Welcome!

Linux Authors: Michael Sheehan, Lavenya Dilip, Ian Thain, Bruce Armstrong, Ellen Rubin

Related Topics: Linux

Linux: Article

Open Source IP Communications

Setting a cat among the canaries
By Al Brisard
Article Rating:
August 12, 2005 04:00 PM EDT
Reads:
 11,740

Enterprise communications will break out of the proprietary "black box" domain and move into the IT department, cutting costs and improving performance. Open Source voice-over-IP is poised to turn the Internet telephony market on its head.

Some VoIP solutions that exist today try to solve the interoperability problem using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP, a protocol created to standardize the setup of IP calls, multimedia conferencing, and other Internet communications, was designed to standardize VoIP technology and create vendor interoperability. While it's been successful in creating industry standards, in practice the market has been stymied by the way the protocol has been used. The standard has been "polluted" by vendors adding their own proprietary features to their implementations of the protocol.

Establishing a truly standards-based dominant solution in the market requires a broadly accepted technology and a business model that leads to pervasive adoption. In the telephony market, this means combining two parallel worlds - voice-over-IP and Open Source. VoIP solutions were created to benefit enterprises, allowing businesses to take advantage of the cost savings and the scalability of voice integration over data networks, cutting long distance charges and eliminating the need to run separate networks for voice and data. At the same time, Open Source is at the heart of a business revolution. Major enterprises are running mission-critical functions on Open Source software and big vendors such as IBM and Oracle have lined up to support it. Linux, Apache, Tomcat, and Java are just a few of the Open Source software solutions corporations are using today.

SIPfoundry, a non-profit organization, is the leading Open Source SIP community development project (www.sipfoundry.org). Its mission is to promote and advance SIP-related Open Source projects and establish a mechanism for users, developers, and distributors of those projects to contribute to the adoption of SIP. SIPfoundry provides solutions that address real problems faced by enterprise customers and telecommunications carriers that want to deploy standards-based communications products such as:

  • SIPfoundry Enterprise Applications
    sipX, the SIP PBX for Linux, is a 100% SIP, 100% Open Source PBX with the functionality required to meet today's business requirements. Intended for end users, OEMs, and developers, sipX is a complete, fully documented SIP PBX with voicemail, unified messaging, and an auto-attendant. With the significant enhancements in the latest release, sipX is even easier to download, install, and manage. This robust SIP PBX for Linux is fully interoperable with SIP-compliant media gateways and phones, and fully manageable via a simple and power Web browser graphical user interface (GUI).

  • SIPfoundry Carrier Applications
    repro is a SIP proxy server and registrar built on the successful field-proven reSIProcate SIP stack targeted at telecommunications carriers. repro was designed to eventually support millions of users and easily integrated into, and managed by, existing carrier back-office systems. repro includes implementations of new advanced security features developed in the IETF. These security features include TLS, distribution of certificates using the SIP certificate and credentials event packages, and the SIP Identity header. The alpha version of repro is available now for download, with the source code and all the software necessary for users to compile and begin working with this new Open Source SIP proxy server.

  • SIPfoundry Applications for End Users
    SIPfoundry has two primary client solutions - sipXphone and sipXezPhone. Both projects are SIP-based applications that give end users the ability to extend the value of their computing platforms by enabling voice and presence-based communications. sipXphone and sipXezPhone are both end-user applications with easy-to-use graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that make installation and use simple and straightforward. These projects enable both Windows and Linux users to benefit from the economic advantages offered by Open Source development and the flexibility and interoperability options delivered with standards-based SIP-user agents.

  • SIPfoundry OEM and Developer Solutions
    For OEMs that require SIP solutions for their products SIPfoundry offers reSIProcate and sipXtapi. reSIProcate, the definitive C++ SIP stack, is a high-performance, efficient, and extremely up-to-date SIP stack with excellent support for advanced security features and additional transport protocols. It has been commercially deployed in a diverse set of applications such as softphones, session border controllers, and call centre software by innovative companies like TelTel, Jasomi Networks, Xten, Telio, and ComputerTalk on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X platforms. sipXtapi is a high-level SIP user agent and SDK with a powerful and simple API that encompasses call processing, audio processing, SIP dialog management, and SIP stack functionality for Linux and Windows environments. With sipXtapi, application developers can create SIP-based clients, without understanding the details of SIP.

    Companies and individual developers who want to help reshape the VoIP market in a new and open structure can learn more about contributing at www.SIPfoundry.org.

    Open Source VoIP... SIP
    Today vertically integrated solution suppliers deny customers PC-like economics and multi-vendor solutions. The market's entrenched players have no incentive to change their current business model, leaving customers hostage to proprietary single-vendor solutions with few alternatives. The move to Open Source voice-over-IP will encourage true interoperability between products, leaving behind the closed proprietary world of voice communications.

    Fundamentally, this move will force the telephony market to re-examine the current model of vertically integrated single-vendor solutions and move to the more open model typical of the IT.

    In today's environment, business owners and IT managers are looking for a higher level of service on reduced budgets. To do more with less, they can now consider an Open Source alternative to legacy PBX solutions or proprietary VoIP solutions. And because it's Open Source, SIP will evolve into a broader communications platform that supports presence, IM, video, and collaboration. SIP is the foundation where communications will converge and become truly pluggable.

    The Open Source model is built on the premise of letting the best technology win in an open competitive environment. But in making telephony decisions, CEOs and IT managers haven't had the option of choosing an Open Source, low-cost, high-quality voice-over-IP solution - until now.

    • Published August 12, 2005 – Reads 11,740
    Copyright © 2005 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
    Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

    More Stories By Al Brisard

    Al Brisard is vice-president of marketing at Pingtel Corp. where he oversees product development, strategy, and marketing programs. Prior to Pingtel, Al led the development and execution of MCK's product strategy, expanding the development of its remote voice products over broadband networks. He was also director of marketing and business development at 3Com's Personal Communications Division. He has an MBA from Boston College Carroll School of Management and a BS in electrical engineering from Northeastern University.

    Comments (0)

    Share your thoughts on this story.

    Add your comment
    You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

    In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.