer ‘wrapped-up’ functionality and more choice in equipment and design characteristics,” comments McClenahan. She sees the increased presence of commercial versions of IP software and gateways as being an enabler to the IP appliance industry. The advent of LCS, et al, “is not a godsend, but it is a compelling event that will cause [IT buyers] to evaluate appliances as an option.”
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