New Polycom services further the Polycom Open Collaboration Network by helping customers integrate Polycom voice/video collaboration within UC environments
LONDON/SLOUGH, UK - 22 Apr 2010 : Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice communications solutions, today announced a portfolio of Unified Communications Professional Services delivered through Polycom Global Services, Polycom Open Collaboration Network partners and certified Polycom partners. It has been designed to help customers successfully integrate Polycom voice and visual communications solutions into their unified communications (UC) environments
The new services further the Polycom Open Collaboration Network strategy of providing open and interoperable collaboration solutions that give customers greater flexibility and investment protection for their UC environment. By working with leaders in unified communications and networking, such as Avaya, BroadSoft, HP, IBM, Juniper, Microsoft and Siemens, Polycom is able to deliver its productivity-enhancing and cost-saving telepresence, video and voice collaboration products as an integrated part of core UC environments. As a result Polycom is making the technologies easily accessible as part of the everyday workflow within a comprehensive solution that can be provisioned and managed centrally.
''Unified communications is critical to the overall productivity and success of our customers,'' said Andrew Miller, executive vice president of global field operations, Polycom. ''Polycom UC Professional Services provide the proper planning and deployment to help our customers maximise the benefits and value of their investments and deliver an accelerated return.''
In response to customer demand, the first available service focuses on the integration of Polycom solutions within Microsoft UC environments. Polycom has teamed with Microsoft to provide a unified collaboration solution that integrates presence-based real-time IM, voice, video and data collaboration. Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 provide IM and a presence-enabled unified communications infrastructure. Polycom extends this user experience with one of the broadest portfolios of integrated voice and visual communication products for Microsoft environments, including optimised network-based IP phones; personal, room and immersive telepresence solutions; unified conferencing infrastructure; an integrated scheduling solution for Microsoft Outlook, and recording, streaming and digital signage solutions.
''By building on the integrated feature set in Office Communications Server, our industry partners provide customers with improved ways to stay connected and work together,'' said Yancey Smith, director of product management for Office Communication Server at Microsoft. ''Polycom has expanded the collaboration capabilities offered in Communications Server 2007 R2 to help customers realise higher productivity for their businesses.''
''Polycom Global Services helped us design and implement a highly reliable, distributed video network that will scale with our business needs and that lays the groundwork for seamless integration with our unified communications platform,'' said Mary Genrich, director, Conferencing Services, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. ''We are extremely pleased with the results and view Polycom as a valued business partner.''
The Polycom UC Professional Services include several stages to meet specific customer needs and support internal IT resources, including Solution Planning & Design, Pilot Solution Deployment, and Full Solution Deployment services. Service teams are balanced with qualified professionals to ensure success, including: experienced programme managers to evaluate business needs and coordinate required vendors and service providers to deliver the solution; solution consultants to assess the integration benefits and evaluate existing and planned infrastructure components; network consultants to assess existing LAN and WAN services, define network requirements and develop upgrade plans as needed; deployment specialists to install and configure critical components and verify interoperability to support the enterprise IT team in understanding the new environment and developing appropriate operational processes.
''We are seeing increasing customer demand for UC solutions and services that include real-time voice and visual communications,'' said Mike Brandofino EVP for Video and UC at AVI-SPL, a leading global integrator of audio and video systems and services. ''Working with Polycom and leveraging our A/V and systems integration expertise, AVI-SPL is able to deliver best-in-class voice and video solutions seamlessly into Microsoft UC environments. We are able to help customers navigate through large and complex deployments that include UC platforms, local and wide area networks and IT management applications in order to create a fully integrated and truly unified communication and collaboration platform.''
Industry analyst firm Gartner forecasts the market for video conferencing services will reach nearly $3.9B in 2013, with a CAGR of 23.8% from 2008 – 2013.1
About the Polycom Open Collaboration Network
Leading unified communications and networking providers have joined the Polycom Open Collaboration Network to provide open and interoperable collaboration solutions that give customers greater flexibility and investment protection for their unified communications environment. The Polycom Open Collaboration Network enables Polycom to deliver its productivity-enhancing and cost-saving telepresence, video and voice collaboration products as an integrated part of core unified communication environments, making the technologies easily accessible as part of the everyday workflow within a comprehensive solution that is easy to deploy and manage.
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions and a visionary in communications that empower people to connect and collaborate everywhere. Visit www.polycom.com for more information and follow us on Twitter @AllAboutPolycom.
© 2010 Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved. POLYCOM®, the Polycom ''Triangles'' logo and the names and marks associated with Polycom’s products are trademarks and/or service marks of Polycom, Inc. and are registered and/or common law marks in the United States and various other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
1 - Gartner, ''Video Conference Products and Services Market Forecast, Worldwide 2007 to 2013,'' Sept. 28, 2009.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
VoIP Security with Inagte
Ingate’s architecture with a built-in SIP Proxy and registrar solves the problem of SIP traffic not traversing firewall by working as a proxy between the two clients. Each packet is opened, inspected and necessary rewritings are done. This gives a very secure, flexible and solid tra-versal of SIP traffic and advanced call control.
The media ports between the clients are only open between the specific clients and for the duration of the call.
The inspection of the SIP packages make sure that it is valid SIP packages and that they are not malformed in any way.
Ingate´s architecture allows the support of encrypted SIP signaling – TLS. This makes it much harder to do session hijacking and spoofing since much information is encrypted. Which me-dia ports that will be used for the communication is an example of such encrypted information. Ingate will also support encrypted RTP media streams in SW releases planned for mid 2005.
Ingate has a good architecture for security, but we believe that threats like virus and worms should be handled by experts on these specific fields. This is why we have not incorporated virus protection in our products.
We believe that the same thing will happen when it comes to VoIP. The Ingate products how-ever already do have a good basic protection being firewalls, and development processes con-tinue to further improve this protection.
We are proud to have one of the world’s largest financial institutes as our customer; on request we would be happy to provide it as reference.
Denial of Service attacks
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service attack. Thousands of computers have been infected with malicious code, e.g. “Trojans” over the Internet. This code then transforms these computers into ”zombie” systems that send useless data to a selected IP-address. The system behind the IP-address thus gets flooded by traffic and goes out of its normal service.
This is not a unique problem for SIP and VoIP, but the consequences are more severe since this kind of communication is very realtime-critical.
It is a challenge to stop it since the traffic comes from many sources. It should be stopped as early as possible, for example in the Service Providers network and backbone. Being, up-stream, Service Providers are in a better position to detect and choke the traffic.
Solving the problem in the enterprise network is harder. Even if an attack can be identified locally, it can still flood the “pipe” to the server that is under attack.
Some techniques can be attempted to lessen the problem:
• Set aside extra network bandwidth and server processing capacity.
• Many distributed servers to avoid single point of attack.
• Use of multiple connections and Service Providers.
Ingate´s heritage as a Firewall supplier helps when developing systems that are less vulnerable to such attacks. For each new software release all 4200 protos tests must be passed.
http://www.ee.oulu.fi/research/ouspg/protos/
Spam over the SIP protocol
We distinguish between SPIT and SPIM.
SPIT
SPIT stands for SPam over Internet Telephones. A single “caller” can potentially send out thousands of voice messages simultaneously into phones or voicemail boxes. It is very rare on the market today, but considered as a potential future threat. One problem is that it is almost impossible to detect a SPIT without first listening to it.
Same basic techniques to prevent this, as in the e-mail world will work:
• Black-lists: calls from specific domains, users, IP-addresses are discarded.
• White lists: calls from specific user, domains, IP-addresses are allowed.
As with normal SPAM, a number of companies will specialize in the SPIT issues and supply products offering more and more advanced protection.
One of these companies is Qovia which filed the first patent for SPIT blocking technology. It claims to be able to differentiate “normal human traffic” from large scale machine-generated blast messages.
www.qovia.com.
Ingate follow the market closely on this issue and we have some plans in our short-term road map to further improve SPIT protection.
Maybe the long-term answer to this will be authentication. An interesting question is if there in the future will be third party trusted authorities (CA) that verify the callers?
Ingate has support for both encryption and authentication in its products.
The distributed architecture of the Ingate products, with CPE equipment in every branch of-fice, will also help making the system less vulnerable as there is no single point to attack. We can expect a huge creativity, both from SPAMers and companies like Ingate who try to pre-vent SPAM.
SPIM
SPIM stands for SPam over Instant Messaging. It is very similar to e-mail SPAM but more insidious, since messages may pop up automatically. It is also easier to handle than SPIT, not being as realtime sensitive as voice.
Proven methods can again be used to stop it:
• Black and White lists.
• Content filtering.
• Authentication of the user initiating the IM.
Since this communication form allows a small delay before sending the message on to the receiver, it is possible to build the same kind of filtering functions as the e-mail SPAM block-ing techniques. Ingate believe that the same companies that sells anti e-mail SPAM software will add SPIM blocking into their product portfolio. Ingate does at the moment not plan to develop any additional functions for this except for the Black/White lists and the authentica-tion support that already are present in its products.
The media ports between the clients are only open between the specific clients and for the duration of the call.
The inspection of the SIP packages make sure that it is valid SIP packages and that they are not malformed in any way.
Ingate´s architecture allows the support of encrypted SIP signaling – TLS. This makes it much harder to do session hijacking and spoofing since much information is encrypted. Which me-dia ports that will be used for the communication is an example of such encrypted information. Ingate will also support encrypted RTP media streams in SW releases planned for mid 2005.
Ingate has a good architecture for security, but we believe that threats like virus and worms should be handled by experts on these specific fields. This is why we have not incorporated virus protection in our products.
We believe that the same thing will happen when it comes to VoIP. The Ingate products how-ever already do have a good basic protection being firewalls, and development processes con-tinue to further improve this protection.
We are proud to have one of the world’s largest financial institutes as our customer; on request we would be happy to provide it as reference.
Denial of Service attacks
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service attack. Thousands of computers have been infected with malicious code, e.g. “Trojans” over the Internet. This code then transforms these computers into ”zombie” systems that send useless data to a selected IP-address. The system behind the IP-address thus gets flooded by traffic and goes out of its normal service.
This is not a unique problem for SIP and VoIP, but the consequences are more severe since this kind of communication is very realtime-critical.
It is a challenge to stop it since the traffic comes from many sources. It should be stopped as early as possible, for example in the Service Providers network and backbone. Being, up-stream, Service Providers are in a better position to detect and choke the traffic.
Solving the problem in the enterprise network is harder. Even if an attack can be identified locally, it can still flood the “pipe” to the server that is under attack.
Some techniques can be attempted to lessen the problem:
• Set aside extra network bandwidth and server processing capacity.
• Many distributed servers to avoid single point of attack.
• Use of multiple connections and Service Providers.
Ingate´s heritage as a Firewall supplier helps when developing systems that are less vulnerable to such attacks. For each new software release all 4200 protos tests must be passed.
http://www.ee.oulu.fi/research/ouspg/protos/
Spam over the SIP protocol
We distinguish between SPIT and SPIM.
SPIT
SPIT stands for SPam over Internet Telephones. A single “caller” can potentially send out thousands of voice messages simultaneously into phones or voicemail boxes. It is very rare on the market today, but considered as a potential future threat. One problem is that it is almost impossible to detect a SPIT without first listening to it.
Same basic techniques to prevent this, as in the e-mail world will work:
• Black-lists: calls from specific domains, users, IP-addresses are discarded.
• White lists: calls from specific user, domains, IP-addresses are allowed.
As with normal SPAM, a number of companies will specialize in the SPIT issues and supply products offering more and more advanced protection.
One of these companies is Qovia which filed the first patent for SPIT blocking technology. It claims to be able to differentiate “normal human traffic” from large scale machine-generated blast messages.
www.qovia.com.
Ingate follow the market closely on this issue and we have some plans in our short-term road map to further improve SPIT protection.
Maybe the long-term answer to this will be authentication. An interesting question is if there in the future will be third party trusted authorities (CA) that verify the callers?
Ingate has support for both encryption and authentication in its products.
The distributed architecture of the Ingate products, with CPE equipment in every branch of-fice, will also help making the system less vulnerable as there is no single point to attack. We can expect a huge creativity, both from SPAMers and companies like Ingate who try to pre-vent SPAM.
SPIM
SPIM stands for SPam over Instant Messaging. It is very similar to e-mail SPAM but more insidious, since messages may pop up automatically. It is also easier to handle than SPIT, not being as realtime sensitive as voice.
Proven methods can again be used to stop it:
• Black and White lists.
• Content filtering.
• Authentication of the user initiating the IM.
Since this communication form allows a small delay before sending the message on to the receiver, it is possible to build the same kind of filtering functions as the e-mail SPAM block-ing techniques. Ingate believe that the same companies that sells anti e-mail SPAM software will add SPIM blocking into their product portfolio. Ingate does at the moment not plan to develop any additional functions for this except for the Black/White lists and the authentica-tion support that already are present in its products.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
SoundPoint IP/SoundStation IP/VVX: SIP 3.2.3 Software + BootROM 4.2.2 Releases Have Been Posted
The following software and associated files have been posted to the various Support web sites for SoundPoint IP/SoundStation IP/VVX products.
SIP 3.2.3:
Affected Products:
SoundPoint: IP 320, 321, 330, 335, 430, 450, 550, 560, 650, 670
SoundStation: IP 5000, 6000, 7000
VVX 1500
Key Enhancements:
Introduced support for the SoundStation IP 5000.
Alerting and other tones can now be played on an audio device (headset, handset, speakerphone) specified by configuration parameters, e.g. incoming call ringer alerting tone can be played in the headset earpiece.
DHCP option 60 is now available in an ASCII String format as well as RFC 3925 Binary and selectable using a configuration parameter.
DHCP option 60 allows a DHCP server to identify the type of host making a request of it, allowing it to offer different option values for various types of hosts such as Microsoft’s IIS.
This feature requires BootROM 4.2.2 (see below).
Full details are available in Technical Bulletin 54041 “Using DHCP Vendor Identifying Options with Polycom SoundPoint IP, SoundStation IP and VVX Phones”.
http://www.polycom.com/support/voice/soundpoint_ip/VoIP_Technical_Bulletins_pub.html
BootROM 4.2.2:
Affected Products:
SoundPoint: IP 320, 321, 330, 335, 430, 450, 550, 560, 650, 670
SoundStation: IP 5000, 6000, 7000
VVX 1500 (BootROM 4.2.2 is distributed with SIP 3.2.3 for the VVX)
Key Enhancements:
Introduced support for the SoundStation IP 5000.
DHCP option 60 is now available in an ASCII String format as well as RFC 3925 Binary and selectable using a configuration parameter.
DHCP option 60 allows a DHCP server to identify the type of host making a request of it, allowing it to offer different option values for various types of hosts such as Microsoft’s IIS.
Full details are available in Technical Bulletin 54041 “Using DHCP Vendor Identifying Options with Polycom SoundPoint IP, SoundStation IP and VVX Phones”.
http://www.polycom.com/support/voice/soundpoint_ip/VoIP_Technical_Bulletins_pub.html
sip_sw_release_matrix.htm:
Updated to reflect the support for 3.2.3 and SoundStation IP 5000.
http://downloads.polycom.com/voice/voip/sip_sw_releases_matrix.html
For full details, please refer to the respective Release Notes now available from the Support web pages.
SIP 3.2.3:
Affected Products:
SoundPoint: IP 320, 321, 330, 335, 430, 450, 550, 560, 650, 670
SoundStation: IP 5000, 6000, 7000
VVX 1500
Key Enhancements:
Introduced support for the SoundStation IP 5000.
Alerting and other tones can now be played on an audio device (headset, handset, speakerphone) specified by configuration parameters, e.g. incoming call ringer alerting tone can be played in the headset earpiece.
DHCP option 60 is now available in an ASCII String format as well as RFC 3925 Binary and selectable using a configuration parameter.
DHCP option 60 allows a DHCP server to identify the type of host making a request of it, allowing it to offer different option values for various types of hosts such as Microsoft’s IIS.
This feature requires BootROM 4.2.2 (see below).
Full details are available in Technical Bulletin 54041 “Using DHCP Vendor Identifying Options with Polycom SoundPoint IP, SoundStation IP and VVX Phones”.
http://www.polycom.com/support/voice/soundpoint_ip/VoIP_Technical_Bulletins_pub.html
BootROM 4.2.2:
Affected Products:
SoundPoint: IP 320, 321, 330, 335, 430, 450, 550, 560, 650, 670
SoundStation: IP 5000, 6000, 7000
VVX 1500 (BootROM 4.2.2 is distributed with SIP 3.2.3 for the VVX)
Key Enhancements:
Introduced support for the SoundStation IP 5000.
DHCP option 60 is now available in an ASCII String format as well as RFC 3925 Binary and selectable using a configuration parameter.
DHCP option 60 allows a DHCP server to identify the type of host making a request of it, allowing it to offer different option values for various types of hosts such as Microsoft’s IIS.
Full details are available in Technical Bulletin 54041 “Using DHCP Vendor Identifying Options with Polycom SoundPoint IP, SoundStation IP and VVX Phones”.
http://www.polycom.com/support/voice/soundpoint_ip/VoIP_Technical_Bulletins_pub.html
sip_sw_release_matrix.htm:
Updated to reflect the support for 3.2.3 and SoundStation IP 5000.
http://downloads.polycom.com/voice/voip/sip_sw_releases_matrix.html
For full details, please refer to the respective Release Notes now available from the Support web pages.
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