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Learn valuable lessons from Nortel's VoIP and unified communications project in Lismore, enhancing business productivity through network convergence and application enablement. Gain insights into deployment experiences and challenges faced.
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www.oasis-open.org Communications Enablement: Lessons Learned William Hern (whern@nortel.com)Solution ArchitectNortel
VoIP Phase 3 Business Application Convergence IP Telephony Unified Communications (SIP) Communications Enabled Applications Network Consolidation Multimedia Applications Consistent Experience User Initiated Event Initiated Anywhere Anytime Any Device TCO & Virtualization Person/Group Productivity Simplicity & Effectiveness Business Productivity Value Nortel’s Communication Evolution for Enterprise Transformation Business Optimized Communications Phase 1 Network Convergence Phase 2 Communications Convergence Converged Data Network Business Optimized Network
www.oasis-open.org Enterprise Applications & Process Workflow Nortel Agile Communication Environment Comms Components Value-Added Applications/Enablers Composite Services Abstraction Layer (Enabling the Apps) Orchestration Adapters Policy Communications Enabled Applications & Business Processes Application Framework With Network Mediation And Control Communications & Network Infrastructure
Deployment Experiences • Internet-based Sandbox • Hotdesking for Enterprises • CRM-enablement • Vulnerable worker application for Carrier
Deployment Experiences • Internet-based Sandbox • Hotdesking for Enterprises • CRM-enablement • Vulnerable worker application for Carrier
Project Lismore • Lismore is a small island off the west coast of Scotland - its original Gaelic name, lios mòr, means "great garden" or "enclosure” • Created an internet-based sandbox environment for telecom web services that was targeted at 3rd party developers • Scalable • Operational 24x7 • Low start-up cost • Low support overheads • Ran July - December 2007 Lismore Lighthouse
Components of Lismore • Nortel Agile Communication Environment • Apache Tomcat web server platform • Open-source SIP-based PBX • Counterpath VoIP clients
Lessons Learned • EC2 and S3 provide highly reliable, flexible and scalable computing and storage resources • No hardware to purchase and install • Ability to rapidly increase and decrease the number of computing instances, based on demand • Although our customers had no problems accessing Lismore, access within Nortel was complicated due to our firewall: • Had to set up high frequency for keep-alive messaging (<5 s) in order to ensure that “holes” in firewall kept open for incoming SIP messaging
Deployment Experiences • Internet-based Sandbox • Hotdesking for Enterprises • CRM-enablement • Vulnerable worker application for Carrier
Hotdesking White pages plus Hotdesking web page HTML HTML • Allow a user to hot desk from any enterprise phone • Presence will follow them • Also, can also allow user to set up calls to follow them to any PSTN number • Both wireline and mobile White Pages App Hotdesking App SOAP Agile Communication Environment Server Pair LDAP SOAP LDAP Employee directory database SIP/JTAPI SIP/TR87 SIP/SOPI Other PBXes (Cisco, Avaya, Siemens) Nortel CS 1000 Nortel MCS 5100 Hotdesking phone Employee’s regular phone
Lessons Learned • Directory integration highly challenging • Multiple directories to interface with, all with different schemas • JTAPI standards good in theory but individual implementations differ significantly • Cisco, Avaya and Nortel implementations have different characteristics
Deployment Experiences • Internet-based Sandbox • Hotdesking for Enterprises • CRM-enablement • Vulnerable worker application for Carrier
CRM-Enablement Multiple PBX types but want to offer the same communications enablement: • Click-to-Call • Announcement Play • Broadcast (scheduled offline drop to multiple B-parties) • Telset Record/Review • Event and status logging & reporting
CRM Application Server NACVV Web Service MAS e.g.PSTN Agile Communication Environment CRM Database Server(s) TR87 SIP PBX CRM User B Party
Lessons Learned • Implementing the announcement-related functions required us to go well beyond Parlay X and other telecom standards • Business process logic implemented via standards like BPEL could be of value to our customer – evaluating this option • Difficult not to expose “telecom” capabilities (such as session ids) to the application via the API • Challenge to keep the interfaces simple so that non-telecom developers could easily make use of them
Deployment Experiences • Internet-based Sandbox • Hotdesking for Enterprises • CRM-enablement • Vulnerable worker application for Carrier
Vulnerable Worker • The Lone Worker System (LWS) provides a “vulnerable worker” solution for use with Blackberry Mobile devices & Application Server 5200 telephony endpoints. • Tracks a worker’s physical location via GPS satellites • Worker ‘checks in’ before and after meetings via the mobile device allowing them to notify central office as they enter/exit off-site meetings. • Operator application has click to call capabilities, alarm handling/monitoring & map mash-up showing workers location and status • Initial Target Market • Services Agencies mandated to provide security to remote employees (social workers, nurses, police)
AS 5200 Web Server Click To Call Server Operator in Office(AS 5200 PC Client) Consumer – Web Browser Operator in Office(Web Browser for Lone Worker viewer/administration etc..) Lone Worker Server Agile Communication Environment Internet Internet Nortel Custom ProtocolHTTPParlayX (HTTP>SOAP)SIP Blackberry with Meeting Application
Lessons Learned • Straddling the enterprise/carrier border is challenging • Security • Data import/export • Standards for location-setting and presence needed to be extended
Conclusion • Telecom web services, Parlay X and others, are developing steadily, as are the underlying standards • Many internet developers struggle with the WS-* specifications, expect REST-style interfaces instead • Much work still to be done around more complex functionality • Trade-off between simplicity and functionality needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis