Leveraging IP Telephony for Telecommuting SIP in Telecommuting

Leveraging IP Telephony for Telecommuting SIP in Telecommuting and Teleworking Internet Telephony Show, Long Beach CA 10/14/03 -10/16/03 TMC Internet Telephony Show

Internet Telephony Show Long Beach, CA 10/14/03 -10/16/03 • Robert Messer, ABP International, Inc. Introduction and Panel Host • Nicolas Pohland, snom technology AG SIP IP Phones for Telecommuting • Steve Johnson, Ingate Systems Inc. IP Security in Telecommuting • Brit Vickner, Interactive Intelligence, Inc. Telecommuting Application support TMC Internet Telephony Show

IP Telephony in Telecommuting TMC Internet Telephony Show

A growing trend TMC Internet Telephony Show

20 years later 42 million work at home—but not every day Any employed work at home Self-employed Employees + contractors WAH business hours 2. 2 Sources: The Dieringer Research Group, ITAC, U. S. Census TMC Internet Telephony Show Copyright 2003 Joanne H. Pratt Associates

Demographics of Telework * 39% of US workers would like to telework, but only 31 feel there employers will let them. U. of Connecticut Study * 17% or the workers in Finland telework. Eustats * It is estimated that 100 MM US workers will Telecommute by 2010. Kiplinger, 12/00 * The number of teleworkers worldwide in 2003 is expected to be 137 million. Source, Gartner Group TMC Internet Telephony Show

Examples of Economic Benefits • 17% of AT&T managers work full time from home in Virtual Offices, while the operational benefit of telework to AT&T exceeds $150 million annually. • AT&T realizes approximately $150, 000 in annual savings by teleworking $100, 000 through direct employee productivity, $35, 000 through reduced real estate costs, and $15, 000 through enhanced retention and Productivity increase. AT&T 2002 -2003 Employee Telework Survey • The manager/staff ratio in a virtual organization is 1: 40. It's 1: 4 in a traditional office. Ft. Lauderdale Sentinel TMC Internet Telephony Show

Ecological & Time Benefits • A 40 minute commute equates to 8 working weeks per year. Colorado Telework Coalition • Every week 32, 000 Americans could be telecommuting at least one day. They would not drive 1, 260, 800, 000 miles (equal to 51, 000 times round the Earth) • POLLUTION SAVINGS would be 1, 081, 955, 230 lbs, or 540, 978 tons of a mix of Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Particulate Matter and Hydrocarbons. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Virtual Organizations • IP telephony specially SIP is the enabling technology • Reduced cost of communications • International Outsourcing is made possible but also new domestic organizations are emerging based on technological advances and cost reduction. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Disaster Recovery • Business Continuity Disaster Management When disaster strikes, key company locations may go offline or be physically inaccessible. Remote work capability will keep businesses running. Gartner Business continues after Seattle quake though some of it from home Telework allowed many to continue working during the Great Ice storm of '98 which cut power for millions for up to several weeks TMC Internet Telephony Show

The IP Phone TMC Internet Telephony Show

The IP Phone in Telecommuting Nicolas Pohland, snom technology AG What requirements and issues does the IP phone need to possess and address in a telecommuting environment? TMC Internet Telephony Show

The IP Phone • The phone as a specialized communication device is here to stay. • The IP phone supports the telecommuters needs and makes his environment more office like. • Telecommuting is the major driving force for Vo. IP in general, especially Western Europe. • Not all SIP implementations are equal. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Issues • • Phone number transparency Encryption NAT Traversal Quality of Service Maintenance Security Legal Issues TMC Internet Telephony Show

Phone number transparency • User needs to be reached under the same number whether at home, work, hotel or at a café, i. e. regardless of destination. • SIP inherently provides that with proxy capable of forking. • Transparency should also be independent of origin of call, i. e. whether call is done from PSTN or Internet. • ENUM extension ensures this. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Encryption • By default voice is only encoded but not encrypted. • An intelligent access device, e. g. VPN capable router can be used. • Or the phones support encryption directly. • This is slowly becoming reality. • May be a legal “challenge” for the Vo. IP industry. TMC Internet Telephony Show

NAT Traversal • Most SOHO environments are small LANs that are connected to the internet with a NAT router. • Problem: Phone normally has a local IP address and is not “visible” from the Internet. It cannot be called. • There are several solutions to this. E. g. SIP aware firewalls, B 2 BUAs, session border controllers, STUN and UPn. P. • An IP phone supporting STUN or UPNP is a good solution for the home office since the already existing low cost asymmetrical NAT router does not need to be replaced. • SIP aware firewall is good solution to improve security. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Quality of Service • Voice is very sensitive to interruptions, latency (delay) and jitter (delay variance) • LAN side is not the problem. • In most countries the backbone is not the problem. • The access point is critical. Enough bandwidth must be available for voice. Depends on used codecs, packet size and max. number of simultaneous calls. • Preferably access device AND ISP should support Qo. S mechanisms. Not always available and not cheap, yet. • Separate VLANs and access points also a pragmatic solution. See security. • IP Phones should also implement DNS SRV to support redundant SIP proxies. This increases reliability a lot. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Security • SOHOs are not well protected. • IP Phones are not as vulnerable to attacks as PCs. Separate VLANs possible but CTI benefit is lost. • SIP aware firewall can help improve security immensely. • Global proxies need to implement authentication. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Maintenance • Central and remote configuration and management a must for mass deployment, e. g. bigger corporation or IP Centrex provider. • PSTN makes deployment easy because phone number belongs to physical lines (normally) and configuration options quite limited for residential phone. • But home workers expect PBX functionality, global phone books, etc. A lot more parameters need to be setup. • Mass deployment, e. g. remote settings management critical for larger deployments. • This is not well standardized in SIP, yet. We are working on it … TMC Internet Telephony Show

Legal Issues • Encryption makes the intelligence community nervous • Emergency call (“ 911”) origin may pose a problem in some countries and require a PSTN backup. How convenient for PSTN operators … • Some countries forbid Vo. IP directly to protect telecom monopoly. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Summary • Telecommuting with SIP lowers costs and increases functionality. • But SIP deployment is not trivial in the home environment. • But with intelligent IP Phones telecommuting can be made easy, reliable and secure. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Security TMC Internet Telephony Show

IP Security in Telecommuting Steve Johnson, Ingate Systems, Inc. TMC Internet Telephony Show

The Third Wave of the Internet SMTP created Email HTTP created the Web SIP enables universal communications over the Internet and the ability to telecommute when desired TMC Internet Telephony Show

It’s all there – almost… A single network (IP) Everyone has a connection High capacity and good performance A single protocol (SIP) But: ËFirewalls are meant to exclude inbound communications ËSIP does not traverse common firewalls and NATs TMC Internet Telephony Show

What’s the difference? Typical Internet protocol (SMTP, HTTP…) SERVER HOST Internet Firewalls support communications from the inside out to reach application servers SIP (and H. 323…) connects person-to-person PERSON Internet Realtime Communications requires bi-directional connections which most firewalls don’t support TMC Internet Telephony Show

One Way: Vo. IP Islands… Gateway US Gateway Toll Bypass PSTN IP VPN Tunnel Gateway SOFT SWITCH Europe IP No connectivity between the IP clouds TMC Internet Telephony Show MGCP

The Global All IP Way Branch Office Home Office SIP-capable firewalls make the difference TMC Internet Telephony Show Main Office

Presence IM Edge DMZ Proxy Firewall Presence IM Audio Video Data Col. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Presence IM Greenwich Edge DMZ Proxy Firewall TLS Presence IM Audio Video Data Col. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Suggested Solutions STUN TURN ICE – – Can cope with certain types of existing NATs Complexity has grown to increase reliability and handle more NATs Needs to be implemented in the SIP clients and servers on the Net Tight firewalls cannot be traversed Dynamically-controlled firewalls/NATs – Midcom: By Firewall Control Proxy (no activity known at this time) – UPn. P: By the client (Windows) (Microsoft) Tunnelling - Brings the SIP-client to an operator or a corporate LAN – Requires ALG for each client on LAN with own address space – IPSec, Proprietary ALG (non-Proxy) SIP-aware firewall – TLS not possible Proxy-based SIP-aware firewall/NATs – General, handles complex scenarios, PBX functionality TMC Internet Telephony Show

STUN TURN ICE • Evolving IETF Standard • Requires client on the inside of the LAN and “reflector” in the network • Client “pings” the reflector which returns the internal IP address that is being broadcast by the SIP end point • Once the internal IP address is known, then all communications carry that IP address in the header information TMC Internet Telephony Show

STUN TURN ICE Benefits • Simple solution to NAT traversal • Offers alternative to home users and small businesses that don’t wish to incorporate a full firewall solution • • Problems Exposes the internal IP addressing scheme Circumvents the protection offered by the firewall Inappropriate for enterprises and others with valuable information to protect on their LAN Only works for certain types of NATs TMC Internet Telephony Show

Midcom • Developing IETF standard for managing controllable firewalls with a Firewall Control Proxy • Elegant solution that puts the solution at the point where the problem occurs • Firewall Control Proxy would dynamically control the firewall to accept SIP media only when authorized • Control resides with the Firewall Control Proxy and the existing firewall takes care of all of the logging TMC Internet Telephony Show

Midcom Benefits • Based on an IETF Standard • Leaves the firewall in place • Offers a separate device to just manage SIP sessions Problems • No companies are currently developing this technology • There are currently no firewalls that are controllable by an outside agent • Leaves vulnerabilities on the Firewall Control Proxy which could result in a violation of network security TMC Internet Telephony Show

UPn. P • Universal Plug and Play • Proposed by Microsoft • Allows all end points to be controlled by the Microsoft agent TMC Internet Telephony Show

UPn. P • • Benefits Simplementation Nothing to set up or configure Excellent implementation for home users Would expand the use of SIP • • • Problems Limited utility for enterprises of any size Cannot handle complex call scenarios Solution handles NAT only Cannot handle hard phones, only soft clients Security of the network controlled by Windows server TMC Internet Telephony Show

Tunneling • Network based NAT traversal solution • Minimizes infrastructure upgrades • Provides quick solution for remote clients TMC Internet Telephony Show

Tunneling Benefits • Simplementation • No firewall upgrades necessary • Network based solutions available • • • Problems Depends on “teasing” ports to remain open Some implementations only allow outbound calling May require a client inside the LAN and on the end point Non-standards based solutions Limitations for supporting advanced calling features TMC Internet Telephony Show

ALG (non-Proxy) SIP-Aware Firewall • Implementation which sits between two hosts and modifies the information flow between them on the fly • ALGs normally do small modifications to the packets TMC Internet Telephony Show

ALG (non-Proxy) SIP-Aware Firewall Benefits • Theoretically faster processing times than proxy-based solutions • Performs most of the important functions of allowing traversal of the NATed firewall • Able to dynamically open and close ports for media • • Problems Cannot read deeply into the packet headers Cannot support encryption (TLS); ALGs see everything in the clear so modifying authenticated packets is impossible Setup of complex call scenarios a problem Current implementations do not support soft clients TMC Internet Telephony Show

Proxy-Based SIP-Aware Firewall/NATs • • Full proxy sits between two hosts Proxy terminates a packet flow, then reinitiates flow to the destination address – – • Records SIP client address to locate behind NAT Digest authentication Rewrites headers to destination on the LAN Rewrites headers of outgoing messages to mask internal IP addresses Proxies can look deeply into the header information because it stops packet briefly – Inspection of SIP signaling (including Instant Messages) • Support for Transport Layer Security (TLS) – Adds privacy and authentication to communications – TLS is being used for adding security to Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, Avaya, Reuters and others • Can also be used as a separate SIP firewall when all data ports are permanently closed TMC Internet Telephony Show

Proxy-Based SIP-Aware Firewall/NATs • • Benefits Most flexible solution Able to support all call scenarios, despite complexity Can support servers on the inside of the LAN Supports TLS Flexible and adaptable Offers a backup registration/ location server option No degradation of voice quality Minimal latency Problems • Possible slower performance than an ALG solution TMC Internet Telephony Show

Summary of Advantages Capability Full Proxy ALG Support for TLS Yes No Flexible support for complex call scenarios Yes No Backup registrar Yes No Support for soft clients Yes No TMC Internet Telephony Show

Real and Complex Scenarios Internet IP TLS SIP Server 3 XP Sooner or later: SIP Server 2 SIP/PSTN Gateway The NAT/Firewall Problem needs to be solved where it occurs Firewall/NAT Complications for non-proxy solutions: LAN Tight firewalls SIP Server 4 IP Phone SIP Call transfer SIP server on the LAN Trusted connections: TLS TMC Internet Telephony Show

Summary • Telecommuters are an extension of the enterprise • Security should be a prime consideration • Solution should allow the user to take full advantage of enhanced services • Compatible solutions between the telecommuter site and the main office should be a consideration • Products exist to make telecommuting an attractive option using the power of IP based realtime communications TMC Internet Telephony Show

Application Software TMC Internet Telephony Show

Telecommuting Application Support Brit Vickner, Interactive Intelligence, Inc. TMC Internet Telephony Show

You may be Wondering • • • Complete technology tool set Open standards (truly) Choices for access, devices and infrastructure Ease of use Feeling of being disconnected Management (I don’t know what people are doing) Ease of support and administration Future Proofing Applications to the desktop (don’t workers lose functionality) Reality: Mobile workers work longer hours with the proper tools that enhance the Customer experience. TMC Internet Telephony Show

Mobile Workforce and Devices 2003 2005 57% 44% Traveling Mobile Traveling Teleworking Multi-site Office 56% Office 43% Multi-site Composition of an Enterprise: 44%-57% out of Office n ITAC Estimates Teleworkers Will Grow by About a Third to 50 M Workers by 2005 n Total US Business Lines – Installed Base is 108 Million TMC Internet Telephony Show 51

Today’s Mobile Office Challenges Separate, Multiple Voice and Data Platforms Depending Upon Employee’s Location and Device Availability On the Run Corp. Office VM VM Remote or Home Office Unwired VM VM TMC Internet Telephony Show

Virtual Office Integrated, Packaged, Mobile Business Communications Platform providing full Voice and Data Services to Mobile Employees and Workgroups Virtual Office Platform Unified Message Manager Communications Manager Corporate Information Portal TMC Internet Telephony Show

The Virtual Office Departmental Solution Virtual Office Remote Employees PSTN/ Internet PBX Virtual Office Platform Virtual Office Work at Home Employee Virtual Office Corporate Employees Digital Phones Virtual Office Client - Analog Phone Virtual Office Unwired Employee Virtual Office Client - SIP Soft Phone IP/LAN Virtual Office Employee with PDA Wireless Provider Virtual Office - Virtual Office Client SIP Phone only - SIP Phone TMC Internet Telephony Show

The Virtual Office Enterprise Solution Virtual Office Remote Employees PSTN/ Internet IP Gateway Virtual Office Platform Virtual Office Work At Home Employee Virtual Office Corporate Employees Virtual Office Client - Analog Phone Virtual Office Client - SIP Soft Phone Virtual Office Unwired Employee IP/LAN Virtual Office Employee with PDA Wireless Provider Virtual Office - Virtual Office Client SIP Phone only - SIP Phone TMC Internet Telephony Show

Virtual Office Integrated Enterprise Voice and Data Platform PSTN L A N Intelligent Communications Device Independence Communications Manager Digital Phone Analog Phone SIP Phone Cell Phone Web Portal Connectors Smart Phone Message Manager PDA RIM Palm TMC Internet Telephony Show Notebook Desktop PC

Full Remote/Mobile User Access • Remote access by users from any location • Turns any phone into a virtual office for Data Screen pops, conference calls, holding calls, parked calls, intercom calls, etc. • Presence management features – in/out status TMC Internet Telephony Show

Communications Manager Communications Console Extensive Call Control Features TMC Internet Telephony Show

Communications Manager Graphical Status Manager Graphically Manage Your Status TMC Internet Telephony Show

Presence management means faster coordination of issues • View status of users across sites • See that a user is on the phone just like they are down the hall • Find available resources at alternate sites quickly • Dial plan means 4 digit or speed dialing works regardless of user log in location TMC Internet Telephony Show

Virtual Office Corporate Information Portal • Real time, Anywhere Data Access • Increase Revenue Opportunities • Improve Customer Service • Greater Mobile Worker Productivity • Make Informed, Agile Business Decisions TMC Internet Telephony Show

Strategic Products Communite’ Customer Interaction Center® 20 -2000 agents per site • ACD • IVR • Screen pop • Web collaboration Enterprise Interaction Center • Call recording • Predictive dialing • E-mail routing • Pre/post Call Routing Communité™ Hosted Services: Unified Communications Network IVR Wireless Connectivity Contact Centers Custom Service Offerings 50 -5000 users Enterprise Interaction Center® TMC Internet Telephony Show All-in-One Comm. Server Voice & Chat Conferencing Unified Messaging IP Telephony

SIP Communications Integrated with Corporate Data Increase Employee Productivity …improved access, presence management, and ease of use TMC Internet Telephony Show

Telecommuting TMC Internet Telephony Show

Internet Telephony Show Long Beach, CA 10/14/03 -10/16/03 • Robert Messer, ABP International, Inc. Introduction and Panel Host • Nicolas Pohland, snom technology AG SIP IP Phones for Telecommuting • Steve Johnson, Ingate Systems Inc. IP Security in Telecommuting • Brit Vickner, Interactive Intelligence, Inc. Telecommuting Application support TMC Internet Telephony Show