New NET UX1000 Is Purpose-Built For Small and Midsize Branches Offices and Small Businesses
New NET UX1000 Is Purpose-Built For Small and Midsize Branches Offices and Small Businesses by Marty Parker
NET has again created a product designed specifically to solve an important Unified Communications problem with efficiency and economy. The NET UX1000 All-In-One Branch Office Networking Appliance is designed to deliver the combination of networking, gateway, SIP Trunking, and survivability/business continuity features needed for a small or midsized business or for branch office locations in any sized company, scaling up to 400 registered local users. Based on a checklist of requirements commonly seen in our consulting projects, the UX1000 will serve most configurations in the single 1U appliance package. This UX1000 packaging contains a set of functions that might have required 3, 4 or more different appliances in the past.
In addition, the NET UX1000 offers several bonus features. First, it is a qualified Small Branch Appliance (SBA) for Microsoft Lync 2010 deployments. Second, the NET UX1000 has the same front-end routing ability first announced in the NET VXe; the UX1000 can facilitate Unified Communications system migration from or coexistence with an existing PBX by routing incoming DID calls to the appropriate system based synchronization with the enterprise or site Active Directory.
The UX1000 announcement follows on to NET’s flexible VX Series Gateways, especially the VXe with UC enhancements (see NET Set to Simplify Microsoft OCS Deployments), and as a smaller version of the UX2000 All-In-One Branch Office Networking Appliance introduced in February 2011, but geared for larger Microsoft Lync 2010 deployments (see A Microsoft Qualified Solution for Lync Survivability at the Branch Office).
Let’s take a look at how the NET UX1000 addresses the small office networking and gateway needs:
Users and User Devices
- User Capacity: The UX1000 will connect to off-the-shelf IP LAN switches to support up to 400 registered users for the small business or branch office location. Most locations will be much smaller than that, typically in the 10 to 100 user range, but the UX1000 capacity provides expansion flexibility to meet business conditions.
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User Devices: The users can be supported via any combination of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) or Microsoft Lync end-point devices:
- The UX1000 includes support for SIP phones and other devices in the local office, providing flexible and economical deployments to desktops, lobby phones, wall phones, conference rooms, and other purposes.
- The UX1000 also supports the diverse set of Microsoft Lync User Devices, providing the advanced communication features of Microsoft Lync for desktops, in conference rooms (such as the Polycom CX-5000 conference group video conferencing unit), or for other office uses.
- The UX1000 also includes the unique NET function of SmartSIP presence support so that the SIP devices will automatically show on-hook and off-hook status to Microsoft Lync users.
Network Options
The UX1000 is has a well chosen set of functionality to meet the needs of branch office connectivity both flexibly and economically in a single unit. Customers can choose from the following range of options, all packaged in the single UX1000 unit.
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Digital Telephony: Industry standard T1/E1 telephony formats are supported in the UX1000. Enterprises can order up to two (2) T1/E1 spans or eight (8) BRI voice channels (for smaller locations or limited voice failover) with scalability up to forty-six (46) T-1 or sixty (60) E-1 voice channels for larger offices or more robust business continuity.
- PRI: Two Primary Rate Interface spans
- 23B+D in each T-1 span; for up to 46 voice channels
- 30B+D in each E-1 span, for up to 60 voice channels
- BRI: Eight Basic Rate Interface ports
- 2B+D in each BRI; 1 or 2 voice channels.
- SIP Trunk Support with Session Border Controller: For enterprises that prefer SIP connectivity to the voice network, the UX1000 supports that Internet Protocol connectivity along with the important Session Border Controller (SBC) functions demanded by most enterprises to protect their network and communications from malware and other attacks.
- Analog Telephony: Both FXS and FXO Ports are supported via FXS for specialized devices such as fax machines and FXO to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The UX1000 can provide 4-port capacity for both FXS and FXO.
- Microsoft Lync Mediation Server: If needed, the UX1000 can provide the mediation server functions for a Microsoft Lync 2010 system installation at the local site.
Network Security
The UX1000 builds on the NET heritage and technical capabilities to provide a complete suite of network protection options for the small business or branch.
- NAT (Network Address Translation): This option will support both mapping of IP addresses to the local devices and hiding of the specific device addresses of the small business or branch behind a single external network address. This is a basic security requirement, provided by the UX1000.
- DOS (Denial of Service) Prevention: The UX1000 can scan network accesses and identify then disable the access patterns that indicate a denial of service attack, i.e. a flood of bogus service requests that will block or disable the location’s network or services.
- Media Encryption: The UX1000 is also able to apply encryption to the media streams leaving the business or branch location and to decrypt incoming media, as appropriate to the protocol and application. This may be already built into some applications, such as Microsoft Lync, but is available for other uses, as needed.
- Access Control and Protocol List security: The UX1000 also supports this important security method, i.e. the ability to specify only those IP addresses or ports that can initiate or receive specific network traffic and also to specify the protocols used on those ports. This significantly narrows the possibility of malware attacks, both by controlling the points of access to data and applications and by blocking protocols that might transmit or encapsulate malicious intrusions.
Migration and Coexistence
The UX1000 can be deployed in an upstream model, i.e. placed ‘in front’ of an existing PBX and new UC system (such as Microsoft Lync, IBM Sametime, or a new IP PBX) to facilitate migration or coexistence. Incoming calls are routed to the appropriate system based on the incoming DID or called number and on user information synchronized from the company’s Active Directory. Also, outbound calls from either system are routed either to the public network or to the other system as appropriate, again, based on the directory information. To our knowledge, this is a unique NET feature which can lower the administrative costs of migration or coexistence.
Business Continuity Failover
The UX1000 includes Relay Bypass functionality, so that the analog connections will continue to operate even in the event of a complete power outage. That is particularly important for emergency phones connecting to the PSTN. Also, for advanced applications such as Microsoft Lync, which can sense loss of a WAN connection and re-route calls to and from the PSTN, the embedded UX1000 network connections will support the necessary configuration for that important business continuity option.
Packaging
Finally, to confirm the ‘purpose-built’ nature of the UX1000, all of this is packaged in a single 1U appliance. So, minimal space, power and cabling are required to support the UX1000. A secondary unit could be installed for redundancy or a replacement unit could be expressed in for rapid and simple manual reconnection if needed.
With this check-off of the requirements list of networking and gateway functionality for a small and midsized business or branch office, the UX1000 is well qualified for effective and economical application. Of course, most small or midsized businesses and branch offices now also require Wi-Fi and/or WLAN functionality, which are not included in the UX1000; this is not unusual, since the Wi-Fi or WLAN functionality must be configured to the physical layout of the offices. Also, in some circumstances, a customer might still need a Virtual Private Network (VPN) access appliance for remote workers, though increasingly the necessary remote access security and encryption functions are built into IP telephones and into UC system software.
The UX1000 supports several deployment options:
- Lync® SBA branch office solution: The UX1000 would connect the Lync users in the branch to the Lync servers at the central site or data center, but still provide for continued communications in case of a WAN outage.
- Lync Enhanced Gateway: For small businesses or branches with a Lync Server installed, the UX1000 provides the gateway functions, including the necessary mediation server role.
- Enterprise session border controller (E-SBC): For those sites with SIP trunk connections (not just Microsoft Lync connections), the UX1000 provides the SBC network and site protection.
- Upstream voice call routing deployment to support migration to UC.
This flexibility should be attractive for those multi-site enterprises who adopt the UX1000 as a networking standard, since it will work with existing, primarily analog or T-1 Key System or PBX installations as well as with more advanced configurations such as Microsoft Lync or IP PBX deployments. This enables the enterprise to deploy the NET UX1000 for all locations then grow or evolve depending on the pace of new solution deployments or site upgrades.
In summary, the NET UX1000 continues NET’s commitment to delivering effective networking and connectivity solutions for enterprises of all sizes, and especially for small and midsized business and branches. The UX1000 combination of packaging and functionality should be an appealing choice for business locations with as few as 10 to as many as 400 employees.