AudioCodes On Parade

Customers at Lync Conference 2014 with Enterprise Connect 2014 Coming Right Up

At Lync Conference 2014, from February 17 - 20 in Las Vegas, AudioCodes had on parade a number of their successes as well as the justification for their expansion of the scale of their product line with the Mediant 9000 Session Border Controller (SBC) (a review is posted on UC Strategies).

On Monday, before Lync Conference got underway, AudioCodes held a private roundtable event with about a dozen of their large enterprise customers. It was very impressive to hear one enterprise after another describing how they were using the AudioCodes Mediant product line to facilitate their move into Unified Communications (UC) and their deployments of Microsoft Lync, in particular.

The major uses of AudioCodes reflect, of course, the core functions of the product. However, it is worth highlighting the more significant examples.

• Internal Gateway: In many cases, AudioCodes Mediant SBCs are being used as gateways to the legacy PBX systems in the enterprise. In some cases, this is because the AudioCodes SBC can interface the Lync system to the existing PBX via TDM T-1 lines (time division multiplexing T-1 circuit packs or similar interfaces) without any investment to upgrade the PBX to add SIP trunk capabilities. Enterprises that have multiple brands of legacy PBXs and even new IP PBXs found they could work with a single vendor, AudioCodes, to interface with all of the installed PBXs while keeping the interface to the Lync system simple, standardized and certified.
  
  This use of AudioCodes SBCs as gateways included both interfacing the Lync systems to the PBXs to provide telephony access to Lync conferencing functions and interfacing the Lync systems to the PBXs and, through the PBXs, to the PSTN for Lync enterprise voice telephony functions.

• Directory-based Routing: Some of the enterprises that are deploying Lync enterprise voice telephony are using the AudioCodes SBC to simplify the dial plan management between the existing PBXs and the new Lync systems. In several cases, the AudioCodes SBC was installed 'in front' of the PBX, i.e. between the PBX and the PSTN; in this configuration, incoming calls to the enterprise are interpreted and then routed according to a synchronized copy of the Active Directory.
  
  Calls to users who have moved to the new Lync system will be routed to the Lync system while all other calls will be handed to the existing PBXs. Similarly, all calls out of the PBX, whether to user numbers that are not on the PBX or to the PSTN, are routed through the AudioCodes SBC which references the directory to determine whether to route the call to the Lync system on the enterprise's own LAN/WAN or to route the call out to the PSTN. The benefit is a minimization of administrative overhead in the co-existence or migration environment that the enterprise clearly has to manage.
  
  
• Survivable Branch Appliance: The AudioCodes SBC can also be configured to provide survivability for voice communications in mid-sized remote offices that are too small to justify a Lync system at that location yet that have a business mission or a sufficient number of employees to require an automated continuity for voice calls into and/or out of the site when there is a disruption of the Wide Area Network (WAN) connection to that site. Only a few of the enterprises at the roundtable event were using the SBA functionality, for the reasons described here, but those who were reported that the AudioCodes SBC product line met their needs well and economically.
  
  
• SIP Trunk Gateway: Essentially all of the enterprises were using the AudioCodes SBCs to provide SIP trunk gateway functions. The most common purpose was to provide interoperability between the native SIP trunk capability of the Lync Systems and the legacy TDM-based PBX systems, i.e. using the SBC as an internal gateway as described above. A few of the enterprises were also using the AudioCodes Mediant systems for SIP trunk gateways between their legacy PBXs and SIP trunks for the PSTN carriers. Since the AudioCodes SBCs support a wide range of SIP signaling protocol implementations and can also transcode efficiently between various SIP media encoding formats (e.g. G.729 to/from G.711), the AudioCodes products are simplifying implementations and lowering administrative costs.
  
  
• SBC for Communication and Information Security: Finally, all of the enterprises who were using the AudioCodes system to connect to carrier services, including both SIP trunks and MPLS networks, were using the Session Border Controller functions of the AudioCodes systems to protect their networks from intrusions or attacks and to assure their signaling and media were appropriately protected. Of course, AudioCodes is also quite successful with the major carriers who install AudioCodes SBCs at the edges of their carrier networks, but most large enterprises feel the need to take direct control of their network edge security, so the enterprises we met at Lync Conference were all operating their own SBCs at that interface.

AudioCodes awareness and success stories continued throughout the Lync Conference, since AudioCodes was a Silver Sponsor with an exhibit on the busy show floor. But this pre-Conference roundtable day was a real demonstration that AudioCodes has made a commitment to the successful adoption of Lync systems for conferencing and enterprise voice in the large enterprises and that AudioCodes seems to be thriving in that direction.

If you missed AudioCodes at the Lync Conference, you can still catch them at the upcoming Enterprise Connect 2014, March 17 - 20 in Orlando, Florida (weather forecast in the 70s and 80s - nice if you're from the Midwest or Northeast). AudioCodes is a Platinum Sponsor there and Alan Percy, Sr. Director of Strategic Marketing for AudioCodes North America, says, "Enterprise Connect is the place that mid-market and enterprise businesses look for solutions to transform their communications systems. AudioCodes is pleased to be exhibiting at Enterprise Connect in booth 1208, using the opportunity to demonstrate our IP Phones with "Better Together over IP," SBCs and Operations Center functionality. Along with some great partner solutions from The Via Group, FaxBack, and Acqueon plus a number of speaking sessions on SIP Trunking and UC sessions, our hope is to show enterprises that the time to make the UC transformation is now."

UCStrategies will be quite visible at Enterprise Connect, too. Hope to see you there.

This paper is sponsored by AudioCodes.