Realize VoIP Newsletter, August 2009

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In This Issue

• Editor's Note
• IMS Technology Used for Emergency and First Response Communications Networks
• NEW: IMS Seminars for Emergency and First Response Communications Networks
• Product News and Updates
• From Our Developer Community
• The US Federal Government UCR Program
• Android Dreams? Only With 3G Video
• Blog Highlights
• Webinars / Events
• In Closing

Editor's Note

By Amir Zmora, VP Marketing

We are happy to present the latest version of Realize VoIP. This release focuses mainly on the implementation of VoIP in emergency and federal applications and the use of IMS for this purpose. RADVISION has gained a lot of experience in developing solutions for this segment, both as off-the-shelf products and turn-key projects.

The first article focuses on current trends and requirements for emergency and first response networks. It is highly recommended to follow it up by reading our recently released white paper on this topic by Sharon Laivand, TBU Product Manager.

Sharon is in charge of our seminar for this segment; he presents highlights in this Newsletter. We invite you to contact us to coordinate such a seminar on your premises.

Anatoli Levin, Director of Product Management in the Americas, gives an overview of the US Federal Unified Capabilities Requirements (UCR) for wireline and wireless secured and manageable IP Communications networks.

Also in this Newsletter you will find highlights of new product releases, our developer community, and a new demo of a real-time video communication client built on Android.

We Value Your Opinion

This is the third issue of our newsletter and we've received a lot of positive feedback. We would like to make it even better, so please share your opinions with us:

• What do you like about our newsletter?
• What do you dislike about it?
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The best part is that you can let us know simply by replying to the newsletter email you received. You can also contact us through our community contact form.

IMS Technology Used for Emergency and First Response Communications Networks

By Sharon Laivand, Product Manager

Unfortunately, some disasters we fear may in fact happen. Disasters such as earthquakes, airplane crashes or terrorist attacks require an immediate first response on the municipal and national level. The first response teams (medical teams, army, fire fighters, police and others) must be able to communicate continuously under difficult circumstances.

However, experience has taught us that when disaster strikes, existing commercial communications systems fail to meet the needs of emergency personnel - and often crash under the burden. Perhaps the most telling example of this was after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and the Pentagon. As noted in the Public Report published by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9-11 Commission): "It is a fair inference, given the differing situations in New York City and Northern Virginia, that the problems in command, control, and communications that occurred at both sites will likely recur in any emergency of similar scale. The task looking forward is to enable first responders to respond in a coordinated manner with the greatest possible awareness of the situation". The report states that lives could have been saved had the New York City Fire Department communications infrastructure been able to function under such pressure.

Not surprisingly, we witness increased demand for first response networks. We see more customer inquiries and RFPs that describe IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) networks used for first response personnel. We believe that the increased demand is a result of the following:

1. The experience gained with first-response networks and requirements
2. IMS technology has standardization extensions dedicated for emergency/first response situations
3. IMS technology starts to gain maturity and is deployed commercially.

You can read more about first response networks in our white paper on the subject, where you will learn about:

• Requirements for emergency and first response networks
• How IMS technology can benefit first response networks
• The latest standardization developments for emergency networks

NEW: IMS Seminars for Emergency and First Response Communications Networks

As a result of the increased demand for IMS Technology used for Emergency and First Response Communications Networks (described in the previous section of this newsletter), we decided to share the knowledge we have gained in this area with our customers and partners. Therefore, we are providing a face-to-face seminar on this subject.

The duration of the seminar is about three hours, and it has the following agenda:

Rich Media over IP: Technology Updates from RADVISION

• About RADVISION
• Latest trends in the military/homeland security communication sector
• Latest trends in the communication standardization bodies
• Latest trends in the video communication sector
• Latest trends in SIP communication servers
• Latest trends in IP terminal segments
• Preparing networks for the video revolution
• A short briefing on RADVISION's products and solutions
• Demo

If you are interested in such a seminar, please contact us through our Developer Community.

Product News and Updates

The following are some new RADVISION product releases:

• Our Megaco/H.248 Stack is now optimized for development of high load network devices, such as Media Gateway Controllers that handle thousands of Media Gateways simultaneously.
• Using Diameter? We have just released a new version of our Diameter Stack that adds built-in multithreading, allowing developers to scale up their servers.
• The BEEHD Client Framework version 1.0 is now officially released.

The new versions above are available to customers under maintenance agreements.

From Our Developer Community

By Tsahi Levent-Levi, Community Facilitator and Project Director

Have you ever found yourself asking how you can destruct our SIP Stack if you are running it on a single thread in an infinite loop? Or have you ever had that nagging need to understand how memory pools are allocated to be able to estimate the amount of memory you're going to need?

You no longer need to be in the dark about these issues - you can now find the answers to these questions and more in our SIP Development Forum. Our dedicated Customer Support team have decided to post some of the questions they get on a daily basis to the forum, along with their answers. You should note, though, that this forum requires logging in with the relevant permissions to access our SIP product area.

So next time you are at a loss with regard to the use of our products, just login to the community and search - you might be surprised at what you find there.

The US Federal Government UCR Program

By Anatoli Levine, Director of Product Management, Americas

Do you know what UCR stands for?

Recognizing that IP communications mediums significantly enhance communications everywhere, the Federal government and defense organizations are harnessing the power of the mass proliferation of reliable Internet Protocol (IP) communications over wireline and wireless networks through the innovative Unified Capabilities Requirements (UCR) program. The goal of the UCR program is to define and specify the technical requirements for network components, devices and applications to provide unified capabilities in a secure and manageable way to all users and user groups. The program stipulates that: "Unified capabilities are defined as the seamless integration of voice, video, and data application services delivered ubiquitously across a secure and highly available IP infrastructure to provide increased mission effectiveness to the war fighter and business communities." Unified capabilities integrate standards-based communication and collaboration services, covering instant messaging, voice/video/data conferencing and collaboration, presence and more, as illustrated in the diagram below:

UCR Foundation: SIP and Information Assurance (IA)

To qualify as UCR compliant, all communications and collaboration services must be standards-based, encompass voice, video and data, and integrate with the existing infrastructure and applications. As the UCR program was developed to take full advantage of modern IP communications networks, SIP was selected to power the next generation UCR infrastructure, devices and applications. Another key element here is the concept of Information Assurance. The US Government's National Information Assurance Glossary defines IA as: "Measures that protect and defend information and information systems by ensuring their availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation. These measures include providing for restoration of information systems by incorporating protection, detection, and reaction capabilities." Availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation are also known as the five pillars of Information Assurance (IA).

SIP + IA = ... AS SIP!

The UCR Program embraces the five IA pillars, stipulating that the optimal way to achieve IA in these settings is to use Assured Services SIP (AS SIP). AS SIP is a tight profile of the general SIP implementation, which enforces IA concepts within an open standard, such as SIP, using well-defined specifications from more than 40 IETF RFCs and 3GPP IMS specifications. These RFCs and specifications define critical mechanisms, such as identity management via P-headers, Multilevel Precedence and Preemption (MLPP) for complete call control, media encryption via Secure RTP (SRTP), and more.

Connecting all the dots: The RADVISION AS SIP Developer Suite

RADVISION's AS SIP Developer Suite is built on top of our award-winning SIP Development Suite and provides all the key elements necessary for developing an AS SIP-compliant solution: the SIP Stack, IMS and the Advanced RTP Stack with SRTP support.

Android Dreams? Only with 3G Video

By Amit Lavi, Product Manager

For some years now we've been very successful with our 3G VT Application on Windows Mobile, an important operating system in the mobile arena. The 3G VT Application for Windows Mobile includes a complete solution together with a native integration to the phone MMI, and provides users with a good experience while making video calls over a 3G network.

In the past year, companies have asked us for an Android solution for their mobile phone development. Now we are pleased to present this solution, the 3G Videophone, on Google Android OS.

If you are planning to work on an Android phone or are already working on one, you can now integrate 3G video calls into your mobile platform using our 3G-324M solution for the Android OS. We have a demo available for you - all you need to do is contact us and send a request.

Blog Highlights

Take a glance at some interesting recent blog posts on our blog network:

• Openness: While government agencies should focus on open standards solutions, this is not always being done. Tsahi takes a look at the call to open source twitter.
• Infrastructure: Sagee reminds us that "it's the network stupid": monitoring a video network is essential.

Here are two more posts that have interested our readers in the past two months:

• Sagee answers a very common question regarding video conferencing: Why a video conferencing endpoint experiences packet loss and even a connection break.
• Tsahi ponders two new services: Google Wave and Opera Unite - two extreme ways of looking at communications and sharing.

Webinars / Events

Where and When?

Leveraging Video in the Enterprise @ITEXPO

At the ITEXPO Communications Developer Track, Anatoli Levine will be talking about leveraging video in an enterprise setting. Video is becoming a habitual part of communications within the enterprise and beyond, as well as an integral part of the Unified Communications umbrella. In this talk, Anatoli will look at the potential, trends and issues of video communications. He will also discuss how to ensure "Quality of Experience." If you are at ITEXPO in Los Angeles on September 3 and are interested in visual communications, you should definitely consider attending this talk.

Meet RADVISION @Intel Embedded eVent

Come visit RADVISION at the Intel Embedded eVent, an innovative virtual trade show where you can learn about our latest technology offerings for developers of multimedia communications solutions. Come and learn about RADVISION products and chat live with our team of experts on September 15.

Perspectives on HD Tipping Points @HDComm

On September 15 at 5:10 PM, please join Anatoli Levin, Director of Product Management, Americas, who will be on the panel of "Perspectives on HD Tipping Points" discussing the issues, challenges and driving factors of making HD Quality of Experience a part of daily life for all.

Israeli VoIP Community meets on October 27 to discuss Unified Communication Technology and Trends

RADVISION will hold its annual customer seminar at the Daniel Hotel convention hall in Herzlia, Israel on October 27. The seminar will feature a gathering of the Israeli VoIP Community and will focus this year on Unified Communication Technology and Trends.

We invite you to attend lectures, experience exciting demos and panels of industry VoIP experts, discussing: 

• Interactive high definition video
• Presence and instant messaging
• IMS
• IP/PBX development and latest advancements

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Your opinion matters to us. If you are (or were) a RADVISION customer of any of our developer tools, we would appreciate if you would complete our Customer Satisfaction Survey. It will only take a few minutes of your time and would help us a great deal. We will be leaving this survey open for you to fill in at your own leisure, but why wait? Take the survey now.

Past Webinar: HD Video Conferencing to the Masses

High Definition video has become standard in most venues of media, yet it is still uncommon in video communications. Though the necessary technology is available, the complexity and cost of building an HD video solution is substantial. In RADVISION's online Webinar, you can learn how the RADVISION BEEHD offers the framework for developing economical HD video communication products while bypassing existing challenges. You are invited to register and view the Webinar online.

Past Webinar: Improving Video Quality in Your Network

While video deployment is experiencing a significant boom both in enterprise and carrier networks overall, the user experience does not always live up to expectations. In this Webinar, RADVISION experts discuss how to avoid pitfalls through pre- and post-deployment network assessment of video quality. If you didn't participate in this Webinar, you can now view it directly from the web. Registration is free.

In Closing

This newsletter aims to be useful to you. If you are not finding any value, PLEASE REPLY and tell us how we can improve. For more information from RADVISION, you are invited to follow the links below:

• Read our blogs: http://blog.radvision.com
• Join our community: http://developer.radvision.com

Thanks for reading our newsletter!

RADVISION's Developer Community Team

http://www.radvision.com