VMWARE helps enterprises reduce capital and operating expenses. It ensures business continuity, strengthens security and energy efficiency through the use of their software, which allows virtualization of Operating systems and applications. This concept is dependant on Ethernet connectivity availability, resulting in most applications being TCP/IP based. Some challenges present themselves to Telephony and VoIP communications in that running SIP applications within a VMWARE session requires the ability to process and terminate the RTP sessions. Solutions that attempt to use external Media Gateways exist but they are largely unsuccessful due to many issues created by the configuration and network topology. These issues include:

ISSUES:

• RTP – streaming of RTP across multiple Ethernet devices to external gateways can and will cause performance issues that affects voice quality
• Time – many voice applications are sensitive to clock drift
• Latency – caused by the packets having to cross multiple interfaces which will cause performance issues that affects voice quality
• Firewalls – may cause latency and configuration issues
• Drivers - some applications do have interfaces that can presumably work within a VMware session but are not supported for that environment


SOLUTION:

Positron Telecom make a Asterisk based Blade that solves the problems with virtual OS's:

1. PCI card installs as an Ethernet adapter - can send SIP traffic without a driver, adds no latency
2. Telephony / Trunking done on the Blade - short, latency free delivery
3. Integrated PBX - adds call control
4. Failover suport using redundancy application

Since RTP termination happens in the Server itself there is little / no chance of the quality issues that plague most virtual PBX environements.

For more visit: www.positrontelecom.com

WHERE TO BUY

• UK and European Distributor IPChitChat for Positron Asterisk Blades
• UK and European Distributor Netcloud

SOLUTION 2:

Redfone Communications VGate
VGate is a VMWare compatible software appliance designed to work on VMWare ESX/ESXi 4.0 or newer. When combined with the Redfone foneBRIDGE2 T1/E1 hardware it allows system integrators to provide toll grade voice quality to any SIP enabled PBX or software, including those running on the same VMWare server. It is built with a commercial standards-based SIP and ISDN stack and includes advanced SIP features such as load-balancing and failover capability.