Having a Microsoft certified gateway is not enough when making the ideal selection for your office network. Are there any “hidden” factors which should be considered?
Microsoft is expanding its offer with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, aimed at increasing employee productivity by means of collaboration, presence detection, and most importantly, the unification of all messages “bombing” information workers today.
Many of these advanced tools rely on transparent connectivity of Voice and media via a VoIP gateway, which lies between the Microsoft Unified Communications Solution and legacy PBX, IP-PBX or the PSTN network. The ability to keep on using existing office telephony equipment (while securing past investments and know-how) allows a gradual and safer migration towards Microsoft solutions – surely a major factor for any IT or telephony manager.
We will outline 10 “Golden Rules” for the best selection.
1. Voice Quality – It must be noted that a user’s satisfaction is greatly affected by basic voice quality. Did we say basic? Well, the outcome is indeed basic but the algorithms and technology designed to overcome delay, jitter, noise, echo, packet loss and other “disasters”, are far from basic. Research your vendor’s references and qualifications, usually benchmarked by organizations such as ETSI and remember to test it yourself.
2. Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 on a single gateway – Is your gateway capable of operating with both servers simultaneously? This ability allows the re-use of your investment when beginning with one application and subsequently adding the other.
3. Fax support - Since Office Communications Server 2007 currently does not natively support Fax, a gateway enabling high quality fax/T.38 is essential for keeping your office fax machines operational.
4. “Mix and Match” – Delivering to a variety of organizations (branch offices) requires the ability to “tailor” a gateway by mixing and matching line modules (FXS, FXO, E1, T1, BRI), which assists in both reducing stock and speeding up deployment. In addition, a “Pay-as-you-Grow” approach of adding line modules or increasing capacity by a software license can help you control your new gear investments parallel to actual service ramp-up.
5."certify the non-certified" - Non-certified IP-PBXs are limited in their connectivity to Microsoft Unified Communications solutions. This problem can be solved by a gateway which performs IP-to-IP mediation between the two (SIP-to-SIP or SIP-to-H.323). Such a gateway solves interoperability issues for both sides. As a system integrator serving a variety of organizations, each with their own varying IP-PBX solution, an extensive gateway interoperability list is a significant advantage.
6. “Carrier-grade ready” - No, this is not a mistake. When dealing with large enterprises and mainly businesses of a critical nature, “carrier-grade” standards are often required. Enterprises are demanding high service availability, manageability of large-scale networks and high capacity on a single gateway (thousands of ports). Is your gateway “carrier-grade ready”?
7. “One-Stop-Shop” gateway vendor - System Integrators or telephony/IT managers will benefit from having a single vendor for the smallest branch phone/fax adaptor, as well as the headquarters “heavy duty” gateways. Additionally, check that your gateway vendor portfolio includes a full range of interfaces (FXS/FXO, BRI, E1/T1 and even T3, STM-1/OC3) and VoIP control protocols (SIP/H.323/H.248).
8. Branch Office Survivability - In many distributed IP telephony environments, a branch office is totally dependent on the link to a central server and on its continuous operation, even for basic room-to-room calls. Few gateways act as local “emergency” call managers in branch offices, during failure, offering a cost-effective survivability solution. Is your gateway “standalone survivable”?
9. “Hard-coded vs. Soft-coded” gateway – Flexible on-site programming of the gateway functionality is often required to meet specific dialing plans or advanced configurations. Are these parameters “hard-coded” and require vendor intervention, or is a quick on-site modification possible by a simple configuration tool? Think of the time “softcoding” can save you.
10. “Future proof ” gateway provider – Microsoft has defined three types of gateways: “Basic” (which requires a mediation server for the Microsoft proprietary voice coder), “Basic Hybrid” (which runs a mediation server on an internal processor), and an “Advanced” gateway (which does not need a mediation server at all). The “Advanced” gateway is not currently available and few vendors plan to offer it. Is your gateway provider “Future proof ”?
With these, we have uncovered several “hidden” factors for selecting the optimal VoIP gateway, an instrumental element in a successful and cost-effective deployment of Microsoft Unified Communications.
Yariv Golan-Atir, is Director, Product Marketing, Enterprise Business Group at AudioCodes (www.audiocodes.com).
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