Converged Networks White Paper March 2003 IP Telephony Contact Centers Unified Communication Services
T able of Contents Section 1: Executive Summary........................................................... 3 Section 2: Introduction.................................................................. 3 Section 3: Converged Network Overview................................................. 5 Section 4: Converged Network Components............................................... 7 Section 5: Converged Network Services.................................................. 9 Section 6: Converged Network Applications............................................. 12 6.1 IP Telephony/Multimedia Communciation............................... 12 6.2 Unified Communication............................................... 18 6.3 Multimedia Contact Center............................................ 19 Section 7: Conclusion.................................................................. 20
Section 1: Executive Summary Businesses today are faced with many evolutionary technologies. As Enterprises are evolving their IT infrastructure to a common IP based network, also known as converged networks, IT professionals must understand these evolutionary technologies and their implication to the bottom line in order to be successful. The goal of this paper is to offer a technology overview of the converged networks. This paper discusses the enterprise IT infrastructure evolution trend, key components and services of the converged networks, and applications that are supported by the converged networks including IP telephony, multimedia-contact center, and unified communications. This paper is complementary to the white paper titled Converged Communications: Delivering Business Value Through IP Telephony in the sense that this paper focuses on technology aspects of the converged networks while the other focuses on business value of the converged networks. Section 2: Introduction Enterprises seem to be evolving now more than ever. Driven by the need to become more virtual and global, we find that many enterprises are evolving their IT infrastructures in three phases 1 as shown in Figure 1. In the traditional phase, enterprises have separate infrastructures for voice and data networks, with time division multiplexing (TDM) for voice and IP for data. This is where the majority of enterprises are today. In the converged networks phase, enterprises build out their IP networks to leverage a common infrastructure for both voice and data. The points of emphasis in this phase are on enhancing the IP network to make certain it meets enterprise-class criteria, and improving its performance via QoS and reliability features to enable real-time, mission-critical business and communication applications. Note that applications can be in phase two, but linked to infrastructure that is still in phase one. As enterprises become more distributed and business performance needs dictate enhanced end user capabilities, converged communications applications will be deployed. 1 Avaya white paper, The Evolution to Converged Comunications. 1 Communication without boundaries
Increasing reliability & robustness over IP Federated Services IP QOS Best Effort Traditional Separate voice and data networks Call center Voice messaging Best effort IP Integrated Converged Networks IP infrastructure for voice & data Scaleable reliable call processing Multimedia contact center Multimodal portals Separated communications applications to leverage IP infrastructure Build out of web infrastructure Modular Systems Converged Communications Federated applications integrating communications and business services Dynamic service creation environment Rich multimodal user experience End point intelligence with user control Focus on software, open server, Internet technologies & methodologies in multivendor environment Distributed Software Increasing flexibility & cost efficiency of software applications Figure 1: Evolution to Converged Communications When enterprises migrate from traditional to converged networks and then to converged communications, there is increasing disaggregation and modularization of components and applications, with a corresponding increase in flexibility and cost efficiency. As systems become more modularized, their services can be deployed in more configurations. They become easier to integrate into heterogeneous and multivendor environments, and can be distributed anywhere within the network. This increased level of reusability gives enterprises more flexibility to create new, higher-value applications. This enables a dynamic service creation environment that can be modified or customized as needed to meet the ever-changing needs of the virtual enterprise. Avaya is taking the lead in disaggregating its software and systems into an open communication architecture that will enable its customers to transition to converged communications. Enterprises will evolve portions of their infrastructures from one phase to the next according to their business needs and will often be in more than one of these phases at the same time. The majority of enterprises today are transitioning between traditional and converged networks, with some leading-edge enterprises starting to transition to converged communications. Due to the gradual nature of this migration, it is essential that an enterprise deploys an architecture that is evolutionary enough to accommodate existing infrastructures and investments, but extensible enough to provide a foundation for deployment of new applications and services. 2
This paper focuses on technologies and components enabling the second phase of the evolution Converged Networks. It describes key issues and benefits of the converged networks, services provided by converged network and applications supported by the converged networks. Section 3: Converged Network Overview The initial driver for converged networks is often cost reduction. In fact, by leveraging the same infrastructure to carry voice and data traffic, enterprises can significantly reduce tariffs and can lower operational costs by simplifying the operation, administration, and management (OA&M) requirements. Increasingly, though, enterprises are transitioning to converged networks due to the ease with which new functionality can be added and deployed to improve productivity for end users. There are two business models enterprises can follow in transitioning to the converged environment: The Utility Model and The Value-Added Model. In the Utility Model, an IT organization must: Satisfy the requirements of the majority of the company s business and functional managers Have performance levels that are appropriate for the business requirements Have a cost structure that is low when compared to companies that provide a similar set of services at analogous performance levels. In the Value-Added Model, an IT organization must continually deploy some new functionality that helps the company s business and functional managers to achieve their goals. More detailed discussions on these two models are covered in Converged Communications: Delivering Business Value Through IP Telephony which is either available on www.avaya.com or can be obtained from your Avaya representative or Authorized Business Partners. Converged networks require that the IP infrastructure be enhanced with reliability and QoS features so that it can support more business critical and real time transactions. Critical building blocks include fault tolerant and redundant network designs with reliable network components (e.g., switches, routers, gateways, VPN, feature servers), as well as the ability to support end-to-end IP-based differentiated services by using congestion management, traffic policy and shaping, access control, and QoS signaling. 3
Figure 2: Migrating to Converged Networks To support the migration to converged networks, Avaya has disaggregated its PBX, with embedded call processing software and integrated communication applications, into three components (refer to Figure 2): IP QoS-enabled network components, including media servers, media gateways, VPNs, and LAN switch, where some of the components support hot standby configurations. Scalable and reliable call processing software that can be distributed between headquarter and branch offices, or among multiple sites, as necessary, to fit the needs of a virtual enterprise. Standalone applications including contact center, unified communication, and IP telephony that support the same user capabilities over both IP based and TDM based network infrastructures, in a heterogeneous multi-vendor environment. This is the first step in Avaya s evolution of its solution portfolio to a modular and open communication architecture. Even at this first step, the benefits of modular systems can be realized. For example, the new call processing software can be coupled with the appropriate combination of media servers and gateways as needed by the various different sites in a virtual enterprise. In cases where it is imperative that a branch office survives a link failure, it can be outfitted with the appropriate media server. 4
In the following sections, we will discuss converged network components, converged network service (IP QoS), and converged applications in more detail. Security issues of the converged networks are addressed in the Security in Converged Networks white paper which is either available on www.avaya.com or can be obtained from your Avaya representative or Authorized Business Partners. Section 4; Converged Network Components Figure 3 shows an example of converged enterprise network. Headquarters PC Media Gateway Media Server IP IP Application Servers PSTN with VPN client with VPN client IP Softphone with VPN client Wireless Access Point with VPN enabled clients LAN switch VPN/Firewall DSL or Cable ISP WAN Internet ISP Media Server Media Gateway IP VPN Notebook with VPN remote Client and IP Softphone VPN/Firewall LAN switch PC IP Telecommuting Workers Mobile Workers Branch Office Figure 3: Converged Enterprise Network Key components of a converged network include core data networking components such as LAN switches, WAN routers and converged telephony/multimedia components including endpoints, gateways, and servers. Their functions are described as follows: 5
LAN switches: A device that filters and forwards packets between LAN segments. LAN switches operate at the data link layer (layer 2) and sometimes the network layer (layer 3) of the OSI Reference Model. Routers: A device that connects any number of LANs. Routers also allow remote offices to connect over a WAN. Communicating layer 3 paths via routing protocols allows routers to select the best possible path for traffic. Routers also provide traffic shaping and other QoS features that enhance multi-media communication. VPN device: A networking device that implements encryption and other security mechanisms to permit organizations to establish secure, end-to-end, private network connections over third-party networks, such as the Internet or extranets. Some of these VPN appliances are capable of elementary QoS. Firewall device: A device designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both. Wireless Access Point: A device that functions as a radio transceiver and bridge for wireless LAN clients and also transfers data from the client radios to wired LAN. Endpoints and User Agents: In a general sense, an endpoint is a source and/or receiving side of media such as audio or video. Examples of endpoints are a PC running an audio/video communication application or an IP telephone. While this probably suggests that a person uses the endpoint, an endpoint can be an automated device, such as a voice mailbox. The endpoint also terminates a signaling protocol, such as SIP or H.323, and may be controllable from some application via an API. A special type of endpoint is the conference bridge, also known as a mixer or Multipoint Conference Unit (MCU). No user is associated with the conference bridge, but it acts like an endpoint. Gateways: A gateway provides the translation between two different networks. Such a gateway translates between the different bearer or media streams (for example, between a synchronous stream on a DS0 in an ISDN and an asynchronous packetized stream in a packet network), and also between the different signaling protocols (for example, between Q.931in an ISDN and SIP or H.323 in a packet network). Traditional or legacy gateways are typically single box gateways, since they provide all translation functions within a single physical box. The traditional gateway can be decomposed into its functional parts: media gateway, signaling gateway, and media gateway controller. 6
Servers: Many functions would logically reside in a central place, such as in a server. One such function is known as a registrar (SIP) or a gatekeeper (H.323). This service allows an endpoint to register its current location (i.e., it maps between an IP address and an alias address, such as a SIP URI). Other functions can reside in a server as well, such as a feature server that provides a set of call processing features. The feature server can provide a wide variety of features, and can be invoked in varying degrees depending on the call. A simple feature server can act as a redirection server or a SIP proxy. A more complicated server might provide group or contact center features. Network components are the basic building blocks of the converged network. They need to be available and reliable. One of the concerns on migrating to a converged environment is network availability and reliability. Most customers require the network and systems to be always available and to work correctly. This is especially the case for any communications concerning emergency or other mission-critical applications. A reliable converged network requires redundancy and fault-tolerance to be built in the network components as well as overall network design including WAN connections and power considerations. 99.999% reliability also involves issues like fast fail-over protocols and the ability to down load code into a device without taking it out of service; also known as, hot swappable hardware and software. Section 5: Converged Network Services Network Services in this section refer to the capabilities or services that the network infrastructure can provide to the applications that are running on the networks. One of the key network services in the converged networks is the Quality of Service (QoS). In the converged network environment, networks are required to serve as a transport for a variety of applications, including mission critical business applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning, delay-sensitive voice traffic, bandwidth intensive video and ecommerce applications. These business applications have different requirements on network resources. Applications such as voice have stringent delay requirements and can tolerate only minimal packet loss, while others cannot tolerate packet loss but do not have tight delay requirements. To meet the different needs of the business applications and provide different level of network services, Quality of Service (QoS) functions are required. QoS functions here refer to a combination of different complementary technologies that come together to enable the delivery of differentiated services in the converged network environment. Most commonly used QoS functions are: 7
Marking & Classification: Packet marking marks or colors packets according to policy and business rules. Packet classification identifies and partitions the packets into different priority levels or classes of service based on the value of one or more header fields, such as source address, destination address, DS field, protocol ID, source port and destination port numbers, and other information such as incoming interface. The output of the classifier is fed through a scheduler into the queuing system, where different queuing strategies can be applied for congestion management purpose. Classification typically takes place at the edge of network, either in the wiring closet or within the voice endpoints themselves. Congestion Management: Congestion management involves packet scheduling and resource allocation. It provides capability to control congestion by using queuing algorithms to sort and place the traffic onto different queues and then determining how to serve the queues onto an output link based on certain priority. Examples of these techniques include Priority Queuing (PQ), Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ), etc. Congestion Avoidance: Congestion avoidance techniques monitor network traffic loads in an effort to anticipate and avoid congestion before it becomes a problem. Congestion avoidance techniques involve a variety of packet dropping mechanisms, including Random Early Detection (RED) and Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED). Policing and Shaping: Policing is to ensure traffic rate fit within a specified contract. Excess packets are dropped or marked down to a lower priority to maintain network integrity. Traffic shaping buffers traffic and distributes traffic peaks over time for smooth flows. Signaling: QoS signaling provides a way for an end station or network node to signal its neighbors to request special handling of certain traffic. QoS signaling plays a key role in configuring successful overall end-to-end QoS service across networks. Either in-band (packet coloring) or out-of-band (RSVP) signaling can be used to indicate that a particular QoS service is desired for a particular traffic classification. Call Admission Control: Accept or reject a traffic flow based on availability of network resources. Link Efficiency Mechanisms: Link efficiency can be used on a low speed link to improve the bandwidth efficiency. Link efficiency mechanisms include: Compressed Real-Time Protocol (CRTP) and Link Fragmentation and Interleaving (LFI). 8
QoS functions needs to be engineered end-to-end. Depending on the traffic load and congestion situation, different QoS functions can be used at different parts of an enterprise network to achieve required end-to-end performance. The commonly used QoS functions at endpoints, LAN, and WAN are described as follows: QoS at Endpoints: QoS functions such as packet marking and simple queuing need to be supported, at least, by voice endpoints with embedded L2 switch. Endpoints with advanced QoS capability such as RSVP signaling have additional advantages of being able to reserve the network resources for the applications in a RSVP-aware network. QoS at LAN: QoS functions in the LAN are recommended if real-time audio and video will be transported on the LAN. In a properly designed network, LANs do not experience significant link congestion since the amount of traffic is often low relative to the amount of bandwidth available. However, temporary congestion may occur in the LAN routers/switches when multiple large file transfers temporarily occupy LAN router/switch queues. This temporary condition can cause either delay variation to become noticeable or voice/video packets to be dropped. In order to ensure that high-bandwidth traffic bursts do not adversely affect voice or mission-critical applications, QoS mechanisms such as congestion management (queuing) and congestion avoidance can be used. QoS in the enterprise WAN: QoS functions in the WAN are useful in optimizing expensive resources since bandwidth on a WAN link is typically more limited. QoS functions on WAN include classification, congestion avoidance, congestion management, policing, shaping, and link efficiency mechanisms. All or some combinations of these mechanisms can be used together to improve link efficiency, reduce delay and jitter for delay-sensitive applications. QoS administration and management is also a critical area. Centralized policy based tool and management functions can be used to control and administer QoS functions end-to-end across the network to ensure consistent QoS policy enforcement. Avaya s MultiService Network Infrastructure solutions (MSNI) and Enterprise Class IP Solutions (ECLIPS) are QoS enabled. By implementing advanced QoS functions in the switches, gateways, and endpoints, Avaya provides end-to-end QoS capabilities for converged networks to deliver the required performance on various applications. 9
Section 6: Converged Network Applications Voice and voice-enabled applications are one of the most critical business applications in a converged network. Migrating traditional voice and voice-enabled applications onto a converged network holds the promise of lower costs and the opportunity for new features and functionalities. This section focuses on applications such as IP telephony, multi-media contact center, and unified communications. 6.1 IP Telephony/Multimedia Communication Key considerations in migrating voice/multimedia communication onto a converged network include network and system availability/reliability, scalability, voice quality, telephony feature sets, security, manageability, standards compliance, protocol interoperability, and migration path/investment protection. The following subsections will discuss issues related to these areas, specifically; voice quality, converged telephony systems, migration, and protocol interoperability such as running IP telephony over a VPN. Security issues related to IP Telephony applications are addressed in the Security in Converged Networks white paper which is either available on www.avaya.com or can be obtained from your Avaya representative or Authorized Business Partners. Voice Quality In the Converged Network Voice quality can be affected significantly, and adversely, by packet delay, packet jitter, packet loss, echo, and choice of audio codecs. They are discussed in the following 2 : Delay: refers to the amount of time that a voice packet takes from the sender to reach the receiver including the time it takes to do the processing inside them. Sources of delay in the network can be processing delay at codec, buffer/queuing delays that occur in switches and routers, and transmission delay. Very good sound Quality is achieved with one-way delay of 0-150 msec (millisecond) from user to user. Depending upon requirements longer delays may be acceptable. Jitter: refers to the variation in delay, which can lead to the perception of choppiness in speech. Jitter is caused by a variety of network factors, including congestion, varying packet sizes, packet mis-order, or packet loss. Engineering QoS at network components such as routers, switches and gateways to give voice priority treatment and/or using a Jitter buffer, can mitigate jitter. A jitter buffer is designed to smooth packet flow by holding incoming packets for a specified period of time before forwarding them to the decompression process. However, in so doing, it can also add packet delay. 2 Avaya IP Voice Quality Network Requirements, http://www1.avaya.com/enterprise/solutions/convergence/eclips/whitepapers/.html 10
Echo: is the reflection of an audio signal back to its source. The reflection can be caused by acoustic reverberation, electrical cross-talk in telephones or facilities, and impedance mismatches in analog telephone lines and trunks. The perception of echo is commonly described as the experience hearing your own voice come back through the earpiece as incoming sound and is technically measured by determining the delay of the echoed signal and the strength of the reflected signal. Packet loss: Loss of packets in the network could happen due to heavily loaded networks i.e., packets may be dropped due to queue or buffer overload in the intermediate nodes (routers, switches etc.,) or completely filled jitter buffer at the endpoints causing choppy sounding of conversation. Network Packet Mis-Order: Packets can arrive out of order if they are sent over different routes. This can be a result of an intentional situation, such a load balancing, or an un-intentional situation such as re-routing due to network congestion. Packets that arrive out of order are discarded if they arrive later than the jitter buffer can hold them. In this situation, network packet mis-order becomes equivalent to packet loss. Codec Selection: The choice of the appropriate type of codec is typically made as a trade-off between the cost of bandwidth and the quality of the voice communications. Table 1 lists the common speech coding standards, the bandwidth they require, and the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) associated with each type of codec. The MOS is a well-established method of determining voice quality by ITU. According to ITU a MOS of 4.0 or higher is needed for toll-quality voice. Note that the bandwidth listed in Table 2 does not include overhead associated with protocols such as UDP, and RTP. Standard Coding Type Bandwidth (Kbps) MOS G.711 PCM 64 4.3 G.729 CS-ACELP 8 4.0 G.723.1 ACELP 6.3 3.8 MP-MLQ 5.3 Table 1: Comparison of Speech Codec Standards Delay cannot be eliminated completely from a VoIP path as it includes the inevitable processing time in the endpoints and the transmission time. However, delay, jitter, and packet loss can be reduced and controlled by enabling appropriate QoS functions at networks as described in Section 5 and other techniques such as jitter buffer, echo cancellation, and packet loss compensation at endpoints to further improve voice quality in the converged networks. 11
Converged Telephony Systems There are a few architectural variations of converged telephony systems. The most dominant architectures are IP-enabled or pure LAN-based (Pure-IP) 3. IP-enabled PBX: Figure 4 shows an example of an IP-enabled system at central site. Digital Analog IP Soft IP IP Soft IP Analog Port Cards/ Gateways Router Router Gateway (Survivable) Circuit Switch Call Processing Server PBX IP-enabled PBX Application Server WAN PSTN Remote Site Digital Central Site Figure 4: IP-Enabled PBX at Central Location In this architecture a variety of network interface cards, including integrated gatekeeper/gateway port circuit boards, are added to existing PBXs, enabling them to interface with other devices on an IP network, such as IP phones and soft phones connected to local and remote LANs. The call-processing software is embedded in the PBX. Communication applications are either embedded within the PBX or standalone but communicate with the PBX via proprietary protocols over TDM connections. 3 IP LAN Telephony: The Technology Migration Imperative, http://www1.avaya.com/enterprise/solutions/convergence/eclips/whitepapers/.html 12
LAN-Based Telephony: In this architecture, illustrated in Figure 5, the call processing software is built on standard hardware and runs a standard operating system. Applications can be either integrated or separated from call processing software. The standalone applications communicate with call processing via standard interfaces over IP infrastructure. Media gateways in both architectures are used to provide inter-working with PSTN via either analog or digital trunks and existing analog devices, such as fax machines and analog phones. The gateways can be further decomposed into media gateway controller, media gateway and signaling gateway as specified in the H.248/Megaco standard. This approach has some desirable attributes: Separation of application from hardware. Since hardware is separated from the application, it allows the creation of very flexible systems. For example, it would be possible to add a media gateway to a small or branch office to provide local survivable communications while maintaining the application at a central location. IP Soft Application Server IP Router Router IP Soft IP Analog Gateway (Survivable) Call Processing Server Gateway IP WAN Remote Site Digital Digital Central Site Analog PSTN Analog Figure 5: LAN-Based Telephony System 13
Vendor independence Implementation of product according to adopted standards allows mixing of components to fit the unique requirements of any network. IT allows the enterprise to optimize existing infrastructure investments. Deployment/Migration: IP-enabled and LAN-based architectures offer different benefits and limitations. In the IP-enabled architecture, the feature functionality, application support, and the reliability of the traditional PBX are preserved. Customer s existing traditional phones and port-cards can be reused. Therefore, this approach offers enterprises maximum investment protection and the easiest path to migrate to the converged environment. The LAN-based telephony approach offers several networking advantages. It allows the use of a single cable plant that can scale with the network. This approach enables enterprises to manage a single infrastructure as well as possibly combine the telecom and data IT departments into one. The most common approach enterprises use today, as shown in Figure 6, is to deploy an IP-enabled PBX at the central location to leverage the existing TDM infrastructure and a LAN-based PBX at new locations. Remote Site Digital Analog IP Soft IP IP Soft IP Analog Digital Router Port Cards/ Gateways Router Gateway (Survivable) Circuit Switch WAN Call Processing Server PBX IP-enabled PBX Application Server PSTN Call Processing Server Router IP Soft Central Site IP Gateway New Site Digital Analog Figure 6: Deployment Scenarios 14
The Avaya ECLIPS portfolio supports both implementations. With the recently announced additions to the ECLIPS portfolio, Avaya greatly enhanced its converged telephony offerings. With the introduction of the two new media servers and new gateways, the ECLIPS portfolio has become far more modular. Virtually unlimited scalability can be achieved easily by adding more local or remote media gateways. The modularity of ECLIPS portfolio and Avaya MultiVantage Software solution increases the opportunities for 3 rd parties to develop applications that can be supported by the Avaya ECLIPS portfolio. Avaya s ECLIPS achieves up to five 9s availability 4 in a converged environment by combining different levels of redundancy with a distributed network architecture and comprehensive telephony survivability at remote sites. With its Distributed Networking architecture, Avaya can install an S8700 Media Server with its dual Linux processors running Avaya MultiVantage Software at a central site and can serve remote sites over a converged WAN. This use of centralized call processing and networked applications delivers complete and consistent telephony features and applications across the enterprise. With Avaya s MultiVantage Software based solutions, an enterprise s investment can be preserved. When Avaya introduced the ECLIPS portfolio in the Fall of 2001, Avaya s DEFINITY Servers could be IP-enabled by adding an IP telephony gateway card so small to medium sized locations could take advantage of the Avaya IP600 Internet Protocol Communication System. In the latest release, that migration can be extended to a full IP-centric configuration, while still preserving the original PBX investment. In fact the capacity for a single server can be extended to support up to 36,000 endpoints of which up to 12,000 can be IP. VoIP over VPN VPN and Firewall technologies are an integral part for providing security for Enterprises. Enterprise communications via VPN offers opportunity for cost saving, flexible communications, and simplified network administration. However, IP Telephony over VPN/Firewall presents certain technical challenges. The most important challenges include achieving compatibility between IP Telephony and security protocols. One of the examples is the issue of IP Telephony with Network Address Translation (NAT) since most VPNs and Firewalls embed a Network Address Translation (NAT) function. 4 Avaya IP 600 and DEFINITY IP Solutions: Reliability and Availability, http://www1.avaya.com/enterprise/solutions/convergence/eclips/whitepapers/.html 15
NAT has difficulties with protocols that embed IP address information within the payload of the IP packet. SIP and H.323 devices allocate ports dynamically (for reception of media over UDP), and then pass these addresses within the protocol. A typical NAT device will not be aware of this, and their translated packets will have conflicting addresses in the IP header and in the payload. If the far end device replies back to the payload s address, the packet is undeliverable. Two generally accepted solutions to this problem are to: Use IPSec Tunneling to tunnel the NAT sensitive protocol through the public network so NAT is never applied to the NAT sensitive protocol. Use application-aware NAT devices, such as H.323 or SIP aware NAT that parse application specific messages to find addresses. When an enterprise uses non-overlapping IP addresses across their multiple locations, either site-to-site or site-to-soho, IPSec Tunneling can be used to tunnel the VoIP traffic through the IP WAN. However, when an enterprise uses overlapping IP addresses across their multiple locations, IPSec Tunneling cannot be used since NAT cannot be avoided. An H.323- or SIP-aware NAT is required here. Avaya s award-winning VPN solutions have embraced these alternatives and support IPSec and three types of NATs today and will support H.323-aware NAT soon. Avaya s ECLIPS portfolio also includes an additional solution that allows H.323 traffic NATed without upgrading VPN/Firewall for some IP Telephony configurations. By implementing a patent-pending autodetection/auto-compensation method on IP telephony servers and voice endpoints, a voice endpoint can detect whether NAT is H.323-aware or not and make correction based on the info provided by VoIP server. If the NAT is H.323-aware, no action is taken. If the NAT does not support H.323, action is taken by VoIP servers and endpoints to correct the situation. This solution provides investment protection for customers who do not want to upgrade their VPN/Firewall to add a VoIP application across their multiple enterprise locations. 6.2 Unified Communication Voice mail and e-mail are two seemingly omni-present communication applications in the enterprise. In the traditional networks, voice and email are run on separate networks: voice network and data networks. As enterprises are evolving to converged networks, a new model for enterprise communications is taking shape. The new model promises to bring consistency and seamless communication capabilities to the enterprise and its customers by integrating communication infrastructure that spans the enterprise s existing and future communication channels. The new model is called Unified Communication. 16
The basic building blocks for Unified Communication are: Multimedia Collaboration for quick and easy voice, video and data interaction. Message Management for simplified and integrated management of voice, fax, email and video images. Contact Direction for seamless access to integrated directories from anywhere and any device. Personal Assistant and Mobility Management for setting personal rules for controlling how others find me/hide me/reach me and for handling important messages. Avaya s Unified Communication offerings include traditional solutions such as voice messaging, unified messaging, and audio and video conferencing, as well as new solutions that combine simplified voice, video, and data collaboration. Avaya Unified Communication lets customers communicate within and beyond their enterprise for better, faster decision-making and superior responsiveness to customers, associates and suppliers. Avaya Unified Communication Center (UCC) solutions that deliver seamless access via speech, Web, and wireless to a suite of personal productivity tools including Avaya Contact Information Management, Avaya Message Management, and Avaya Calling and Conference Management for the in-office and mobile workers. Whether through a Web browser, a wireless device, or a speech command, Avaya Unified Communication Center allows users to seamlessly access rich calling and conferencing capabilities for easy collaborative working sessions. Avaya Unified Communication Center has quick and easy message handling for effective message management, integrated access to directories and databases for contact and information management, and virtual 24/7 assistance to calendars and tasks for increased personal efficiency. The result? Facilitation of better, faster decisions for a more competitively differentiated enterprise. 6.3 Multimedia Contact Center Businesses today are interacting with customers across more channels than ever before. More traditional call centers are evolving to Multi-media Contact Centers to service interactions via email, Web, chat, and IP telephony. Customers must be treated with consistent business rules, consistent service levels, and consistent knowledge regardless of whether the channel is traditional TDM-based telephone, IP telephone or via one of the many other points of contact that customers are using on a daily basis. 17
In the Multimedia Contact Center, interaction with customers includes phone, Web, email, and fax, and new channels such as VoIP and wireless are emerging rapidly. Providing consistent customer experiences across all these channels requires an integration of channel technologies around a single customer view with common business decision-making, routing, management and interaction delivery. The Avaya Multi-media Contact Center provides a fully integrated multi-vendor, multi-platform, multi-channel solution. Avaya s solution integrates best in class skills based routing algorithms, runs on industry standard platforms, supports a variety of interaction over both IP and non-ip infrastructures, as well as a heterogeneous PBX switching environment. Avaya can deliver the customer to where ever your agent is, in whatever way the customer prefers and then provides the management tools to enable the management that tomorrow s complex geographically dispersed Multi-media Contact center require. Section 7: Conclusion Converged networks involve many evolutionary technologies and applications.. Even though the list may seem long, Avaya is committed to help enterprises make a smooth transition to Converged Networks by maximizing ROI and providing extremely high quality, manageable solutions. The Avaya ECLIPS portfolio, MultiService Network Infrastructure (MSNI), Unified Communication Solutions, and Multi-media Contact Center solutions provide enterprises a smooth migration path to the converged environment today. Avaya is committed to providing enterprises with solutions that create an infrastructure that is evolutionary enough to optimize existing investments, but extensible enough to provide a foundation for deployment for new applications and services. Learn More For additional information on our IP telephony solutions, please contact your Avaya Client Executive, Authorized BusinessPartner, or visit us at avaya.com/learnmore/ip. For more information about Avaya and our other award-winning solutions, visit avaya.com. 18
About Avaya Avaya enables businesses to achieve superior results by designing, building and managing their communications networks. More than one million businesses worldwide, including 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500, rely on Avaya solutions and services to enhance value, improve productivity and gain competitive advantage. Focused on enterprises large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable IP telephony systems, communications software applications and full life-cycle services. Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to unlock value and enhance business performance. reach IP Telephony Contact Centers Unified Communication Services 2003 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved. Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Printed in the U.S.A. 03/03 Ef-LB1893 avaya.com