DoubleHorn Doubles Down on Avaya for UC&C

DoubleHorn Doubles Down on Avaya for UC&C

By Doug Barney

DoubleHorn Communications is an MSP involved in the Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) space.

Before we get deep into the news here, let’s get square on just what we’re talking about, since vendors toss around terms like they were confetti. So what is UC&C? According to Gartner, “Unified communications and collaboration (UCC)describes the combination of communications and collaboration technologies. Until recently, enterprise collaboration vendors were fairly distinct from those for enterprise communications, with software companies like Microsoft and IBM dominating the former and telephony and networking vendors comprising the latter. However, this distinction has become blurred because Microsoft and IBM offer voice and telephony features and vendors like Cisco have moved into the collaboration market.”

The term UC&C can still be confusing because many Unified Communications providers have a full complement of collaboration wares. Microsoft Lync, for instance, is all about collaboration, largely through its SharePoint integration, yet Microsoft calls this a UC tool.

Now that we’ve got all that almost straight, the real point of this story is to explain that DoubleHorn has a new tool aimed at SMEs that blends Avaya-compliant SIP trunks from DoubleHorn with three different Avaya tools, AuraCommunication Manager 6.2, Aura Session Manager 6.3 and Avaya IP Office 8.1.

The offering comes with DoubleHorn’s MyDoubleHorn Communications Platform.

“We know that by collaborating with the leading UC&C platform providers to produce an integrated offering, we make it easy for the SMEs. We are unique among Avaya partners in that we can offer both the Avaya platform and the underlying networking technology that delivers optimal performance for the customer's UC&C deployment,” said Tab Schadt, CEO of DoubleHorn Communications.

UC&C Challenges

The goal behind the partnership is helping SMEs overcome some of the key challenges UC&C presents, including having to gather all the required pieces from multiple vendors and put them all together. Then it all has to be managed.

“In contrast, DoubleHorn has created a comprehensive bundle that includes all hardware, software and services in a single, managed solution, backed by an end-to-end Service Level Agreement (SLA). DoubleHorn has done the work of testing and proving interoperability between the company’s Avaya-Compliant managed SIP trunk, Avaya UC&C platforms, and the underlying transport network,” the company said. “DoubleHorn is responsible for ensuring the ongoing performance and availability of the UC&C infrastructure.”

SIP Security

SIP Trunking is a major advance in how voice and other services are delivered. Short for Session Initiation Protocol, SIP is a whole different approach that, by supporting multicast, allows multimedia such as video, voice and other items to run efficiently across IP networks – all at the same time. It supports more advanced services such as Unified Communications (UC) where voice is but one function in a richer overall system that includes presence, IM and various styles of conferencing.

SIP Trunking most often is put in place of ISDN, T-1 and other traditional connections between customer and provider. These older, traditional connections are well proven, and after years of service, usually have mature protections in place.

SIP critics, mostly those that don’t sell SIP-based services, sometimes knock SIP security, asking how data that moves across either a managed connection or the public Internet can be truly secure. They feel that since hackers are used to attacking IP networks already, SIP is by definition vulnerable.

This FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is keeping some from taking advantage of SIP.

This is the kind of talk that popped up in the early days of the PC (it’s not a real computer), the iPad (it’s not a real computer, which was actually the point), and the cloud (it’s not a real computing platform). All three proved the critics wrong, and proponents hope to do the same with SIP. In fact these advocates argue that SIP trunks can more secure than the PSTN. 

There are several ways to ensure your SIP service is thoroughly secure.

First, and this may seem obvious, press your vendor on precisely how they secure their offerings. And then do some due diligence on their techniques to make sure you have as much confidence as they do.

Next, do your own security. While SIP service providers should have their own security measures, don’t just count on this alone. Just as with any device, especially one at the edge of a network, use all your available means to secure your IP-PBX or SIP device.

Some security approaches limit what can be done with SIP and IP communications. “Securing communications has historically required costly and inflexible dedicated connections such as ISDN PRI circuits. With the growth of VoIP and SIP Trunking, this security model has been applied to the IP network in the form of dedicated IP network connections using a variety of techniques including MPLS and GigE, limiting deployment flexibility and extending provisioning times. In many cases, this inflexible approach reduces many of the promised benefits of IP communications,” explained SIP vendor IntelePeer.




Edited by Blaise McNamee
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