Why System i for IP Telephony
Experience the benefits that the IBM System i family can provide your company—helping you to install new capabilities faster, maintain IT more easily and reduce operating costs, freeing up people and resources to focus on business growth and innovation. The new System i5™ product line—the latest generation of System i family—based on IBM’s tenth generation of 64-bit processor technology—can help create an environment where your business processes are integrated across the value-chain, and your employees are able to quickly respond to any customer or partner demand, market opportunity, or external threat.
With the System i platform, everything you need to run your business applications is integrated into a single system. With the announcement of System i IP Telephony, you can now integrate your IP Telephony applications on this system, too. The database, security, performance tuning, backup, reporting, communications, Internet connectivity and file and printing serving are built in. The System i platform is designed to be easy to operate and maintain. By embracing open standards, the System i platform gives you broader choices and a greater capability to use the system you already have instead of buying a new server for every application. The System i platform supports applications running on IBM i5/OS®, Microsoft® Windows®1, Linux®, IBM AIX 5L™, Java™, IBM WebSphere® and IBM Lotus Domino environments—all at the same time and all on one highly—reliable system. Built-in security features on the System i family can help businesses meet regulatory requirements and safeguard critical data across all of these application environments.
With IBM System i IP Telephony, you can:
- Enjoy the System i benefits of simplicity, reliability, integration, vertical growth and security for IP telephony.
- Migrate to IP Communications with ease.
- Integrate compatible, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based applications and devices.
- Economically expand telephony services to multiple sites.
- Ensure business continuity.
System i IP Telephony delivers the proven solutions of 3Com®—a leading supplier of secure, converged voice and data networking—on the IBM System i platform, IBM’s leading integrated business system. With System i IP Telephony, you can enjoy the benefits you have come to expect from the System i platform—integration, simplicity, vertical growth, and, above all, security and reliability—applied to IP telephony. In this section we will review the overall benefits that System i IP Telephony can deliver, as well as focus specifically on what 3Com’s products and the System i platform bring to the solution.
In support of open industry standards and integration, System i IP Telephony suite from 3Com is built on Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP. SIP has been widely accepted as the standard in the IP telephony industry and provides a platform for interoperability between diverse devices and applications. SIP is critical to extending the integration of System i IP Telephony with third-party collaboration and business processing applications you rely on to run your business.
The applications in the IP Telephony suite from 3Com can run on a single stand-alone IBM System i system. However, given the critical importance of telephony availability, redundancy is highly recommended. It is recommended that any IP telephony solution include a primary and a backup system (preferably at different sites) to ensure that telephony is continuously available. In addition to availability, the ability of your telephony system to meet your business needs is critical. Individual System i IP Telephony functions are highly scalable, making it easy to add new capabilities as network and business requirements change. Back-end applications can be conveniently installed on a single system or deployed separately on individual platforms. Key features, including high performance, feature redundancy and failover mechanisms, are as follows:
- High scalability. Scales from hundreds to thousands of handsets on a single system.
- Converged voice and data communications. Delivers integrated, simultaneous voice and data over the corporate LAN and WAN.
- Extensive applications. Includes built-in robust call processing, full IP-PBX feature/functionality, unified messaging and centralized system management.
- Open architecture. Standards-based architecture supports traditional PSTN connections and IP telephony protocols and standards. Enables easy integration with SIP-enabled 3rd party devices and applications through standard protocols and API's.
- Multi-site support with centralized administration. The ability to connect multiple sites and remote workers via the data network allows telephony and messaging services to be delivered and administered from a single location. Likewise, telecommuters can connect via a virtual private network for access to real-time telephony and voice messaging services from almost any location.
- High survivability. The System i IP Telephony solution offers high availability with a recommended backup system. Each system constantly synchronizes with the other(s) and each phone knows the address of the primary and backup servers to ensure that phone calls can be made and received without interruption.
IBM System i IP Telephony Express Solutions Makes Purchasing Easier
For companies with 100 to 1000 employees, IBM offers System i IP Telephony Express, attractively-priced solutions containing the System i platform and IP telephony software and licenses from 3Com. System i IP Telephony Express solutions are packaged and priced for 100, 250, 500 and 1,000 users and can be ordered with or without a secondary System i for high-availability requirements. System i Business Partners provide 3Com IP telephony handsets and gateways to deliver a total IP telephony solution.
The IBM System i platform is ideal platform for integrated business solutions. Hundreds of thousands of companies around the world trust the System i platform, IBM’s leading integrated business system, to run their mission-critical enterprise, e-mail and messaging applications. The integrated design of the System i platform has long allowed organizations to run these solutions side-by-side on a single system. Now, companies can not only run e-mail, messaging, IP Telephony and business applications on a single System i platform—with System i Integrated Collaboration, but these applications can also work together to deliver on the promise of increased productivity.
With the System i platform, IBM collaboration software, and IP Telephony solutions from 3Com, you have flexible options to help you increase productivity, lower costs and streamline operations through collaboration. The following capabilities are available or scheduled to be made generally available throughout 2007.2
Companies who use IBM Lotus® Sametime® and IBM Lotus Domino® already have a comprehensive solution for presence, e-mail, instant messaging and Web conferencing. Now, with the 3Com IP Telephony solution on System i, Sametime users can also make calls using their IP desk phone by simply clicking on a contact within their Sametime contact list. This allows users to quickly connect to co-workers and external contacts using existing contact information. Sametime 7.5.1, or later releases, will be supported.
Features include:
- Click-to-Dial. Use Sametime contact lists to make calls from your desktop phone by simply using the Call option within Sametime.
- Click-to-Conference. Add colleagues from your Sametime buddy list into an audio conference by simply “Inviting” others in your Sametime directory to join an ongoing call.
- Large-scale Audio Conferencing using 3Com IP Conferencing. With the integration of the 3Com IP Conferencing server and your Sametime directory, you can pre-schedule a large-scale conference call that can automatically call your desk phone or a mobile device.
- View Telephony Presence. Through the Sametime client see whether colleagues are logged onto the System i IP telephony system and if they are on a call.
Receive voicemails, faxes and e-mail all in a single unified inbox as part of the 3Com IP Telephony Messaging for System i application integrated with Lotus Domino, Standard IMAP interface is available for other e-mail systems. Voice messages are received as attachments that can be opened and played on a computer using standard multimedia applications. In addition, users can now forward voice messages using the e-mail system if they need others to listen to, or act on, a voice message. Faxes, too, will appear in the e-mail inbox as a graphic file which can be annotated, forwarded or printed from any printer, without the need for a dedicated fax machine. In the case of limited bandwidth or the use of a portable device, such as a BlackBerry® integrated with the Domino e-mail server, users are still notified via e-mail that new messages are waiting in their voicemail box. Voice messages can be retrieved and deleted from the unified inbox providing users with flexible anywhere, anytime message management.
3Com IP Telephony Integration for Lotus Domino (v.6.0 or higher) provides users with additional functionality .. using the next generation synchronization capabilities. In this implementation native Domino remote procedure calls are used between the Domino and IP Messaging servers to deliver real time synchronization and additional functionality compared to traditional IMAP implementations. Since voice mail, fax and e-mail are all stored in the Domino database your backup and archival procedures of these messages is simplified along with compliance and reporting requirements. This new synchronization routine is optimized for the Domino server and reduces the dependency for IMAP services.
Systems integrators, ISVs and application developers will be able to integrate telephony into their business and collaboration applications by using new application programming interfaces (APIs) made available with this SDK. Using an open Web Services architecture, the SDK allows applications to initiate and clear calls from 3Com phones without requiring detailed knowledge of the phone infrastructure. Applications can also control phone features such as transfer, conference and forwarding. Developers will be able to interact with the IP Telephony system from any programming language that can initiate Web Services requests from the System i platform.
Access to this SDK will be managed through 3Com’s Open Network™ (3Com|ON™), which will provide support to developers using these tools, as well as additional benefits. For more detail on this program, visit www.open.3com.com
Help desks, support centers, internal sales desks and other departments that receive telephone call can provide better service, increase customer satisfaction, and optimize resources with the EPICCenter Contact Center for System i IP Telephony.
Features include:
- Intelligent, skills-based call routing. An interactive voice response system can collect information pertaining to an incoming call. Based on the information gathered, or using data such as caller-ID, the call can then be routed using business logic to an appropriately-skilled agent, optimizing call center resources and improving client satisfaction.
- Waiting time enhancements. Callers waiting for the next available agent can receive position-in-queue announcements, or other relevant recorded information, that can enhance their waiting time experience.
- Supervisory functions. Comprehensive supervisory functions enable call center activities to be monitored in real time to ensure that agents are responding effectively and efficiently to callers. This function allows supervisors to join a call when needed to service the client’s needs.
- Powerful reporting features. Built-in reporting tools help management measure call center activities against defined business targets.
- Application Integration. Integration with other System i applications can be developed allowing synchronized “screen pops” when an agent answers a call. This provides the agent with application data, such a previous contact or business history, facilitating fast and effective customer interactions.
1 Using IBM System i integration with IBM BladeCenter or System x
2 All statements regarding IBMs future directions and intent are subject to chage or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.
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 Live interactive IP Telephony
Web demo. Several dates to choose from. |
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