Alcatel-Lucent
We used and tested Alcatel-Lucent's OmniTouch Unified Communications Suite, the latest iteration of the venerable telephony company's evolving UC offerings. The suite showed evidence of a continued effort to enhance the brand's communications offerings through increased integration and new features. We found solid telephony, messaging, one-number and team-working services as well as a capability to provide the all-important presence information. Not the least of the welcome improvements was simplified licensing: The suite requires a single license for all clients instead of multiple licenses for multiple components, and for that we give thanks.
The foundations of OmniTouch Unified Communications Release Five are a Linux-based collaboration server that handles voice, video and Web conferencing -- as well as IM presence -- and a Windows-based UC application framework server for telephony, one-number services and telephone presence. All communications are via SIP, not only to the PBX but also to third-party applications.
For fax services, they have an embedded application that can run on those same servers and supports up to 500 users. Alternatively Alcatel-Lucent offers an external fax server for more than 500 users. In either case, when faxes come in they are converted into images and stored on the mail server. This is important for compliance issues.
On the voice-mail side, Alcatel-Lucent again primarily uses the mail server as a repository for voice messages. The system can also interface with an external voice-mail system.
For the products we reviewed, we found you need to utilize LDAP service so the various unified communications elements can be most easily and effectively integrated. For example in Alcatel-Lucent’s case, an LDAP directory that runs on the OmniTouch IP-PBX can also pull from the Microsoft Active Directory to provide users with a single interface to search multiple databases. to simplify trying to find somebody.
The servers can be set up with varying levels of redundancy. On the Linux box they use Red Hat and can do clustering. On the Windows side, they do primary-secondary. They can break out the various services and spread them across up to six different servers for scalability, redundancy and reliability.
We tested the system's latency without traffic, and again with a simulation of 10,000 users. There was no discernable change in its speed in either case.
The OmniTouch UC servers, fax server, LDAP, e-mail server, voicemail server and the IP-PBX all feed into Alcatel-Lucent's UC thick client interface dubbed My Instant Communicator.
Avaya
Avaya's UC solution is composed of a number of different servers that sit on the back end and support the company's UC solutions, now being branded as Avaya one-X (for "one experience"). The Avaya framework is based on several servers, each with specific functions that tie-into the overall one-X offering.
From the Avaya Communication Manager IP-PBX switch, Modular Messaging servers and Meeting Exchange servers, the one-x Portal's Linux-based servers deliver, via SIP trunks, telephony, messaging, mobility and conferencing services.
The core components integrate with directory services, the Web server and an internal database. The one-X portal server arrangements can include a SIP Enablement Server that helps talk between various applications via SIP, and an Application Enablement Server that can be used by professional services folks to build custom applications. The Mobility Services Server handles Avaya's Extension to Cellular feature, allowing you to take a call at your desk phone, press a button and have the call transferred to your cell phone.
Their Modular Messaging Server interfaces with the mail system. It can be deployed in active-active scenario with two boxes both working simultaneously, so when one goes down the other keeps on trucking.
We were impressed by Avaya's one-X speech server. It handles voice interaction with the system, but it does much more than just direct calls based on spoken keywords. You can tell it to read e-mails, and it will do text-to-speech and read you the headers of your voicemails. You can stop the read-backs (by just saying "stop,") and even have the system schedule an appointment with that person. The server will access the Outlook calendar, schedule a meeting and send reminders.
The Customer Event Business Processes (CEBP) server, a Linux-based server running Apache Tomcat application server monitors events and triggers actions. For example, the CEBP can be used to monitor a stock page on the Web. When a predetermined threshold is hit a conference call is initiated based on your instructions. It’s a back-end enablement piece, allowing you to custom program and tie events together with your phone services.
In general, Avaya's systems provide great response times and we observed no noticeable latency when handling a few users to a thousand.
