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May 2007
Volume 10 / Number 5
The Zippy Files
Richard "Zippy" Grigonis

Giving Birth
and Other Strenuous Activities

By Richard “Zippy” Grigonis, The Zippy Files
 

Some impending births have got our attention these days.

First, that venerable maker of wireless and wireline hardware and software “building blocks,” Aculab (news -alert) (http://www.aculab.com), has announced a bold new product line for the converged networks of both enterprises and service providers. Called ApplianX, it includes a range of voice and video IP gateways, SIP trunking gateways, media servers and related equipment. ApplianX (news - alert) is based upon Aculab’s own innovative Prosody X technology, which itself was an editorial topic of mine.

The ApplianX hardware’s form factor is the familiar 19-inch rackmount, which nestles quite comfortably in racks brimming with existing infrastructure equipment. Up to 4 E1 or T1 trunks can be housed in 1U “pizza box” sized-server and 80 trunks in a cPCI, carrier class chassis.

The first two ApplianX products to roll off the production line are the ApplianX IP Gateway and ApplianX VoiceXML Media Server. The ApplianX IP Gateway comes with 1, 2 or 4 E1 or T1 trunks that support various E1 and T1 protocols, plus the PBX integration protocols DPNSS and Q.SIG. The ApplianX VoiceXML Media Server is a standards-based media service platform for service center and enterprises that can be connected to either TDM or IP networks. The media server can execute applications written to VXML 2.0 and CCXML 1.0.




The ApplianX product line is notable in its use of scalable, high availability configurations, which makes it suitable for even the largest carrier class service providers and enterprises. Configuration and administration is done with an integrated HTML web server for remote configuration and monitoring, and there’s support for the usual suspects of SNMP, RADIUS, CDRs [Call Detail Records] and event logging.

As for the second birth, we at TMC must confess that we’re the mother, father and midwife! Last month, Rich Tehrani announced in these pages that TMC would be publishing a bold new magazine, Unified Communications. For those of us who remember the “killer app” hoopla of “unified messaging” back in the 1990s, it’s gratifying to see that the technology has been quietly evolving (thanks in part to IP, more stable operating systems and cheap broadband connections) and has progressed to the point where the field deserves a magazine of its own.

But this will be a magazine unlike any other. Whereas the form factor of the ApplianX is the tried-and-true 19-inch rackmount, the “form factor” of Unified Communications will be, in the word’s of the Monty Python troupe, “something completely different”. That “something” takes into account the primacy of the digital and web incarnations of today’s magazines. In fact, it’s a “something” that may end up influencing the whole magazine industry.

I’m sure you’re itching to learn more - and as we get closer to our July launch date, Yours Truly will reveal more details about TMC’s latest and most exciting creation.

Richard Grigonis is Executive Editor of TMC’s IP Communications Group.

 




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