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SOA/WEB SERVICES FEATURE ARTICLES


October 26, 2007

Business Communications Platforms for Business Continuity

By Alan Rosenberg, BlueNote Networks


Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, epidemics and other emergency situations can quickly shut down or disrupt an unprepared business. When a company closes down or operates in a limited capacity for an extended period of time, revenue is impacted, the company’s reputation suffers, and investor confidence erodes. To successfully compete in today’s global economy, corporations must have sound strategies to minimize service disruptions during security events, weather emergencies or other extraordinary situations.

 
In some industries, business continuity plans are required by law. Security industry regulations, for example, require brokerage firms to provide data center integrity plus preserve telephone and electronic communications during crisis situations.
 
Most brokerage firms maintain redundant telephone call centers and back-up data centers to sustain customer communications and preserve access to information systems and data in emergency situations. Redundant systems are located in different cities (or countries) on separate power grids, separate flood plains and fault lines, and within different transportation networks.
 
By guaranteeing call center and data center availability, businesses can maintain essential operations during a crisis. But what about everyday business functions like R&D, Finance, and Human Resources?
 
Taken in isolation, ordinary business functions may be considered non-essential. But taken in concert, everyday business functions form the lifeblood of the company. How well will a business perform if its workforce is stuck at home for several days because of a blizzard? What happens if an entire campus is shut down for a week because of a measles outbreak?  Innovative organizations are extending their continuity plans to include larger segments of the employee population. Work-from-home strategies play an important role in these plans.  
 
Advances in technology make it easier than ever for employees to work from home. With a broadband Internet connection, a VPN client and a notebook computer, an office worker can access data and IT services as efficiently from home as from the office. Homebound workers can check and send email, run desktop applications, access Intranet sites and applications, and carry out many day-to-day activities. To be fully productive though, homebound workers must also be able to maintain normal communications with co-workers, customers and partners.
 
Business Communications Platforms, or BCPs, enable businesses to leverage the Internet to securely and reliably extend corporate voice services to remote employees. A BCP delivers voice as a reusable software service in an enterprise IT architecture. It can serve as a software-based alternative to a traditional PBX to deliver Internet-facing services to distributed workers.
 
BCPs allow employees to take their office phone numbers and all their corporate voice services with them wherever they go. Any remote worker with a broadband Internet connection can place, receive, and control telephone calls as if he were using his office telephone.
 
BCPs offer the following teleworker benefits:
 
Choice of telephone instruments. Home workers access their corporate voice services over a broadband Internet connection using an IP handset, an IP softphone, or an analog telephone and special adapter.
 
Optimal call quality. Leading BCPs provide rich media management capabilities with intelligent codec selection, echo cancellation, packet loss concealment and other features to optimize conversation quality.
 
Feature portability. Remote workers place, receive, transfer and forward calls, and access voicemail, conferencing and other system features just as they would using their office phones.
 
Location transparency. Home workers appear office-bound to other employees and outside callers. Callers reach the homebound worker by dialing his office extension not his home telephone number. Inbound callers are greeted by the corporate auto-attendant, plus corporate announcements or music feeds are played during call hold or transfer. When placing outbound calls, the home worker’s caller ID reflects his office number not his home telephone number.
 
PSTN trunk pooling. Outside calls exploit corporate PSTN facilities, so teleworkers are not burdened with extraordinary cellular or home telephone charges.
 
Secure communications. Best of breed BCPs offer standards-based media and signaling encryption for voice privacy and confidentiality, as well as strong user authentication to protect corporate voice services from attack and abuse.
 
Using BCPs, businesses can leverage the Internet to reliably and securely extend corporate voice services to homebound workers. Employees can work productively and efficiently from home, and maintain regular communications with co-workers, customers, and partners during prolonged office closings.  
 
BCPs offer an affordable way for companies to expand business continuity strategies to include ordinary workers and everyday business functions. And BCPs can be exploited in a wide variety of applications above and beyond business continuity.  BCPs provide high-level Web services APIs that can be leverage to add interactive communications to nearly any software application or business processes.  Forward-looking CTOs are looking to BCPs to provide a leg up on the competition.
 
Alan Rosenberg is director of Product Line Management for BlueNote Networks (News - Alert). With BlueNote SessionSuite platforms, enterprises, ISVs and partners can quickly and easily embed interactive real-time communication services into a range of commercial or custom software applications, Web sites and internal business processes using industry-standard interfaces and technology. Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected].

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