Networking

LifeSize Acquisition Moves Logitech into Video-Conferencing

Logitech is a name that most people are familiar with. It is a virtual household word when it comes to things like keyboards, mice, PC game controllers, and webcam equipment. Logitech is not a name, however, typically associated with enterprise-class video-conferencing. That is about to change.

Logitech announced the purchase of LifeSize Communications for $405 million. LifeSize has an established presence providing high-definition equipment for corporate video-conferencing systems. With 9,000 customers spanning 80 countries, LifeSize is not a newcomer to the field.

The move pits Logitech against major players in this market like Cisco and HP. Logitech can take LifeSize and do battle against Cisco and HP on its own, or it could conceivably pair up with Microsoft. A symbiotic relationship between Microsoft’s unified communications and conferencing software and the Logitech / LifeSize hardware could be a win-win for both parties and create a whole greater than the sum of its parts for facing off against Cisco and HP.

Cisco Launches 61 New UC and Collaboration Products

Cisco announced 61 new unified communications and collaboration products today. The massive unveiling demonstrates Cisco’s commitment to the concept.

A Computerworld article on the product launch says:

Allen Cohen, vice president of enterprise solutions, said told Computerworld that today’s new products and Cisco’s recent agreement to buy videoconferencing vendor Tandberg for $3 billion demonstrate that “Cisco is doubling down [its investment] on collaboration.”

I don’t disagree that it shows Cisco is commited, but 61 products??? I realize that a vendor like Cisco can’t create a one-size-fits-all unified communications solution and expect it to work for everyone, but 61 new products?!?!?!

My eyes glaze over just reading ‘61 new products’. I haven’t even gotten to the part where I try to learn what each of the 61 new products does, how they work together, what impact they might have for a business, and what combination of this smorgasbord of products would work best.

I commend Cisco for its commitment, but I think it needs to understand that unified communications and collaboration is about simplification and efficiency. If it requires some sort of calculus algorithm just to map out the available options, customers will just be confused and choose something easier.

Free Unified Communications Security Webinar

If you’re free next Wednesday, October 28, you should mark your calendar and plan on attending The Final Frontier: Secure Unified Communications to Any Device in Any Place at 12pm Eastern time (9am Pacific).

Unified communications, like just about any useful technology, can be a double-edged sword. Often, for every benefit or convenience there is a tradeoff of increased risk and exposure. As organizations work to extend unified communications to smart phones and wireless devices, they face even more security and compliance challenges.

The webinar is being presented by Sipera Systems and Aberdeen Research and will include the latest research and industry trends, real-world scenarios from actual deployments, and best practices for deploying unified communications securely.

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.

Secure Your Mobile Devices with DUST

Mobile devices are a critical component of enterprise communications and a core element of unified communications. They used to just be phones, but now they are more like tiny micro-laptops that fit in a pocket. With that increased functionality and ability to store massive amounts of data comes an acutely greater need for security.

An industry analyst firm has developed a model for managing mobile security and compliance. The DUST Model for Managing the Risk to Enterprise Mobility establishes guidelines and provides a framework for end-to-end compliance practices and security controls.

The guidelines have four primary components that make up the DUST:

• Devices
• Users
• Sessions
• Transactions

You can get more details on the DUST Model from this CRG Research Brief.

Verizon Unveils Vendor-Agnostic Managed Mobility

Verizon would love to be the sole provider of mobile communications services for every customer around the world. But, realizing that won’t ever happen it is going for the next best thing- managing mobile communications for customers regardless of the mobile carrier(s) they are using.

The concept is not ground-breaking in and of itself. Other technology service providers such as BT and IBM, as well as competing mobile carriers like AT&T already have similar offerings to help customers manage mobility throughout the enterprise and around the world.

Verizon is bringing a little something extra by including mobile security tools from Sybase and mobile expense management tools from Quickcomm Software Solutions. The resulting suite of services consists of five modules which can be mixed and matched to suit customer needs: inventory and expense management; logistics; mobile device management; mobile security and application management.

As the number one mobile service carrier in the United States, Verizon has a decent foundation to build on. We’ll see if the Verizon name combined with a different mix of tools is a recipe for success.

SIP Trunking: The Key to Maximizing UC Benefits

VoIP and unified communications each have a lot of promise in and of themselves. They each deliver innovative tools that allow businesses to operate more effectively and efficiently. As the Executive Summary of this presentation states though, deploying UC is not without challenges.

Too often, organizationsgo down the path of deploying new technology with old technology principles in mind and UC is no different. Many of the early adopter deployments of VoIP and UC were designed exactly the same as the old systems, severely limiting the overall value of UC, which is a highly flexible, IP-based solution.

Migrating from traditional trunk lines to SIP trunking is a very simple, cost-effective change to open doors to other advanced services that can enhance a UC deployment. SIP trunking will allow companies to recognize the following benefits:

• Dramatically lower the overall cost of communications
• Extends UC to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and other cloud-based options
• Accelerates UC deployments through the simplification of network design
• Easier migration to other advanced services such as mobile integration and MPLS networks

For more about SIP trunking and the impact that SIP trunking has on a successful UC deployment, check out this TechTarget presentation: SIP Trunking Is Key to Accelerating Unified Communications Deployments

Troubleshooting VoIP / UC Issues

Networking has always been a more or less imperfect science…perhaps more of an art? The TCP/IP suite of protocols are designed with the base concept that transmitting packets of data is prone to errors and the protocols need to have mechanisms built in to manage dropped packets, latency, and other issues.

With normal data networking it may not be a big deal if packets arrive out of order. As long as the TCP/IP protocols can reassemble them in the proper order there may be a millisecond or two of lag but the data will get there. However, with voice and video a millisecond may as well be a millenia. With VoIP, and audio/video conferencing it is much more important that data arrive quickly and in order.

Microsoft provides a comprehensive amount of guidance and documentation including Troubleshooting Enterprise Voice: Approaches, Procedures, and Tools.

One valuable tool for monitoring and troubleshooting network issues is a network analyzer (also known as a protocol analyzer or packet sniffer). I recently had an opportunity to work with the Capsa Enterprise Network Analyzer and would recommend it as a powerful, cost-effective tool for troubleshooting VoIP / UC, as well as other network issues. You can learn more about Capsa Enterprise from this review (there is also a link to a more extensive product white paper).

Nortel UC For Sale

Unified communications is still a young, emerging industry. In its short lifespan the number of players has quickly grown. One of the biggest companies in unified communications has been Nortel. The Canadian network hardware giant had a solid relationship with Microsoft and visions of grandeur of taking on Avaya and Cisco.

After filing for bankruptcy protection though, Nortel is apparently taking a look in the mirror and trying to return to a simpler time with a more aggressive focus on their core business- networking. So, they sold their wireless communications infrastructure business to Nokia-Siemens. Now they are apparently considering selling off their unified communications division with Avaya and Siemens-Enterasys being suggested as the leading contenders.

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A Recipe for Success

Remember when Cisco was a network hardware company? Cisco and networking were virtually synonymous and you knew who to call if you needed a router or a switch. Once upon a time, Avaya was a provider of enterprise communications equipment. If you needed phones or maybe an IP PBX, you could call Avaya. In days gone by Microsoft focused on server and desktop operating systems and developing software applications to help businesses be more productive. Ah, the good ole days.

To be fair, each of those companies still does what it used to. But, now the waters are muddy as they all try to be all things to all customers. As Joe Schurman, CEO of Evangelyze Communications and author of Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications, points out in his musings from Voicecon 2009, nobody was content with their piece of the pie and now they all want to be the whole pie.

The thing is, none of them really have ALL of the ingredients necessary to make the best pie. If I could only buy a pie from one company I would get my pie from Microsoft because they have the most complete list of ingredients. I might need to top it off with some additional ingredients like SmartSIP, but the Microsoft Unified Communications platform offers the most comprehensive and innovative features in the most cost effective and flexible solution of the major players.

That said, these vendors and the customers both benefit when they stop competing to be the whole pie and instead focus on how to integrate their ingredients to cooperate to make the best pie possible. A Microsoft Unified Communications platform using Avaya or Nortel communications equipment connected to a Cisco network infrastructure seems like a recipe for success.

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