SIP Applications Developer Pactolus Communications (News - Alert) Software Corporation announced this week a deal with telecom solutions company Global Crossing. Global Crossing is now using Pactolus’ RapidFLEX™ Service Creation and Delivery Platform and SIPware™ Event Audio Conferencing application to deliver event call services.

 

Pactolus’ platform now rides on Global Crossing’s VoIP network, leveraging the rich potential of IP for scalability, economy, features and reliability.

 

To learn more about this deal, and why it’s significant for both companies, TMCnet asked Pactolus’ vice president of marketing and product management, Ken Osowski (News - Alert), to provide some background.

 

 

Osowski: This is a new relationship and a new customer for Pactolus

 

 

Osowski: RapidFLEX is an extremely scalable, object-based VoIP service development environment for creating and customizing IP telecom services, and a service delivery platform that integrates these services into carrier and service provider networks.

 

 

Osowski: Introduced in 2006, SIPware Event Audio Conferencing is the industry’s first IP audio conferencing service that accommodates large events such as corporate investor calls with support for up to 3,000 event participants. Developed to meet stringent  Tier 1 IP carrier scale and availability requirements, Pactolus’ next generation SIPware Event Audio Conferencing application sets new industry benchmarks for high-end IP audio conferencing scale with unparalleled high availability features.

 

 

Osowski: One limitation is capacity; most pure IP services are sharply limited in their ability to scale. This is particularly true for JAVA-based and SIP Servlet-based solutions that over burden central processors several times in the call initiation phase, and so their performance degrades as usage grows.

 

Another limitation is resiliency and dependability; even momentary IP interruptions disrupt or disconnect all conference participants.

 

 

Osowski: Pactolus addresses the need for capacity with a solution capable of accommodating thousands of conference participants and hundreds of operators simultaneously; the RapidFLEX SDP manages call states and media streams, and the SIPware™ Event Audio Conferencing application maintains conference state, manages IVR interactions, accesses conference metadata, provides operator control, and manages Q&A in a well-orchestrated framework.

 

Pactolus also addresses resiliency by providing a service that enables geographically-distributed and co-located redundant components, and automates load-balancing and failover to eliminate single points of failure, helping to ensure new levels of IP service availability and resilience.

 

RapidFLEX Application Servers can be configured either N+1 with standard failover software to maintain overall system capacity or 1+1 with Pactolus CallComplete™ high availability software. CallComplete maintains conference state in the event of a primary Application Server failure without any interruption to participants.

 

For multi-location deployments, Pactolus InService™ high availability software can maintain service levels across the sites in the event of a failure at either site. 

 

Finally, Pactolus addresses the need for control by incorporating new features and controls that Global Crossing needs to broaden its customer base. Some of these will be based on Pactolus’ Event Conference Manager capability, a Web-based conference-management tool for operators handling large-scale conferences. It allows operators to easily provision and manage conferences, handle requests (“bells”), and assist participants with flyout windows that enable operators to view information about conferences, participants, bells, prelists, and Q & A requests, all on one screen.

 

 

Osowski: IP communications solutions need to reliably perform and scale as business and enterprise demands require, without disruption. Pactolus delivers this key function, ensuring that Global Crossing can meet its customer commitments.

 

 

Osowski: We and the analysts believe this to be the first IP telco service application that can support multiple thousands of users, and hundreds of operators simultaneously on one call. Pactolus’ application provides important new IP conferencing capabilities for Global Crossing, and offers the industry a new framework for large-scale, media-rich conferencing and collaboration capabilities.

 

To learn more about the solutions and services described in this article, please visit the Broadband Telephony channel on TMCnet.com, brought to you by Pactolus.