Mitel Communications Director (MCD) has proven itself to be a stable and feature rich communications platform. The recent release of MCD 5.0 includes many new applications and several enhancements to existing features. Some of the most significant improvements are those to the licensing structure.

Mitel Communications Director now supports a Shared Enterprise System license model. A Shared Enterprise System is a networked controller that belongs to an application group. All controllers in an application group are assigned a common application group identifier during the licensing process and have the ability to share licensed feature allotments with other controllers in the group. In a shared enterprise environment, one controller functions as the Designated License Manager (DLM). The DLM holds the license keys for all the other controllers in the application group and allows for the dynamic distribution of license resources to all members, enabling licenses to be removed from one controller in the group and reassigned to another without needing to re-administer individual license keys.

Another new feature is Try Before You Buy. When accessing the License and Option Selection screen in MCD 5.0 one will notice that certain features have a shopping cart icon beside them. These features have been assigned the Try Before You Buy capability and can be enabled before they have actually been purchased.

 Read more...

911 ETC
"Is Enabling Crisis Alert Enough in the Event of an Emergency?"

Avaya Flare® Communicator for iPad is now available from the Apple iTunes store (link at the bottom of this article). Avaya Flare® for iPad is a voice level client that delivers "the contact fan" (consolidated enterprise and personal contacts with scrolling and filtering), point to point audio calls with multiple spotlights for point to point calls, will connect directly to the Avaya Aura Session Manager, and be a SIP client.  It includes IM, presence, and email launch from a spotlight that takes you into the iPad email application.)

 

What is it?

• The Avaya Flare® Communicator delivers core UC capabilities (VoIP, over Wi-Fi, and 3G)
• Delivers voice
• It is offered on the Apple iPad 2

Key Capabilities

• Contact fan, consolidated enterprise and personal contacts with index, filtering, and fan-scrolling
• Point to point audio calls with hold, forward, and mute
• Multiple point to point calls
• Participate in multi-point conferences by accessing bridges from contacts or keypad
• IM & Presence via Avaya Aura Presence Services
• Email launch from spotlight
• Incoming call "toast"

How is it Licensed?

• $100 License fee for iPad (first 50 included)
• No fee to download the application

How do you get it?

• iPad application via iTumes store
• Easy configuration to connect to Avaya Aura® core  

Download Avaya Flare for iPad at iTunes 

This month, Fortinet's Derek Manky discusses a new Android OS vulnerability, new suggestions from ISACA for bringing your own device onto a corporate network and the latest SCADA hacking observations.

 

View the November Threat Report

 

Click here to learn about Unified Threat Management solutions from CCC Technologies, Inc. 

The idea of replicated disk storage originated in the fail-safe systems of 20 years ago.  In this technology, two disks or disk arrays simultaneously stored exactly the same data, such that if one had a failure, no data was lost.

 

Along the way, it occurred to disaster recovery professionals that replicated disk systems could be used for off-site storage by inserting a WAN between the two disk arrays. Today, replication is typically used by SANs and "data mirror" products.  Replication uses block-level communications to constantly synchronize data between two different locations.

 

The advantages to this method are near real-time data protection and ease of configuration and maintenance.  Once established, a replication environment requires little ongoing attention.

 

The disadvantages are that the synchronization occurs at a very low level, below the ability to see data and file system errors or corruption.  This means that the inevitable errors (some of which are potentially fatal to a restoration) that occur naturally over time will be immediately replicated to the off-site location...and the hoped-for protection is thereby immediately lost.

 

Replication is also highly resource-intensive.  These systems create a substantial burden on the local CPU since most replication technologies utilize a type of RAID engine to capture the block-level changes.

 

This sort of replication is also extremely bandwidth-intensive.  As every data change for every transaction is moved across the network to the second location, this approach can impose a huge burden on a corporation's network infrastructure.

 

Stay tuned until next time when I discuss a better approach to off-site data storage - vaulting. Vaulting uses a less real-time technology but allows a level of file system integrity not found in a replication environment.

Click here to learn about Backup & Recovery solutions from CCC Technologies, Inc.

Click here to learn about onsite managed backup and offsite vaulting services from CCC Technologies, Inc.