IP

Sprint Rolls Out General Availability of SIP Trunking

Sprint was one of the first SIP trunk providers certified with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (OCS 2007 R2). Now it is expanding availability of SIP trunking to all business customers.

Sprint SIP trunking customers will be able to leverage Sprint’s Global MPLS network and utilize a single IP network connection to facilitate voice, date, and video conferencing connections.

SIP trunking and VoIP enable customers to save significantly over traditional local and long distance expenses, and it is also a key component of unified communications.

Nortel UC 1-2-3

Unless you have been living under a rock the past year or two, you are probably aware that Unified Communications is the hot trend. VoIP is still hot as well, and is a key component of unified communications, but the trend is evolving beyond just moving the phone system from the traditional PBX to an IP data network, and into the next generation striving to bring the web of communications tools and methods into a centralized, simplified, and manageable system. It may seem daunting or overwhelming, especially for smaller businesses. That is why Nortel developed UC 1-2-3. The Nortel UC 1-2-3 site steps you through some of the basics and explains some the benefits of unified communications to help you understand what the hype is about and what it can do for you. You can find out more by visiting the Nortel UC 1-2-3 site.

Top 10 Free Network Management Downloads

To manage and maintain a network, you need to have a well-rounded collection of tools in your arsenal. Many commercial tools can be expensive, and may not perform any better (or sometimes not even as well) than their freeware counterparts. This Computerworld article lists the Top 10 (plus one bonus program) free downloads you can use to monitor and administer your network. Check out 10 great free downloads for your network to see the complete list.

Disabling IPv6 in Windows Vista

IPv6 is the latest, greatest, cutting edge version of the IP protocol. It is designed to be more secure, more efficient, more stable, and provide a larger (exponentially larger) pool of addresses to work with than its IPv4 predecessor. So, why would you want to disable it? In this SearchNetworking.com article, Brien Posey provides additional reasons, but the primary one is system resources. Windows Vista runs both IPv4 and IPv6 functionality simultaneously. If your network infrastructure is not actually leveraging the advantages of IPv6, then precious Windows Vista system resources are being eaten up by a protocol you are not even using. Of course, Posey also provides some logic behind why you would want to leave IPv6 on. Take a look at Disabling IPv6 in Windows Vista — Pros and cons to read the complete article and decide for yourself if you should disable IPv6 in Windows Vista.

Network Hardware Vendors Fight To Keep Up With Bandwidth Demands

Unless you have been in a coma, or living in a cave for the past year, you should be aware that the whole world is being converged into a single, IP-based network. Telephone and television service are both available via IP. Video services such as YouTube.com, and video conferencing for enterprise collaboration also consume a fair amount of IP bandwidth. As consumers and businesses aggressively embrace all of the new IP-based technologies, the network hardware vendors are racing to try to stay ahead of the curve and provide next-generation solutions to meet the bandwidth needs. Cisco, Juniper, Force 10, ConSentry Networks, and Enterasys Networks are all rolling out updates and new hardware to support bandwidth-heavy applications, such as virtualization, collaboration, unified communications and video. Check out this NetworkWorld article for more details about this trend.

Determining and Optimizing WAN Bandwidth

If you have to connect multiple sites that are not physically in the same building or campus, it can be a little tricky establishing the kind of connectivity and throughput you need for remote sites to work effectively with the primary servers across the WAN connection. Dividing the file size by the projected network bandwidth can give you a theoretical data transfer speed, but factors such as packet loss or the protocol used can add significantly to that time. Take a look at networking expert David Hughes answer to How do I calculate the time taken for a file to be transferred over a WAN link? to learn more about the factors that may impact your rate of data transfer and some tips to help you optimize your WAN connection.

What Happened to IPv5?

You are probably familiar with the fact that IPv4 is more or less the standard that the Internet and networks of the world rely on. IPv6 is the emerging standard developed to expand the available pool of addresses as well as addressing a variety of performance and security issues in IPv4. So, why did we never hear of any IPv5 equipment? Do they just count by 2’s when they are creating IP standards? Apparently not. Network expert Silvia Hagen addresses the issue of the missing IP standard in answering the question “Why wasn’t there an IPv5?”

Projected Network Infrastructure Spending For 2008

What are your plans for your network infrastructure for 2008? Do you have a holiday wish list or some New Year’s resolutions regarding the technologies you want to implement or the changes you plan to make? TechTarget’s SearchNetworking site conducted a survey of over 1,200 respondents and they have published the results. Some of the key results are:

• 21.28% project an increase in their budget of more than 10%
• 7.26% of respondents said their networking budgets will decrease
• 8.34% claim that VoIP/data convergence is driving their budget increase

Check out Applications, convergence to boost network spending for the complete results. You can read it just out of curiosity, or maybe you can use the survey results to help prove your case to management and get your budget requests approved.

Cisco Jockeying To Lead IP Video

You may have heard of this quaint site that lets users create and share videos with one another. I think it is called “YouTube”. OK, if you haven’t heard of YouTube, you are new to the planet or something. YouTube is just one example of the recent explosion of IP video on the Internet though. Movie studios and television networks are expanding their online presence and the result is an ever-growing library of movies and TV shows available to be watched as IP video as well. Combine that with initiatives such as IP video surveillance, and you have the makings of a hot new trend. Cisco has made some recent acquisitions in the area of IP video that appear to be a maneuver to get ahead of the competition and try to corner the IP video market. Check out Is Cisco Becoming the IP Video Giant? for more about this story.

Network Security With ACL’s

One of the main components of networking is the router. Without the “router”, the traffic would not be “routed” to its intended destination (duh!). That also means that the router is in a prime position to act as a gatekeeper to help protect the network. By defining and implementing Access Controls Lists (ACL’s), you can manage what IP addresses are allowed to communicate in or out of the network, and on what ports the communication is allowed. Using ACL’s, you can control Continued »