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As communications technology continues to evolve, fax communications remains one of the top enterprise business tools today. And as more organizations switch to IP networks, companies need to address issues associated with IP fax, such as scalability concerns.

 

 

Sagem-Interstar, an IP fax solutions provider, addressed the topic in a recent webcast, entitled “Advanced FoIP networking considerations”. The webcast was the final event in a three-part series on “Demystifying Fax over IP”, presented jointly with Cisco’s (News - Alert) David Hanes, who is also co-author of the Cisco Press bible on “Fax, Modem and Text for IP Telephony.”

 

During the event, Matthew Miller, product manager at Sagem-Interstar (News - Alert), talked about the definition of scalability and how companies must make it a key FoIP application consideration.

 

The popularity of IP fax is not only driving more attention to survivability, but scalability as well, Miller said, who oversees Sagem-Interstar’s (News - Alert) XMediusFAX product line lifecycle.

 

Sagem-Interstar defines scalability as cost-efficiently accommodating growth in terms of business and application requirements. Scalability can be evaluated in a number of ways.

 

For instance, Miller said the first evaluation measure is the solution’s architecture or underlying code. Next-generation FoIP solutions are designed with and leverage the latest in product development standards such as service-oriented architecture, or SOA. Legacy solutions built around proprietary technology were not designed for today’s rigorous faxing requirements. Users must determine whether the product’s underlying code can scale accordingly, Miller said.

 

The second consideration involved in IP fax scalability is product packaging. That includes the distribution, licensing and the interaction of the different components working together. In a distributed architecture, scalability is achieved by simply increasing the number of elements that perform the work. This includes the number of ports or channels that transmit the fax documents. How these elements are licensed is crucial to the solution’s cost-efficient scalability.

 

In the marketplace, there are two different types of licensing models. The vertically-integrated model provides, under a single license, all of the elements required for the solution to work. Sagem-Interstar’s XMediusFAX offering is the leading example of this model.

 

“Everything is turn-key. It simplifies operations, but also improves responsiveness,” Miller said.

 

The third-party model, applicable to the majority of other competitive fax server solution players, requires multiple application and several independent licenses in order to make the FoIP solution operational. This type of licensing model impacts a solution’s ability to cost-efficiently scale and overall operations are certainly more complex, Miller said.

 

To learn more about FoIP application scalability and scalability, tune in to Sagem-Interstar’s webcast recording here.