Unified-View (Part 2)

By Art Rosenberg & Blair Pleasant

Back | (Part 2)

According to Avaya Senior Product Manager, Allan Mendelsohn, Modular Messaging is initially targeting three types of enterprise voice mail buyers:

1. PBX/Voice Mail buyers who will purchase voice mail as part of a telephone system acquisition, which could be a typical telecom or IT responsibility depending on the degree to which convergence is being addressed.
2. Voice Mail-only telecom managers interested in replacing and consolidating voice mail over dedicated or shared enterprise LANs/WANs.
3. Converged communications and network managers who are often IT data people who want to learn how to best support voice mail functionality on their integrated enterprise IP networks. These may also be greenfield situations, where there is no legacy voicemail system.

MARS
Avaya has focused their latest release of the Modular Messaging product offering on simplifying what they call MARS: Maintenance, Administration, Reliability, and Survivability in an enterprise IP/TDM network environment. The product will integrate with a variety of legacy and IP PBXs, but is particularly well suited for Avaya customers who move to Avayas Communications Manager IP-PBX. 

A single Messaging Application Server on the front end can store about 5K hours of messages if Exchange goes down. Users can access these messages even when offline. If Exchange goes down, the MAS takes the messages and pings the back-end server every 30 seconds and synchronizes everything when Exchange comes back online. The MAS is the hardware model. If a customer wants the software only, they can install it on their own hardware server platform.

The Modular Messaging front end is a new product, based on Unified Messenger in terms of code base, but Avaya moved it to standards-based protocols, e.g., IMAP4 instead of MAPI.

VOICE MESSAGE STORAGE OPTIONS
The Avaya Modular Messaging Message Storage Server back end (MSS) started from the Intuity voice mail code base. However, Modular Messaging brings e-mail message stores back in as an optional alternative for voice mail message storage. Customers can use the Avaya voice/fax message store or take the true unified approach with Exchange or Domino managing the voice message storage and directory. However, the Avaya Modular Messaging MSS can also store all forms of message attachments (voice, text, fax, binary files).

If the customer chooses the Avaya voice message storage back end, they can still migrate to an Exchange back end in the future. Although today it would be cumbersome to make that transition (there is no magic disk to take customer data from one environment to another), customers save on the capital investment in the storage server hardware and licenses (uplift, not forklift). Of course, voice mail storage goes hand-in-hand with Directory functions and directory synchronization is part of the integration between messaging servers for UM, or they can integrate at the desktop client level. In line with voice mails key role for telephone answering functions, Modular Messaging provides voice message storage for caller messages with off-line accessibility to those messages.

VOICE MAIL NETWORKING
One of the legacy problems of voice mail systems was the ability to exchange messages (mailbox-to-mailbox) across different enterprise locations. We had a number of approaches mostly proprietary and expensive. Although there were efforts to standardize voicemail networking through the AMIS and VPIM protocols, implementations were varied, confined mostly to larger, distributed enterprises and often proprietary for Octel and AUDIX voice mail systems.

Octel, having been the leading independent voice mail system provider before being acquired by Lucent/Avaya, had many customers who made significant voice mail networking investments for their distributed enterprises. So, although e-mail can accommodate voice attachments for message exchange across an IP network and Avayas Message Networking product provides a voice mail network hub for multiple sites, Avaya has gone out of its way with Modular Messaging to preserve their customers existing voice mail network investments with IP gateway access and protocol conversions between different voice mail networks.

COMMUNICATION MANAGER AND SIP
Avaya plans to support SIP in future releases but has made no definitive announcements yet of its implementation plans for SIP within the context of Modular Messaging functions for call handling. However, voice mail systems have never been only about messaging, but have included call processing functions such as automated attendants for routing, call return, message notification and delivery, etc. Clearly, with the move of PBXs to IP, there will be further convergence between the call server, i.e., Avayas Communication Manager, and the Modular Messaging voice mail server.

Avaya has indicated that it will start exploiting SIP for IP PBXs and Modular Messaging voice mail interactions this year, starting with Avayas Communication Manager software, and then interworking with other IP PBXs. They have already been using H.323 access for increased reliability and eliminating the expense of customized port cards.

SUMMARY
Converged person-to-person communications in the enterprise require a suite of interoperable communications applications and voice mail is still clearly one of these. Now that everything is becoming software and open, the enterprise can plan on replacing old elements selectively as their operational priorities and budgets dictate. We are pleased to see Avayas voice mail product strategy in Modular Messaging, because it does provide the kind of choice that their current and even new customers may need.

Although Modular Messaging does not include every single feature of the legacy voice mail systems it is replacing, nor does it (yet) incorporate all the new capabilities that SIP and multi-modal presence/availability/modality management will offer, it is clear that moving to Modular Messaging is a practical first step for many enterprise voice mail migrations. This will be especially true for customers who have legacy Avaya voice mail systems, i.e., Octel and AUDIX, and are not ready to completely replace them. It will also be practical for Avaya customers who are moving up to an IP PBX.

With increased use of wireless communications mobility, enterprise organizations may soon be offered new, hosted service options from the wireless carriers. As these service providers move their infrastructures to VoIP and IP telephony, they will be able to supplement enterprise CPE capabilities on their service networks as another implementation alternative for remote and mobile enterprise users.    

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Will the role of voice mail increase or decrease in future importance as SIP, instant voice messaging, and multi-modal presence expand person-to-person contacts? Do you think that an IP PBX implementation is a prerequisite for next-generation IP voice mail? Do you see a continuing need for voice mail networking in an IP network? What do you think will be the main driver to replace existing TDM voice mail systems?

Let us know your thoughts by sending your comments to [email protected]. You can also participate in our forums.

ENTERPRISE SURVEY OF CONVERGED COMMUNICATIONS MIGRATION
The Unified-View has started a comprehensive survey initiative to track the migration of enterprise organizations towards converged communications management. The ongoing survey is accessible through CommWeb and is open to enterprise technology managers responsible for current telephone or messaging communications and their migration to a converged network infrastructure and multi-modal communication devices.

Participants in this study will be rewarded with up-to-date perspective reports of how enterprise organizations are selectively migrating from their current communication technologies to support various user needs for enterprise-wide mobility and multi-modal communications.

To participate in this survey now, go to: http://cmp.inquisiteasp.com/surveys/e42wy8 and be sure to type in TMC as your Group Identification Code on the first page.

New White Paper
Dont forget to pull down your free copy of our latest white paper, Migrating to Enterprise-wide Communications: The Branch Office Dilemma, on enterprise-wide communication applications in a distributed enterprise. Simply go to our Web site www.unified-view.com, fill out the form, and download the paper.

Art Rosenberg and David Zimmer are veterans of the computer and communications industry and formed The Unified-View to provide strategic consulting to technology and service providers, as well as to enterprise organizations, in migrating towards converged wired and wireless unified communications. They focus on practical user requirements, implementation issues, and new benefits of multi-modal communication technologies for individual end users, both as consumers and as members of enterprise working groups. The latter includes identifying new responsibilities for enterprise communications management to support changing operational usage needs most cost-effectively.

Considered to be objective industry thought leaders, Art Rosenberg and David Zimmer have been publishing their highly-acclaimed syndicated column on unified messaging and unified communications for over four years to a worldwide audience of consultancies, technology providers, service providers, and enterprise technology managers. Both principals are popular speakers at leading technology conferences and organized the first programs in the industry focused on the subject of unified messaging/communications. The Unified-View's website (www.unified-view.com) is also considered to be a leading source for information on the evolution of unified communications.

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