An Oracle White Paper October 2013 Gneis Turns to Oracle to Secure and Manage s
Gneis Turns to Oracle to Secure and Manage s Executive Overview Gneis Global Services SA planned to introduce Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunks to reduce telecommunications expenses and improve service agility for its Avaya Aura Unified Communications environment. The company turned to Oracle to accelerate SIP trunk installations, protect and control its SIP trunking borders, and gain greater visibility over its SIP trunking services. Thanks to Oracle, Gneis is able to realize all the benefits of SIP trunking lower operating expenses and greater flexibility - without sacrificing reliability or service quality. Introduction Gneis Global Services, a Bankinter group company, is a leading provider of information technology services to the finance industry. Gneis manages Bankinter s internal IT systems, and provides operational and technological services to other financial institutions. The company planned to implement an end-to-end IP communications infrastructure and add SIP trunking services to its Avaya Aura Unified Communications (UC) environment to improve service agility and contain costs. Project Goals By moving to an all-ip network, and replacing conventional time-division multiplexing (TDM) trunks with centralized SIP trunking pools, Gneis intended to: Eliminate cost and complexity by decommissioning legacy equipment and circuits, consolidating trunks, and negotiating volume discounts with SIP trunk service providers Reduce public switched telephone network (PSTN) expenses by carrying internal voice calls over the company s private IP data network Improve service agility; SIP trunking capacity can be expanded more quickly and easily than conventional Primary Rate Interface (PRI) circuits 1
Gneis Turns to Oracle to Secure and Manage s SIP trunks introduce a variety of implementation and operations challenges. Gneis sought a session border control solution and a real-time UC monitoring and troubleshooting platform to enable: Seamless connectivity: mitigate interoperability issues between the Avaya UC environment and various SIP trunking services Strong security: protect the Gneis IT infrastructure and UC systems against service attacks and overloads Flexible control: route calls across SIP trunk service providers to optimize costs and ensure high service availability Comprehensive management: proactively detect, isolate, and resolve issues that could potentially impair audio quality After an extensive evaluation process Gneis deployed Oracle Enterprise Session Border Controllers (E-SBCs) to protect and control its SIP trunking borders and Oracle Enterprise Operations Monitor (EOM) to manage its SIP trunking services. Oracle Enterprise Session Border Controllers Oracle E-SBCs are specifically designed to address the unique connectivity, security, and control challenges enterprises typically encounter when introducing SIP trunking services and implementing all-ip communications networks. Deployed in two geographically distributed data centers, the Oracle E-SBCs serve as the termination point for Gneis s SIP trunking services; protect the company s IT infrastructure and Avaya Aura UC environment against denial-of-service attacks, hijacking, telephony spam, and other security threats; and provide comprehensive protocol normalization and mediation functions that eliminate interoperability barriers between the Avaya UC servers and SIP-based elements residing in the SIP trunk service provider networks. (See figure 1) The network was engineered to enable extremely high availability. A fully redundant E-SBC configuration is deployed in each data center, providing connectivity to three different SIP trunk service providers. The high availability E-SBC pairs deliver continuous operation in the event of hardware or interface failures and can route sessions across service providers to optimize costs or circumvent SIP trunk service failures. In the event of a disaster or extended power outage in one data center, SIP session control is maintained by the E-SBCs in the surviving data center. 2
Gneis Turns to Oracle to Secure and Manage s Provider A (BT) Provider B (Colt) Provider C (Telefónica) Provider A (BT) Provider B (Colt) Provider C (Telefónica) Data Center 1 Data Center 2 Network Operations Corporate IP WAN Avaya UC Environment Figure 1. Gneis deployed Oracle solutions to protect and control its SIP trunking borders and to gain greater visibility into its SIP trunking services Oracle Enterprise Operations Monitor Gneis uses Oracle Enterprise Operations Monitor to proactively manage its SIP trunking services. The solution provides real-time monitoring and alarming, correlation and analysis, and troubleshooting capabilities as well as historical reports that enable Gneis network managers to track SIP trunking service status, optimize audio quality, and improve end-user experiences. EOM provides greater visibility compared to the native tools offered by Gneis s SIP trunk service providers. The solution helps Gneis ensure its SIP trunk service providers are honoring service-level agreements (SLAs) and aids in identifying, isolating, and resolving call quality issues with the SIP trunking service. Real-time graphical call flow displays (ladder diagrams) enable network administrators to efficiently analyze voice calls, measure call characteristics, and troubleshoot problems on a networkwide basis. EOM works in conjunction with special purpose software-based probes embedded into the Oracle E- SBCs, which collect and examine SIP signaling information and real-time transport protocol (RTP) media stream data. EOM analyzes and displays media quality statistics forwarded by the embedded probes, including: 3
Gneis Turns to Oracle to Secure and Manage s Key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure media stream quality packet loss rate, burst packet loss rate, jitter, latency, R-factor, and Mean Opinion Score (MOS) conversational quality estimate Codecs negotiated, codecs used, length of media streams, source and destination addresses, and ports Individual RTP streams (multiple directions / multiple legs) providing full visibility of the overall and local media quality By tracking KPIs in real-time, Gneis network administers are able to detect and resolve potential performance issues before they impair service quality. Thanks to Oracle we are able to realize the financial and operational benefits of SIP trunking without compromising service quality. Oracle E-SBCs ensure secure and reliable communications and Oracle EOM helps us optimize audio quality and user satisfaction. EOM allows us to go back in time and understand immediately what was happening in our network right before a problem occurred. That's invaluable and decreases our MTTR exponentially. José Pedro Corchón, Voice Systems, Gneis Global Services Results Oracle E-SBCs and EOM allow Gneis to enjoy all the business benefits of SIP trunking and an end-toend IP communications infrastructure while preserving the high service levels of its legacy TDM voice network. Benefits include: Dramatic telecommunications cost savings: By consolidating trunks and establishing volume pricing agreements with SIP trunk service providers Gneis was able to reduce PSTN origination and termination fees. The company realizes additional cost savings by carrying site-to-site calls over the corporate IP network. High service quality and service availability: Oracle solutions enable PSTN-like service quality and reliability for IP communications. EOM helps network administrators identify and resolve potential voice quality issues often before they are detected by end-users. And Oracle E-SBC s allow Gneis to maintain continuous service in the event of equipment, power, or trunk failures. Rapid service deployment: The Oracle E-SBCs helped streamline SIP trunk installations by enabling straight-forward interoperability with the Avaya UC environment. Gneis was able to 4
Gneis Turns to Oracle to Secure and Manage s implement SIP trunking services from three different providers across two data centers quickly and easily. Risk mitigation: The Oracle E-SBCs help Gneis reduce exposure and avoid financial loss by controlling access and protecting the IT infrastructure against a wide variety of security threats. Greater service agility: With SIP trunking, Gneis can expand capacity in minutes as opposed to days or even weeks with legacy PRI circuits. Conclusion Gneis required session border control and management solutions to support its SIP trunking plans. The company deployed Oracle Enterprise Session Border Controllers to protect and control its SIP trunking borders and Oracle Enterprise Operations Monitor to gain greater visibility over its SIP trunking services. The Oracle E-SBCs overcome SIP connectivity, security, and control challenges, helping Gneis accelerate service deployment, mitigate risks, and ensure high service availability. Oracle Enterprise Operations Monitor helps Gneis optimize voice quality and boost user satisfaction by proactively managing its SIP trunking services. Thanks to Oracle, Gneis is able to realize all the benefits of SIP trunking lower telecommunications expenses and greater business agility without compromising service quality or availability. 5
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