Many companies are investigating IP telephony (previously known as Voice over IP or VoIP) to seek out ways to lower costs, simplify network management and utilise existing systems and resources, while simultaneously more rigidly integrating business applications and customer communication. There are challenges too for many of these companies with their highly complex IT environments. They seek the benefits and advantages of an integrated business system that is robust, secure and with good TCO stats without having to haemorrhage vast sums of cash, time or skills to achieve them.

The IBM System i IP telephony offerings will do all this and more. Big Blue’s UKISA System i product and sales programme manager, Nigel Adams, says: ‘We offer an IP telephony solution designed and priced from 100 users upwards. System i IP Telephony Express offers packaged solutions containing the System i platform and IP telephony software and licences from 3Com. These 520 Express solutions are packaged and priced for 100, 250, 500 and 2,000 users – starting at £30,995 for 100 users. The solutions scale well beyond 2,000. Business Partners provide 3Com IP telephony handsets and gateways to deliver a total IP telephony solution.

‘High availability is critical to a telephony environment and with System i IP Telephony Express, there’s freedom to achieve availability in the way that best suits a customer’s environment. The four 520 Express solution packages are available with and without a secondary 520. If there’s an existing System i to use as back-up, customers can optimise resources and purchase the base Express package. If customers want a standalone solution – or don’t have an existing System i to be used for back-up – they can select an attractively-priced Express solution with the secondary system included.’

Unexpected turn

In June, the story of System i’s latest incarnation as an IP telephony server took an unexpected turn when IBM announced a new arrangement with Nortel. Between them, the two companies are to sell a new System i Unified Communications solution, targeting small to medium businesses (SMBs) and branch offices, which will integrate IBM’s Lotus Sametime communications and collaboration software with Nortel's suite of VoIP and multimedia technologies.

‘This will be for smaller installations of 50 employees upwards and focus on ease of installation and management,’ says Adams. ‘Products won’t be available until the fourth quarter of 2007. Any overlap between Nortel and 3Com markets will be minimal. The arrangement does not in any way mean we are turning away from the 3Com systems.’

IBM is serious about positioning System i as the IP telephony server of choice and its two partners in the market agree. There’s certainly much to play for and IBM has quoted figures from analyst InfoTech estimating the combined revenue for SMB converged applications will grow from £263m in 2006 to £1bn in 2011.

The integration with Lotus Sametime will deliver advanced telephony plug-ins to the software’s existing unified communication and collaboration tools, which include capabilities such as instant messaging, web conferencing, mobile device support and voice and video chat. As with 3Com’s offering, Nortel’s solution will run under a Linux partition.

‘This offering provides Nortel channel partners with a key opportunity to grow with a unified communications solution from two worldwide leaders, and represents our commitment to open platforms and applications with industry-leading partners,’ says Lori McLean, Nortel general manager, Nortel-
IBM Alliance. ‘This integrated solution makes the move to IP telephony along with unified communications as easy as a software upgrade on System i.’

Business Partners Typex Group, Life IT and REAL Solutions are among those aware of the Nortel alliance. ‘The company appears to be targeting the bottom end of the IP telephony market. I do see this as very positive – IBM is obviously totally committed to IP telephony,’ says Deni Wilson, MD, Typex Group and beta test site for System i IP telephony.

‘IBM and 3Com had held a BP pre-announcement event which impressed our technical director, John Taylor,’ says Wilson. ‘IBM and 3Com didn't actually tell us we were to be the first production beta in the world. We also had wanted a future-proof system, as we knew UK exchanges were being moved to digital by 2012.’

Jill Sherratt of Life IT says: ‘It strengthens what we see as an excellent opportunity for System i. IBM's introduction of VoIP on to the System i platform allows us to offer customers the most complete voice, messaging and collaboration solution available on any single platform. It integrates with our Notes, Domino and Sametime products, providing customers with a reliable, cost-effective and future-proof communication environment.

Scalable solutions

‘The converging marketplace has moved voice firmly into the IT manager’s domain and, with these VoIP announcements, IBM has provided IT managers with solutions which are scalable, use their current technical and network environment and allow them to provide an integrated ICT solution for their users. Our customer feedback has shown that VoIP or IP telephony is now a serious option for System i users when reviewing their telephony solutions. But the burning question for IBM and Life IT is whether IP telephony will attract new customers to the platform.’

Agreeing with Wilson and Sherratt, David Wilkins, head of technical services, REAL Solutions, says: ‘We’re keen to see IP telephony deployed across a growing customer base and are embedding it into our infrastructure. This is a real boost for the System i market, a definite win-win situation for all, particularly customers.’

System i IP telephony is built on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the leading standard in the telephony industry. SIP is critical to extending the integration of System i IP telephony with third-party collaboration and business processing applications that typical customers rely on to run their businesses.

In the US, research has shown SIP to be getting close to world domination, but SIP implementers around the world have varied opinions. Its support is growing. Vendors and enterprise users are increasingly serious about putting SIP to work, plus SIP expectations of interoperability, cost savings and new advanced features are coming to fruition, albeit slowly.

Miercom, a network consultancy and product-test centre, has reached these conclusions after extensive research, hands-on reviews of the latest SIP-based wares and features, and a detailed survey of the vendor technical community driving SIP standards and their implementation.

‘The first key value proposition of the 3Com solution is SIP,’ says Wilson. ‘It’s accepted by all key players as the standard, but is implemented end-to-end only in the 3Com offering. The others offer SIP gateways and plug-ins which do not give a true open environment. In the multi-vendor scenario, all these systems can be connected, but not seamlessly.

‘The second value proposition is “survivability”. This is the ability to have an off-site HA replica and even to get basic calling capability if you lost both locations. Miercom made an award to 3Com for this. Just think of 9/11 to see what can happen to phone systems. 3Com on i would keep working anywhere you can get an internet connection. It’s how we can offer hosted demos and trials from our Playplace website.

‘The third value proposition is the virtualisation offered by System i. This lets you start small and grow – the way most IP telephony systems get implemented. This is what allows us to host over 30 concurrent customer trials on our i5 550. It also enables management of fluctuating workloads, such as for conferencing or in case of disaster. Nortel is to port to i for this very reason – the bandwagon is rolling.

‘The fourth value proposition is the integration with Lotus (and soon Microsoft) collaborative applications and with line-of-business applications. For everyone else, this is either impossible or done with a toolkit, but for 3Com this is out-of-the-box – again thanks to SIP.

‘The key reference site – the one that positions the 3Com on i offering better than any other – is the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in California, who installed the system and set up all its phones – about 500 plus – in six locations in one day, a Saturday. Also, we in Typex actually went live on beta code as it was so good.

‘I attended COMMON US a couple of months ago and we hosted an informal user group session for about six customers. I have never heard so many positive comments and messages – there were no negatives. Another selling point is the average payback time of 12–18 months – if a project like this can pay for itself in that length of time, why wait for a year to do it? By the time you’ve thought about it, it will have covered its costs.’

Mark Adams, unified communications practice manager at business partner Logicalis, says: ‘Our primary mission is to manage complexity on behalf of our customers. One of the most efficient ways in which this can be achieved is to migrate their IT structures to IP-based, converged systems. IP telephony is clearly a key component in this, enabling organisations to do things that simply were not possible before. We believe an integrated approach to collaborative, flexible applications – such as web-enabled contact centres, one-number-reach, desktop conferencing, hot-desking and mobility – can only be achieved using IP telephony and such developments are vital to organisations wanting to remain competitive in a global marketplace.

First choice

‘Logicalis always uses Cisco as its first choice. Cisco is a Logicalis strategic partner, because it has always been at the forefront of IP telephony, and continues to dominate the space. Logicalis has confidence in Cisco because it is robust in terms of financial stability and product offerings. Also, unlike many of its competitors, Cisco is not distracted by the need to form further partnerships, but rather focuses primarily on providing the best solutions for its existing customers. Logicalis considers Cisco's solutions to be the best on offer, and is convinced of its expertise in applying them in a converged environment to achieve the best possible results for its customers.’

But if a company was looking for an IP Telephony solution, would Logicalis offer 3Com or Cisco or even Nortel? ‘Obviously, as a reseller wanting to satisfy its customers' needs, should a customer specifically ask for Nortel/3Com technology to be used as the basis of its IP telephony solution, Logicalis would consider supplying it as part of a broader, converged package,’ says Adams of Logicalis.

‘However, if asked for a recommendation, as part of an integration, Logicalis’ number one choice would always be Cisco. Not only do Cisco's products set the trends for other IP vendors and manufacturers, but the company also has the added advantage of being an IP company through-and-through since its foundation. Nortel still carries substantial telecommunications switch baggage, and 3Com's past life as a computing LAN network supplier also holds it back.’

There are also unconfirmed rumours circulating of UK customers (albeit only a few) experiencing problems with IP implementations requiring IBM experts in the US to work on solutions. It’s not thought to be serious – more a question of software tweaking. In the US, however, there have been published IBM successes such as the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and Massachusetts-based Polar Beverages. There are also many successful implementations at various stages of development in the UK.

IBM’s Adams says: ‘Types of customers suitable for implementing IP telephony will be those with a 5xx machine – or the imminent purchase of a 5xx – with multiple offices and locations. They could be part of a takeover or merger and acquisition activity, there could be a mix of older PBXs in there, et cetera. A good driver is the savings incurred on the costs of communications between all the sites. A single 5xx machine runs all the locations, irrespective of the number, and equally offers a call centre capability – it’s part of the line-up of offerings.’

‘The system architecture allows the telephony application to scale in support of tens of thousands of users,’ says Wilson. ‘Purely for guidance, existing implementations tend to require about 1 CPW/user with a minimum of 20% of a processor.’

To sum up, there are ten key reasons for System i users to switch to IP telephony: to avoid forklift upgrades and protect existing investments; to stay at the cutting edge; to receive all traditional telephony features plus many new features and communications applications; to manage data applications and IP-based telephony and videoconferencing systems; to increase portability for employees; to manage everything running over LAN and WAN; to manage telephony and data networks together; to run productivity applications; to increase bandwidth utilisation; and to reduce costs (surely the clinching argument). If that’s not enough, there are many more.