Nortel SCS Software Solution

The Nortel SCS software represents the first Open Source based IP PBX product introduced to the market by one of the leading PBX manufacturers. This represents a major deviation from past history for this venerable company and also represents the beginning of Nortel's transition from proprietary hardware manufacturing to a software development and component integration firm.

Building on the legacy of the Pingtel Enterprise Communications Server (Nortel acquired Pingtel in August of 2008), which was an outgrowth of the SIPfoundry Open Source sipXecs project, the Nortel SCS represents the cumulative software development efforts of hundreds of people over the past five years. The goal of this Open Source community has been to create a pure SIP-based software platform designed to run on almost any standard Intel based server, supporting any SIP compliant end point device.

Learning from the Pingtel experience, Nortel has taken a more focused approach with the SCS limiting the end point products supported to those that provide the highest quality and meet rigid interoperability requirements. This change from an approach to state you support all standard's based products has allowed Nortel to guarantee high quality with the SCS by eliminating some of the compatibility issues Pingtel's business model created.

Today's SCS installations configured with Polycom or LG/Nortel handsets, Counterpath soft phones, AudioCodes media gateways, and InGate Session Border Controllers represent a "Best of Breed" set of components integrated into a cost effective system.

Innovational IP Solutions has been installing and supporting systems from SIPfoundry, Pingtel, and now Nortel for over 5 years. We are the SCSand SIPfoundry sipXecs Experts! For full details on our complete solution, visit our SCS500 Solutions page.

The following is the text contents of a presentation on the Value of the Nortel SCS500 Approach

Why Nortel and SCS?

Introduction

What is SCS? (aka SCS-500, SCS 500 or simply SCS)

Nortel’s SIP-centric, software based Unified communications solution for SMB’s with 30-2000+ employees (per site, but scalable up to 1000) offered in industry leading hardware platforms (IBM System i and Dell Optiplex 755).

SCS is built on Nortel’s leadership within the open-source ecosystem (SIPfoundry and the sipXecs project), and represents more than 250 Nortel contributions to the open source community, in addition to value added features and applications over and above the sipXecs project.

What is SIPfoundry and the sipXecs project?

SIPfoundry is a fully independent not-for-profit open source organization, and sipXecs is the open-source project; a global effort to build a truly unified communications system using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

Why sipXecs?

• Ease of use,
• Plug and play management of telephony components
• Automatic device discovery; phone parameters auto-generated
• Web portal for individual user self-control of select options
• Device firmware management
• SOAP interface for all configuration options
• Advanced Features,
• Highly flexible dial plan, ‘numbering’ and aliases
• Mobility; multiple device configuration per user
• User control of call redirection; including time of day selection
• SIP trunking
• Voicemail and Unified Messaging
• Auto-attendant, MoH, call park, ACD, flexible call center queues and control, etc… (a detailed list can be provided)
• Corporate directory and flexible importing
• Per user call authorization control
• Advanced user management (speed dial w/ BLF, assignment of phones, call forwarding, user groups)
• Uploadable localization packs
• LDAP integration
• Scale
• Highly scalable and flexible trunking and ‘simultaneous call’ handling support based on a differentiating architectural choice
• No growth limitation based on CPU capacity; scale limited by LAN/WAN bandwidth
• No PCI slot requirement or limitation
• Resiliency and quality
• Automatic trunk failover
• Redundant call control
• Backup and restore of configuration data

Why SCS?

• Licensing
• Ability to control and license users commercially
• (controlling # of users and security considerations
• for all components of solution)
• Integration
• Nortel branded including Softphones (3455/3456) and plug-ins
• (Lotus Notes/Sametime), Gateways, Applications, Nortel & LG-Nortel Clients
• Comprehensive testing and Nortel ‘5 nines’ quality approach
• Voice and product quality assured by Nortel communications expertise
• Alpha/Beta Trials, Product Verification, bug-fixes,interoperability, bug-fixes,
• IBM & Dell centric offerings
• System I today, full range of Power Systems, Blades planned
• Dell’s Optiplex 755 today, PowerEdge R300 planned
• Value adds
• Applications including robust conferencing capabilities
• Nortel’s extensive 3rd party development partner community
• Complimentary SMB Data portfolio
• Simple to Use
• Intuitive web-based portal for easy set up and configuration
• Users drag and drop names into a call list to set up a multi-party conference call
• Flexible
• Meet Me
• Always on, informal meetings,
• optional passwords
• Scheduled
• Pre-determined (with reserved capacity), formal meetings,
• optional passwords
• Instant
• Participant initiates then system calls other participants, optional passwords
• Savings on time, money and travel

Why Nortel in SMB & Unified Communications?

• Proof Points
• Among top 3 leaders in voice, data, applications
• Gartner’s Magic Quadrant leader in Unified Communications
• A broad portfolio of standards-based products
• An extensive partner community operating in 150 countries around the world
• Complementary Nortel Global Services expertise
• 20+ years experience in SMB market leadership
• 15 million SMB users in over 80 countries
• Large installed SMB base
• SMB products that are designed for SMBs
• sipXecs vs. Asterisk… another perspective
• Asterisk may be older, but sipXecs is better, June 12, 2008
• You have probably read about Nortel’s Software Communications System 
• (SCS), a Unified Communications (UC) SIP-centric software solution for SMB
• (30-500 users), and that our go to market includes IBM and Dell.
• What you may not know is that the SCS500 is based on open source from SIPfoundry,
• and blends the best of both the open source framework and Nortel’s experience and expertise in voice, data,
• multimedia and unified communications.

Why was sipXecs from SIPfoundry chosen as the basis for SCS?

Four primary reasons:

1. Our strategy is UC, and sipXecs is a native SIP solution consistent with our strategy. Asterisk on the other hand is focused on being a PBX replacement and is architected to switch audio streams with all media going through a centralized system.
2. Our strategy is user and application scalability which is what sipXecs delivers inside and out (technically sipXecs is architected around a SIP Proxy). Asterisk is architected as an end system (the technical term is a Back-to-back User Agent), providing transcoding to different legacy protocols (like H323) across a proprietary centralized core. Bottom-line: sipXecs is a distributed system that can scale in number of users and accommodate all the additional services necessary to deliver UC.
3. Our strategy is centered on delivering high Quality of Experience via peer communications, allowing voice or video streams to go directly between end points (keeping delays and bandwidth to a minimum). Contrast the sipXecs architecture with Asterisk’s, the latter being modeled after a traditional PBX with all signaling and media bundled on the same path always.
4. Our strategy is centered on delivering Simplifications. sipXecs comes with sipXconfig, a complete and very comprehensive management system. Asterisk has nothing in this area.

SCS is the culmination of more than 250 groundbreaking contributions from Nortel into SIPfoundry (which has 2x the code base of the older Asterisk) , solidifying our leadership in the global open source ecosystem. Nortel also has an extensive developer community, with more than 60 developer partners and close to 400 active members.

SMBs probably don’t care about open source as they do about accelerating their businesses through UC (like the big guys), having a system that grows with the business in size and scope; delivers consistent user experience and is easy to manage.