Adding Value to Your Lync Deployment

Thrupoint Capabilities at a Glance

The Interoperability Challenge

As companies look to Unified Communications (UC) solutions to improve user productivity and reduce costs, Microsoft Lync has emerged as a popular choice for instant messaging, presence, as well as other UC capabilities such as voice and video. However, most midsize and large companies also have an incumbent PBX network for telephony, along with a mix of communication devices from different vendors.

The obvious question becomes: “How can we make these technologies work together to provide an integrated experience for the end user while maximizing existing IT investments?”

Voice Interoperability

From a voice interoperability perspective, perhaps the simplest approach is to connect the incumbent PBX network to Microsoft Lync via SIP trunking. This method, often referred to as Direct SIP, addresses the following scenarios:

• PSTN access for Lync Server through PBX
• Incoming call rings both PBX handset and Lync 2010
• Call from PBX handset to Lync 2010 and vice versa
• Call from PBX handset to dial-in conferencing on Lync Server or Lync Server Response Group

Despite these capabilities, Direct SIP can present some potential challenges. Questions your company may need to address include:

1. Will we need to upgrade the PBX in order to interoperate with Lync?
2. Do our PBX and Lync systems talk the same ‘flavor’ of SIP?
3. Will users who have a PBX phone today and want to use Lync as a soft phone when outside the office be forced to get a second phone number in order to make/receive external calls?
4. How can we simplify dial plan management, given that Lync only supports E.164 while the PBX uses another numbering plan?
5. Are there any critical voice features not supported between the PBX and Lync?

Direct SIP Plus from Thrupoint

Simple, Cost Effective SIP Adaptation

Thrupoint can help address these and other voice integration challenges. Our Session Management 2.0 framework, enabled by our award winning Thrupoint Ubiquity platform, normalizes SIP across your Lync Mediation Server and PBX environments. Even with heterogeneous PBX networks on older releases, Thrupoint can provide cost effective SIP interworking through simple scripting tools and adaptation templates.

Elegant Single Number Solution

As companies begin adopting Microsoft Lync voice, enterprise users often end up with both a PBX ‘hard’ phone and the Lync client as a ‘soft’ phone. This doubling up does not pose a problem for incoming calls, as the simultaneous ring feature on either the PBX or Lync can be used to ring both endpoints at the same time. However, for outgoing calls from the Lync client to an external PSTN number, such a user may need a second phone number (i.e. a second DID/DDI).

Thrupoint Fusion MyConnect is an elegant single number application that eliminates the need for a second phone number in such situations. Users can make outgoing PSTN calls from the Lync client while displaying their corporate PBX number. Advanced policies can be set up for incoming calls, including:

• Simultaneous ring of many endpoints such as a mobile device, PBX phone, Lync soft phone, tablet, home phone, or voice/video mail
• Call screening and do-not-disturb
• Route to other destinations based on time-of-day, timezone, and contact list

 Dial Plan Management

Direct SIP may introduce challenges for dial plan management, since Lync only supports E.164 format whereas the incumbent PBX network is likely to be using short number dialing or an alternate plan. Thrupoint Ubiquity Service Broker in conjunction with Professional Services can simplify and centralize number translation between Lync and heterogeneous PBX systems. Your enterprise can:

Address Voice Feature Limitations

For companies that have PBX platforms interconnected with Lync telephony via direct SIP, a number of voice features may not be supported for inter-system calls. Examples may include:

• Media bypass
• Comfort noise generation
• Call transfer (REFER)
• Call hold (REINVITE)
• DNS load balancing
• Mediation server failover
• Early media
• Ringback tone
• … and more

Thrupoint Ubiquity Service Broker coupled with our Fusion Creator software development kit could be used to develop a back-to-back user agent (B2BUA) to resolve specific feature incompatibilities on a case by case basis. Each half of the call (i.e. the leg from the caller to Service Broker and the leg from Service Broker to the called party) would be treated as an independent session with unique associated policies. Services could therefore be inserted during call setup based on specific policies to resolve feature incompatibilities or invoke targeted applications.