If you are a hosted VoIP service reseller or Internet Telephony (News - Alert) Service Provider (ITSP), you are constantly looking for and strategizing how to make your communications services business cost less, be more profitable and able to efficiently grow much larger. One of the most costly aspects of your business is likely the acquisition and on-going management and customer service operation related to the VoIP devices (ATAs and IP phones) you have deployed at your subscribers’ premises. You are not alone if you are looking to the cloud to better manage your subscriber VoIP devices – from initial boot-strapping and default configuration customization to on-going subscriber configuration management – including software updates.
If you were to look-up “Cloud-Managed VoIP Devices,” for sure, there is a lot of contrasting material on the Web that may make it very difficult and even a bit perplexing to understand what exactly it is or what is available now and in the future from industry vendors. In this article, we will describe how Obihai provides robust, secure, scalable deployment and cloud management options for VoIP devices deployed to subscribers’ homes or offices.
While old-school, legacy hosted VoIP solutions work to take the headache out of managing individual and enterprise-owned on-site VoIP devices by providing the equipment, configuration interface and technical expertise required to get the job done, cloud-managed, hosted VoIP devices do not require a large investment in a data-center management system or the hugely-complex coordination and implementation of a configuration management application that is up to the task of providing effective customer-service, troubleshooting and device upgrades.
Rather, the ubiquitous cloud provides for a highly-available, secure, scalable and extensible management architecture allowing the service provider and managed services VAR to keep up-to-the-second command and control of the many thousands of devices in its service domain – at a fraction of the cost it would’ve required to manage devices using an internally-built and managed system.
The cloud makes many things much easier and/or less costly. Cloud-managed services, for instance, are designed to be virtually protected by outside detriments such as natural disasters than can create localized power outages, failures and foil many ill-prepared redundancy / recovery strategies. By hosting the communications service’s device management in the cloud, means that traditional VoIP endpoint management technology and everything with which it entails (ie. your resources, equipment and technical expertise) are no longer kept at your physical location. Managed hosted VoIP devices provide an increased level of service delivery, reliability and device management flexibility without increased complexity or risk to security.
For businesses, taking the physical management of deployed devices out of the equation and handing it off to the cloud as provided by the endpoint device provider is extremely advantageous, as it allows them to focus more intently on business initiatives, goals and their overall success.
Take, for example, Obihai’s OBiTALK ITSP Portal. This is the administrative interface where service providers and managed service VARS can command and control OBi devices located at remote customer locations – anywhere in the world. Obihai’s cloud-management technology built-in to their OBi VoIP devices enable Obihai customers to flexibly monitor, control and manage configurations of just a handful to thousands of OBi VoIP devices.
Obihai Technology’s ‘OBi’ devices are well-known for the very powerful and flexible remote provisioning and management features. The OBi device provisioning and management architecture can accommodate almost any ITSP deployment scenario imaginable. In addition to this, the devices are backed by a complementary and equally powerful website known as the OBiTALK Portal (www.obiltak.com) which enables both individual users and ITSP administrators to manage their devices from the cloud. Here are summary highlights of how the OBi device provisioning and management architecture comes together with or without the addition of the OBiTALK ITSP portal.
OBi Device Provisioning – The Gateway (News - Alert) to Cloud-Management
OBi device provisioning is a mechanism by which an OBi device pulls a configuration file from a server – usually via the Internet. There are two identical sets of configuration parameters in the OBi that control how this is done. One is OBiTALK Provisioning and the other is ITSP Provisioning. The rationale of having two sets of provisioning tethers is to support two general ITSP device deployment models:
- BYOD Service Self-Provisioning – BYOD stands for, “Bring Your Own Device.” Users acquire and configure devices themselves, usually with a configuration guide published by the ITSP. A BYOD service typically does not “lock” their customers’ devices. OBiTALK Provisioning is aimed at helping end-users to configure their own devices using the OBiTALK Portal website (www.obitalk.com). Users may also choose to upgrade the firmware on the device and change other settings unrelated to the ITSP – such as Speed Dials or Call Forward Settings on their own.
- Full-Service Custom Remote Provisioning – The ITSP configures the device for their subscriber customer. The ITSP is usually the owner of the device. They may pre-configure the device before sending the device to the end-user. The ITSP usually locks-down the device, so that the end-user will be unable to modify important service settings. From small to very large scale deployments, the OBi Device ITSP provisioning architecture lets ITSPs securely and remotely manage devices.
OBiTALK User Portal (www.OBiTALK.com) and OBiTALK Provisioning
Obihai Technology operates www.obitalk.com, a website for OBi users to manage their devices from the cloud. The site has many setup wizards to help users configure their devices for BYOD services and other user features. A user must sign-up for an OBiTALK User Account in order to access the portal features. Once logged-in, a user can add one or more OBi devices to the account used to manage OBi devices.
After a device is successfully added to the OBiTALK account, the user may proceed to configure VoIP services on the device using the setup wizard tools available on the portal. For example, most users would setup a BYOD service on the device, and/or add a service specifically for E911 and / or international calling. All the configurations entered by the user, for the device, are stored in the cloud and accessible via the OBiTALK portal. A corresponding configuration file will be served from the OBiTALK cloud, upon request from the device.
The screen shot below is the web page a user would see after log-in to a BYOD OBiTALK account. This web page shows a summary of status of all the devices that have been added to the account.
ITSP Provisioning
ITSPs are responsible for serving configuration files to their customers’ devices. They must first decide on a way to initially set up the ITSP provisioning parameters in each device, in order to direct the device to contact their provisioning server to request its target configuration file. There are two basic strategies to achieve this:
- The ITSP pre-configures the ITSP Provisioning parameters on the unit before shipping it out to the customer. This requires the device to be taken out of box, powered-up, connected to the local LAN for pre-provisioning and finally repackaged before shipping to a subscriber.
- The ITSP orders Zero-Touch (ZT) customizable units from Obihai Technology and defines ITSP Provisioning parameters in a ZT profile custom-designated for their company. With ZT customization, the unit does not need to be taken out of the box – hence Zero-Touch – as the ZT device parameters are defined in such a way as to enable the device to contact the ITSP’s provisioning server to request the initial configuration file.
Normally, a device is either under OBiTALK Provisioning (usually for BYOD VoIP services) or ITSP Provisioning, but not both. There are situations, however, where the OBiTALK Provisioning and the ITSP Provisioning are both used.
OBiTALK ITSP Portal Accounts: Basic & Premium
The OBiTALK portal offers a different class of account to let an ITSP manage and / or monitor a large number of devices. This is different from a BYOD end-user OBiTALK account. This class of account is known as an OBiTALK ITSP Portal Account. There are two types of OBiTALK ITSP Portal Accounts: Basic and Premium.
Below, is a screen shot of a typical login page for a Premium OBiTALK ITSP portal account.
Adding Devices to an OBiTALK ITSP Account Automatically with ZT
It is not practical to add thousands of devices one-by-one to an ITSP account manually. As a service to customers ordering ZT devices, Obihai can automatically load the ITSP customer’s ZT device database into the ITSP’s OBiTALK account. The ITSP will receive an email notification from Obihai with all pertinent device information. Hence the ITSP can monitor the ZT status of devices on obitalk.com. If the ITSP has a Premium OBiTALK ITSP account, the devices are also added to the account for OBiTALK device management. At that point, the ITSP can start preparing the configuration of each device on obitalk.com (even before they receive the units).
Using OBiTALK Provisioning to Bootstrap ITSP Provisioning
OBiTALK Provisioning coupled with ZT, can be bridge to allow later full-service provisioning by the ITSP. The ITSP can order ZT devices and request to have a Premium OBiTALK ITSP Portal account created so that their devices are automatically added to the account for management when they are shipped. Using features only available with a Premium OBiTALK ITSP portal account, the ITSP can easily define the needed parameters to apply to a large number of devices in their www.obitalk.com account. The ITSP may then configure the ITSP Provisioning parameters that point to their own provisioning system.
Obihai provides robust, secure and saleable options for ITSPs to deploy VoIP devices in subscribers’ homes and offices and provides the tools necessary for low-cost, yet highly efficient means to carryout day-to-day management.
To learn more, download the OBiTALK ITSP Portal whitepaper.
Edited by Blaise McNamee