Session Border Controller (SBC)

When Microsoft first assigned me to lead one of its Lync partner engineering teams, I had to ramp up quickly on the infrastructure architecture needed to support the product. Most everything made sense to me except the Session Border Controller (SBC). From a simple architecture perspective, it seemed like a firewall solution should obviate the need for an SBC. Moreover, it seemed like the SBC would add latency to the communication traffic, clearly an undesirable outcome, plus it would add costs to the solution without obvious benefit.

Communication is key to success in today's highly competitive, global marketplace. Executives need to make decisions quickly, but the workplace is expanding to new frontiers, and information and employees are spread out in many different locations. No longer are we trapped within office walls. We're working anywhere, anytime, anyplace. It's new, untamed territory for many businesses, and most are finding that there's no sheriff in town.

The Session Border Controller (SBC) can be a puzzling device. There's just no equivalent to it in traditional telephony. It is the unique characteristics of VoIP and the Internet that make implementing SBCs a modern best practice. SBCs protect and simplify voice communications, and now with its latest release Sonus takes the SBC further with multimedia services.

Broadsoft is holding its BroadSoft Connections 2013 conference later this week, which means lots of cloud announcements. Just in time for the conference, AudioCodes announced a new relationship with iCore Networks. According to the press release, iCore Networks will be using AudioCodes' media gateways, SBCs, and business routers for its iCore Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offerings.

The Session Border Controller market is a constantly growing one, and hasn't lost its momentum yet. Vendors of all sizes have SBC offerings, as demand in the North America market continues to grow, thus increasing innovation and supply.

Sonus Networks is a SIP infrastructure specialist which is directing more resources towards its still-new, yet fast progressing channel program, and it seems as though its transformation will continue from an exclusively carrier-focused company to mainstay in the enterprise session border controller (SBC) market.

Last month we reviewed the enterprise SBC market as seen by Infonetics Research. According to that research Ciscoand Acme Packetwere the two top enterprise SBC vendors in terms of first half 2012 (1H12) global revenue share with Ciscoin the lead having captured 26 percent of 1H12 revenue.