Avaya voice gateway embedded in new Juniper routers

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 31 October 2006 10:26

Business IT - Technology

Avaya and Juniper Networks have announced the first of what they say will be a number of new products combining both their technologies, developed under an alliance forged earlier this year. In this first offering, Avaya's voice gateway and IP telephony applications will be available integrated into new Juniper J-series  enterprise branch routers, J4350 and J6350. This will enable an enterprise to extend the functions of its Avaya head office IP telephony system to branch offices on the same piece of hardware that provides access to the enterprise's data network.

The new routers can be configured with Avaya's new IG550, an integrated media gateway with a number of telephony interface modules. It supports up to 100 IP phones and a small number of analogue extensions and PSTN lines to maintain telephony in the event of failure.

The two companies say they have collaborated on a variety of efforts to create VoIP-aware product capabilities, since announcing their alliance, but they say this is the first completely integrated solution that involved joint product engineering and software development by both companies.

"This is an all in one gateway that extends Avaya's communication portfolio to the branch edge," said Robbie Kruger, CTO for Avaya Asia Pacific. When asked if Avaya and Juniper planned to offer an enterprise router integrated with a stand-alone Avaya IP phone system, Kruger said: "There is no plan on that at the moment, but you never know what the future holds."

Earlier this year Avaya launched the VPNRemote 4600 series  IP Phone. It incorporates a Juniper, or Cisco, VPN client enabling it to be plugged into any broadband Internet connection and used as an extension to a corporate Avaya IP phone system. It is being promoted as ideal for teleworkers or home based contact centre agents.

According to Kruger "This solution is great for quick, low cost set-ups that require enterprise communications solutions. FIFA used this technology extensively for the temporary booths they set up in train stations and airports [during the World Cup]. Every night they just packed up the phone and every morning they just reconnected and logged on. "

Juniper's moves to incorporate telephony functions into its routers mirror moves by Cisco with its Integrated Services Router which is designed to incorporate its IP PBX, Cisco Call Manager, inbuilt wireless access point, firewall and intrusion protection. It has become Cisco's fastest selling product ever.

Juniper two years ago acquired security company NetScreen and has flagged the integration of NetScreen security products into its enterprise routers

"We are seeing a consistent trend towards the enterprise wanting more functionality combined with fewer 'boxes' in the branch to reduce cost and complexity," said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst and program director, convergence and collaboration, Nemertes Research.

The new Juniper J4350 and J6350 routers are available immediately. The fully integrated system with the new Avaya IG550 telephony gateway is planned for general worldwide availability starting in Q1 2007.