The next big industry standard taking hold is Services Oriented Architecture (SOA), an IT strategic initiative to organize diverse and independent software operations embedded across multiple applications into interoperable, standards-based services. SOA is implemented using standard protocols and conventional interfaces (such as XML & SOAP) and is intended to transform siloed , replicated processes into leveraged and shared services.
Deploying SOA will accelerate the delivery of new services to satisfy changing customer needs with a lower level of complexity and more efficient expenditure of resources (time, personnel, finances). To date, few IP telephony systems have integrated SOA into the core system architecture and design, but most system suppliers have stated their intention to do so in the near future. A more detailed discussion of SOA can be found in this writer’s article “SOA and Enterprise Voice Communications,” BCR August 2007.
IP telephony systems are characterized by far greater degree of redundancy and resiliency than traditional digital PBX systems, and customers are taking advantage of the design capabilities and options. Among the many redundant and resilient design options available with today’s IP telephony systems are:
- Multiple active and/or backup call controllers
- Geographically distributed common control elements
- Media gateways configured in load sharing and/or spare standby modes
- Survivable remote media gateway options (local servers, embedded server blades, alternative PSTN signaling routes, et al)
- Network failover resiliency (re-registration of media gateways and IP clients with common control elements across a network of self-standing systems)
Most common equipment elements, including telephony servers, signaling servers, and media gateways, can be geographically distributed across a customer LAN/WAN. Physically separating call control elements and port interface equipment across floors, buildings, or different facilities reduces the probability of a total system failure in case of isolated LAN/WAN problems or if an environmental disaster strikes, such as a fire, flood or a local power outage.
The next major disruptive change in the enterprise communications market is one that is currently occurring in the public network: the gradual replacement of wireline telephone instruments by mobile communications devices. Cellular handsets are replacing a growing number of residential wireline telephones and are a major cause for the demise of public payphones. Estimates that about half of all cellular business calls are currently placed from a customer’s enterprise do not bode well for the future of desktop telephone instruments.
Intelligent mobile devices integrating voice communications with desktop computing power, such as Blackberries and iPhones, will be configured as cellular-based PBX extensions and replace wired desktop telephones as the primary link to the enterprise communications system. The days of ubiquitous $500 desktop telephones for professional white collar workers are slowly fading into oblivion. For many enterprise communications system users telephony features and functions at the desktop will be soon implemented via a PC client, especially when full-featured unified communications solutions saturate the market, as forecast. UC clients, the 21st century version of 1990s CTI clients, combined with intelligent mobile communications devices will significantly change the look of enterprise communications during the next few years (see next section).
Evolving Technology Trend
IP-enabled PBXs are based on the older voice-centric digital PBX design while softswitch IP telephony systems are based on a data-centric client/server design. The latter design foundation favors a company such as Cisco that has a dominant market share for Ethernet switches and WAN routers used to connect system elements (servers, media gateways, terminal devices) and transporting communications and control signals. Cisco’s market success has been based largely on shifting customer focus from voice features (the heart of digital PBXs) to the network infrastructure supporting a mix of communications media including voice, data, text, image, and video. The next generation of IP communications systems will move even further away from the old voice-centric model towards a desktop applications-centric model that retains client/server structural design elements. Although Cisco will still be the primary supplier of the network communications infrastructure, Microsoft has the necessary technical resources to become the primary desktop application software supplier. Microsoft does not yet have all of the necessary human resources or distribution network to challenge today’s voice communications market establishment (including Cisco), but time is on its side until its unified communications offering is ready to fully replace IP telephony systems as we know them today.
