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August 20 - Issue 49
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MCS Forum is an independent forum on
Microsoft Communications Server & UC-Unified Communications.
Microsoft is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.
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Our Sponsors
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Visit Our Sponsor
Call 303-594-1694 for more on Vimenture
Click here mention PromoCode MCSTEL - ask for John Cognata
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Greetings!
Welcome to the MCS Forum.
A new look for a new era in unified communications. In you would like to see your products highlighted, reviewed and presented here or in other publications such as:
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SBC-Session Border Controller Scenarios for MCS Microsoft Communications Server from Acme Packet
including animated tutorial
In this tutorial we show four basic scenarios for SBCs developed by Acme Packet for MCS.
NOTE: IF YOU CAN'T READ THE SLIDES CLICK HERE
SBC-Session Border Controller Scenarios for MCS-Microsoft Communications Server from Acme Packet
Scenario 1 - No Enterprise SBCs
Scenario 2 - MCS/OCS SIP trunking through Enterprise SBC
Scenario 3 - MCS/OCS SIP trunking through IP PBX
Not shown - Scenario 4 - SBC not supported via Edge Servers.
Here is a link to Communications Server "14" SIP Trunking with the Acme Packet Net-Net Session
Director
Thanks to Acme Packet for their help in this presentation.
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AudioCodes SBC Scenarios 1 - Remote Agents and 2 WAN Isolation
This is a review of various SBCnetwork architectures for network SIP applications. In this tutorial, we explore how E-SBCs are used with Remote Agents or remote Call Centers and for protecting telephony service with SAS-Stand Alone Survivability.
NOTE: IF YOU CAN'T READ THE SLIDES CLICK HERE
Part 1 is Remote Agent - the animated tutorial shows the process.
Part 1 of 2 - SBC maintains SIP Signaling path to Remote UA-User Agent
1. SIP UA registration opens path through local firewall for SIP
2. Path is temporary, firewall closes it after a period of inactivity
3. SBC pings SIP UA periodically to prevent firewall from closing the path
Part 2 of 2 - Establishing the RTP media connection
1. RTP address in SDP from SIP UA contains local LAN address that's not usable by SBC in public network
2. The SBC monitors the RTP address/port provided in its SDP for incoming RTP packets from SIP UA
3. SBC starts sending RTP to the source address/port of those incoming RTP packets.
WAN Isolation Challenge for SIP Trunking & Hosted IP CENTREX
- WAN-Wide Area Network connection less reliable than PSTN, often simplex
- Results in isolation (SIP Trunking), or complete voice failure (IP Centrex) to E-SBC
- PSTN-Public Switched Telephone Network Fail/Fallback
- Flexible Routing Control Rules
- SAS-Stand Alone Survivability
Thanks to AudioCodes for their help in this presentation. |
Cisco SBC and MTP - Redundancy & Scalability
Click here for animated tutorial "under construction"
From the "must-have" book VoIP Performance and Optimization from Cisco Press ISBN 1-58705-528-7, the authors Ahmed, Madani and Siddiqui present, "The Session Border Controller (SBC)or the border element (BE) can provide another level of address masking while performing other tasks such as call filtering, call normalization (CODEC interoperability and fast-start and slow-start call setup methods) and bandwidth management. SBC/BE simplifies interoperability by allowing only one conduit to be opened for access to the aggregation point." The animated tutorial explains some of these concepts (to be finished in the next issue of MCS Forum August 27)
"The Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) and all the endpoints, including IP phones and gateways have private IP addresses. The SBC/BE (Border Element) and the MTP-Media Termination Point have public addresses. MTP and SBC functionalities can be offered in one physical device. Also, there can be several MTPs and/or SBCs for redundancy and scalability. All the media from the SP-Service Providers network are sent through the MTP. There is no direct connectivity between the IP phones, Unified CM and outside the world." They also discussed theft of service, involving using network resources to place long distance calls that incurred high told charge or exploiting the resources by inter-trunk transfer can also occur elsewhere in the book.
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Death of Avaya More Like What Mark Twain Said
OPED by Thomas B. Cross
Speaking of Avaya rising like the Phoenix -
their contact center solution integration with Facebook is way beyond anything
that MS will likely have in the near time and with more than 500,000,000 users
is a great new platform for any business. Speaking of platforms, of course the PBX is a dead platform like Wang
Word Processors were decades ago, however, media gateways and SBC-Session
Border Controllers are going to take a lot of skills than MS is not training
for or equipped to do. SIP is also far
more vulnerable to security attacks that most are also equipped to handle.
Bottom line - MS has yet to announce a
release date and so until its available, then before there can be a "Clash
of the Titans," MS needs to "release the Kraken."
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"One
Softphone Size Can Fit Nearly All"
One Softphone for Nearly ALL Platforms
"One Size Can Fit Nearly All"
IS-phone is a second generation voice over IP telephony
application, which offers IP telephony (audio/video) features smoothly
integrated into nearly all platforms - PBX to Web. It enables corporate
telephony (coupled to your IP PBX), presence, audio/video conferencing and
advanced click-to-dial from your Lotus contacts or LDAP directory, buddies,
emails or documents. is-phone provides key advantages of simplicity,
flexibility and attractive pricing exposed by pure software solution.
IP-PBX certified on IBM, Avaya, Broadsoft, Apple
AdTran/Objectworld, Alcatel-Lucent, Asterisk, BroadSoft, Cisco, Comverse,
MetaSwitch, Mitel, NEC Sphere, Nortel, OpenSIPS, Siemens, SIP Express Routers,
SIPfoundry etc. If your platform is not listed, click below and I will check on
it. In addition, a web page solution is available without regard to any
browser. This are just two examples.
Click here with
PromoCODE - MCSISO and will get you even more. |
Domestic & Global Network Services
Bandwidth and other Communications Services
Vimenture has teamed with TECHtionary to provide data,
internet, conferencing and other network services including:
- MPLS-Multi-Protocol Label Switching
- Ethernet - Metro
- Hosted Servers - Cloud Computing
- Telecommunications Bill Audits
- Security Assessments
- International Connectivity
- Voice Over IP - SIP Trunking
- Conferencing Services - Audio
- Professional Services - Planning, Integration, Consulting
Click here and
mention
PromoCode OCSVIM. |
MCS Knowledge Source
Click here for Next Hop from MS -- "Whether you're new to Office Communications Server and Unified Communications,
simply looking for some helpful hints, or trying to get some serious
information, we'll help you find what you need."
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TECHtionary Announces training on two
CompTIA certificate programs.
For complete details click here.
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Onsite SIP Course Get SIP Smart
"Proxies are signaling - Media servers
are content"
For SIP Course details click here.
 SIP Trunking is one of the
first complete books to planning, evaluating, and implementing high-value SIP
trunking solutions. Most large enterprises have switched to IP telephony, and
service provider backbone networks have largely converted to VoIP transport.
But there's a key missing link: most businesses still connect to their service
providers via old-fashioned, inflexible TDM-Time Division Multiplexed trunks.
Cisco® authors show how to use Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) trunking to
eliminate legacy interconnects and gain the full benefits of end-to-end VoIP.
Written for enterprise decision-makers, network architects, consultants, and
service providers, this book demystifies SIP trunking technology and trends and
brings unprecedented clarity to the transition from TDM to SIP interconnects.
The authors "separate the true benefits of SIP trunking from the myths and
help you systematically evaluate and compare service provider offerings. This
book includes detailed cost analyses, including guidance on identifying
realistic, achievable savings." SIP Trunking also introduces essential
techniques for optimizing network design and security, introduces proven best
practices for implementation, and shows how to apply them through a
start-to-finish case study.
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Book Review
"VoIP Performance Management and Optimization"
By Adeel
Ahmed, Habib Madani,
Talal
Siddiqui.
For Cisco Press details click here.
There is really nothing about
this book I don't like except that it is only on paper, not electronic. That
is the only negative think I can say about this book and if you are serious
about VoIP (SIP) performance, QoS, security, monitoring and infrastructure
integration (hardware) and more, then you need to read and know everything that
is in this book. And like what my mom
said to me a long time ago, "if you think you know what's going on, then
you are really full of s##." Seriously there is just too much really
good information to mention in less than 300 words (trying to keep in
brief). Here's one of my favorites: on
page 262 "signaling traffic is also vulnerable to attack, including Spam over Internet
Telephony-SPIT. SPIT leverages SIP proxy
impersonation to sent unsolicited bulk messages to SIP endpoints. VoIP phishing (vishing or fishing) involves
CallerID spoofing and then call rerouting to dummy IVR systems for further exploitation
of the SIP call processing resources." This one of the many great "actionable" tutorials you will find in the
book.
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Sales Performance Improvement
 Cross Passes Microsoft Partner Network Sales and Marketing Competency Assessment for Unified Communications 
helping improve sales (job aids, marcom),
proven performance and results are always
available click here.
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TECHtionary Knowledge Source
Click here for TECHtionary -- World's First and Largest Animated Library on Technology with more than 3,015 animated tutorials.
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MCS
Forum provides classroom and webseminar training as well as a non-production
environment for those IT departments without additional equipment, budget or
time. This allows planners and users to test ideas, dial in and dial back
out, IM file transfers, remote desktop sharing, video conferencing, run
scenarios, review logs, break linkages and learning about new telephony
features and network access. MCS Forum is also designed for both the
system integrator/consultant who wants to learn about MCS without having to
build their own system as well as the enterprise customer who doesn't have the
time, resources or knowledge to develop one. MCS Forum Labs are
designed to be "hands-on" or "over-the-shoulder" with
experts available for Q&A and classes for feature-specific review.
About MCS Forum
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