Tested & Reviewed: Zultys MX250 IP PBX

Testing Grounds ] Tested & Reviewed: Zultys MX250 IP PBX Small and medium-sized businesses that want to leap into the VoIP universe without a great deal of fuss should seriously consider the Zultys MX250 IP PBX. Billed by Zultys as a simple SMB solution that takes the complexity out of VoIP deployment, the system supports a broad range of features including fax handling, basic ACD, and presence management. by Pete Comas Fully SIP-compliant, the Zultys MX250 is ideal for companies that don t want to be tied to a single vendor. Additionally, Zultys touts the system s data networking capabilities. The MX250 functions as a router, incorporating a firewall with NAT, and it also functions as DHCP, TFTP, and NTP servers. While its network capabilities are nice, it is the MX250 s ability to deliver quality voice service that primarily interested us. Our lab put the Zultys MX250 through a battery of tests and evaluated it for ease of installation, its feature set, and its usability. After tens of thousands of calls, the Zultys system passed with flying colors, handling everything our testers could throw at it. Hardware, Phones, and Lines One Zultys MX250 IP PBX One Zultys 4x5 SIP phone One Zultys 2x2 SIP phone One Zultys WIP2 wireless phone One Linksys wireless router Ease of Installation The Zultys MX250 was supplied with the software pre-installed. A Zultys representative configured the system while our testers observed. Adding stations was pretty straightforward using the administrative GUI. There is also an import feature that allowed our testers to configure 100 stations by importing the information from a spreadsheet. As different features were tested, the GUI made it quite easy to locate and configure the appropriate options. Features PBX Features The Zultys MX250 can handle up to 60 channels to the PSTN. It also allows for up to 60 SIP trunk connections to an ITSP. Its built-in SIP application layer gateway translates the signaling between the internal network and the PSTN. Multiple MX250 systems can be networked together in a peer-to-peer fashion to allow seamless communication between sites. This includes global address book and access to presence, instant messaging, and phone calls. Auto Attendant The MX250 allows for the configuration of up to 64 automated attendants. User inputs can be recorded into the CDR database for later reporting. For example, customers calling a real estate office might check multiple listings. A report can be created showing which listings were accessed together with caller ID, which can then be emailed to an agent. Messaging The Zultys MX250 supports up to 250 users as well as group mailboxes. Users calling into the system can authenticate and review messages. They can then return a call directly from within the system, complete the call, and continue to review voicemail messages. User defined call handling rules that can be based on presence, caller ID, and time of day allow for users to define when and where they can be reached. Users can also define rules for voicemail and faxes to allow notification to multiple devices and email accounts. For example, all faxes can be directed to one email account and all voicemail messages can be directed to a different email account. System Administration A single Windows-based administrative interface lets you administer up to 10,000 users and 40,000 devices across multiple sites. The interface can be retrieved from anywhere by accessing [2] volume 2, issue 3 www.voip-magazine.com

a Web page on the MX250. The interface allows administrators to review all system related syslog messages, and it can also send syslog messages to an external server. Administrators can also schedule backups of system configuration information and other data to a location specified by the administrator. On the user side, the MXIE client software runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP, Mac OSX, and Linux. A softphone for Windows is provided standard. Presence, IM, and chat allow for communication between users on one or multiple systems. The MXIE client lets the user log in as a user, operator, and agent. In user, they see presence of their buddies selected from the corporate address book. In operator, they can see the presence of the entire company. In the agent role, they see the presence of their fellow agents given an ACD group. MXIE can bind or associate itself with any SIP-based hard phone or softphone and control that device. It also automatically installs TAPI support to allow for dialing from and receiving screen pops in CRM applications. The client is available in multiple languages and allows the user to change the language quickly by accessing a File menu. Call Monitoring There are several different monitoring options so supervisors can listen in to calls. Silent monitoring allows a supervisor to listen to the conversation a caller has with an ACD agent without the agent being aware that this monitoring is taking place. Barge In allows a supervisor to create a conference call with a caller and an ACD agent. This is typically done where there is an important issue or something needs to be escalated and quickly resolved. Users can also record calls and store them to their personal voice mailbox later with Personal Call The Zultys MX250 IP PBX Recording. An optional tone can be played to alert a caller that the call is being recorded. An administrator can use the administrative interface to monitor all active sessions on the MX250 system, and with the proper access also have the ability to disconnect sessions. SIP Support SIP is fully supported on the MX250, which can interoperate with a number of third-party devices and services using SIP. The automated attendant and voicemail system are based on the Voice XML standard. TAPI is installed by the MXIE on any Windows 2000 or Windows XP machine and allows for integration with CRM packages. Security Zultys uses a real-time Linux operating system from Monta Vista. This has been optimized and all unused communication ports have been shut down. The MX also has an optional firewall that can be used when connecting to the Internet to allow SIP calls to the outside. Also, the ZIP 4x4 and ZIP 4x5 phones can be locked by pressing the Menu button and the star key. This completely disables the microphone and all outputs on the phone. Remote Access The ZIP 4x5 is ideal for the remote worker. It sits directly behind the broadband connection and provides an IPSec VPN connection back to the office. It supports a firewall and NAT for security and is a DHCP server for the home network. The phone also has an analog line for local and emergency calling and calls not answered on the analog line go to the voicemail on the MX. Bluetooth is also supported which allows the use of a wireless headset. With a VPN client on a laptop, users can bring up their MXIE client from any remote location or hotel room. The user can bind to their internal SIP softphone and immediately make and receive calls. The Zultys MX250 performed extremely well, providing a stable, error-free platform for our testers. Our testers did notice that the MX250 does not support two features that are typically found in systems that support more advanced call center functions: coaching (where the ACD supervisor can speak to the agents, but the customer cannot hear it), and skills-based routing. Documentation The Zultys administrator and client user guides are provided in Adobe Acrobat PDF format and directly viewable from the MX250 (note that these documents and more are available on the Zultys website). The Media Exchange Administrator s Manual covers the initial installation and configuration of the system www.voip-magazine.com volume 2, issue 3 [3]

and all the components including ACD groups. The manual also covers administrative options like RAID, backup/ restore, and system monitoring and reports. There are chapters about SIP and IP basics, and SIP on the MX to make sure that the reader understands these concepts. There are plenty of high-quality screenshots, graphics, and diagrams. There is also an excellent index, but we would like to have seen more troubleshooting help included in the document. The MX Admin GUI integrated help has very good coverage of topics. Our testers found that the help was easy to read and there were plenty of links to graphics and related topics. The MXIE User s Guide covers everything from setting preferences, making voice calls, using IM, presence management, ACD functionality, and accessing voicemail and faxes. Like the administrator s manual, it also has plenty of screenshots and graphics, along with a deep index. The MXIE client GUI integrated help is very thorough and helpful in its coverage of topics, with an excellent index. Unlike the administration GUI, there were no help buttons on the client screen. Our labs found the documentation and integrated help files to be thorough in their coverage of topics, with a good presentation style, and excellent indices. The only major improvement we could suggest would be to add troubleshooting topics, which our lab considers to be core help content. GUI The MX Admin GUI can be installed on almost any PC to allow local and remote access to the system. The icons in this GUI are very descriptive of the associated functions. Multiple forms will open in the same main window, and the GUI allows you to select among the several display options. It even allows you to store your favorite layout so you can quickly have all of your favorite forms available. Our lab found the GUI easy to use with clear labeling of options and grouping of functions. The MX client GUI is designed to be bound to a phone, but it can also be used as a stand-alone phone solution by using a headset or mic/speaker combination. The GUI allows the user to modify a variety of configuration options for the MXIE client, including appearance, calls, chat and IM, audio, notifications, presence, and more. It was nice to see several display options for user preference. Listening to voicemail and viewing faxes is made easy as the GUI will open a window Review Results Product Evaluation Score (each rated out of a possible 10) Product Score Relative Weight (%) Weighted Score Ease of installation and configuration 9.2 10 0.92 Features evaluation 10 0.90 Product documentation, online help 8.5 10 0.85 Graphical user interfaces (admin and end-user) 20 1.80 Manual product exercise 9.8 25 2.45 Automated call-handling load test (no VM) 20 1.80 Technical support 9.5 5 0.48 Total 100 9.20 A [4] volume 2, issue 3 www.voip-magazine.com

that shows all message boxes for their selected login identities. These are displayed in a tree format on the left side with the messages in the selected box appearing on the right side. The only problem found when using this system is that the messages do not change status from unread to read after you listen to them. A Zultys technical support representative reported that it is a known issue with a fix in the works. Manual Call Testing Our lab tested the Zultys MX250 phone system for call connectivity and perceived voice quality. The Zultys ZIP 2x2 and ZIP 4x5 phones were all tested, as well as the included softphone, a wireless Zultys WIP2 phone, and an analog station phone. Our testers used each phone to place and receive calls to and from all the other phones. All the calls in this test were completed successfully with high voice quality, and our testers reported no problems. Automated Call Testing Our testers performed both station-tostation and trunk-to-station automated call handling tests to evaluate how well the Zultys system could handle multi-line call loads. Figure One The trunk-to-station call answer delay results shown in the chart above demonstrate that most of the calls were answered in 200 msec or less, with an average call answer delay of 140 msec, an excellent result. The lower number of calls into the system (only 16 at a time, as opposed to 50 during the station-tostation test) are less of a load on the system, resulting in better call answer results. The station-to-station test was performed with a single Empirix Hammer FX-IP call generator system, which registered as 100 SIP stations on the Zultys MX250. The Hammer FX-IP used 50 of the SIP stations to call the other 50 Hammer SIP stations and complete a short phone call, exercising a total of 100 stations simultaneously. After going on-hook, the originating station waited between 3 and 7 seconds before placing another call. Our lab ran this test for approximately 8 hours. The short duration of the test calls makes this test particularly demanding. Out of more than 185,000 calls placed in the station-to-station test, all were answered by the correct station, for a 100 percent success rate. The trunk-to-station was performed with an Empirix FX-TDM call genera-

tor system placing trunk calls via T1 ISDN into the Zultys MX250. A total of 16 Hammer FX-TDM trunk calls were made directly to a random selection of Hammer FX-IP SIP stations. Each call in this test lasted approximately 21 seconds; after going on-hook, the originating trunk line would wait between 3 and 7 seconds before placing another call. This test was run for approximately 9 hours and more than 40,000 calls were placed. Again, the short duration of the calls makes for a very tough test. As with the stationto-station test, all calls were successfully handled by the Zultys MX250. By any measure, the Zultys MX250 performed extremely well, providing a stable, error-free platform for our testers. In the station-to-station test, the vast majority of calls were answered within 250 msec, with a very respectable average of 218 msec. Slowdowns in the system would occasionally result in call answer delays of more than one second. These slowdowns appear to indicate the system was performing near its limits, which is expected since the Zultys is rated for use with 100 systems (the total exercised for this test). In the trunk-to-station test, the vast majority of calls were answered within 200 msec, with a remarkable average delay of 140 msec. The lower number of calls into the system (16 calls at a time, as opposed to 50 during the station-to-station test) are a much lighter load on the system, resulting in better call answer results. Technical Support Throughout this testing process, our lab measured how responsive the Zultys technical support is by tracking how long it took to receive answers to questions, as well as the usefulness of the responses. Zultys assigned a specific support representative who was on site to help install and configure the system. This person was responsible for fielding questions throughout the process. Our testers found that they only needed to contact the Zultys tech support representative for very few questions. All of them were answered quickly and we received good and useful information. Conclusion On a 10-point scale, our testers rated the Zultys MX250 scores of 9.2 for ease of use and configuration, for depth of features, 8.5 for documentation and online help, and a for user and administrator GUIs. Our testers awarded Zultys a very respectable on the automated call handling test, and a remarkable 9.8 on the manual tests. Zultys technical support received a grade of 9.5. Overall, our lab found the Zultys MX250 to be a capable performer with a competitive set of features. The incorporated ability to do fax handling, basic ACD, built-in softphone capabilities, and presence management demonstrate the ability of this system to easily meet the needs of a medium-sized business. About CT Labs Established in 1998, CT Labs is a recognized pioneer in the development and execution of VoIP and TDM-related tests to validate performance of next-generation network elements for enterprise and carrier-grade equipment manufacturers. CT Labs conducts numerous private and public tests. CT Labs is an independent operating unit of Empirix, Inc. [VM] Pete Comas is the editor of VoIP Magazine. He can be reached at pcomas @voip-magazine.com For more coverage of this kind, see www.voip-magazine.com [6] volume 2, issue 3 www.voip-magazine.com