Sonus, Multimedia, and the Future of the SBCSonus, Multimedia, and the Future of the SBC

Announcement highlights the policy server aspect, bandwidth control, and interworking, further positioning session border controllers as key elements.

You'll get different views from SBC (session border controller) vendors about where they think their products fit into the next-generation communications network, but they all have a story that puts the SBC into a more critical position than it currently tends to occupy; right now, the SBC is still seen primarily as a border element that focuses on security and protocol translation (often translating SIP to SIP) appliance between the enterprise and a service provider.

The future vision tends to see the SBC as a true "controller" within as well as beyond the enterprise network, serving LANs and WANs, on-network and off-network users, mobile and landline. This week Sonus made an announcement regarding enhancements to its flagship SBC 5000 product series, and in a conversation with David Tipping, VP & GM, SBC Business, I got some insights about where the company sees the SBC going.

Sonus focused heavily on the ability of some upcoming features and functions to handle increased loads of video traffic. David Tipping told me that the SBC 5000 Release 4.0 will offer a more "thoughtful way to deploy video without having to worry about crushing the IP transport network."

Specifically, the 4.0 release includes Sonus's Policy Engine in the SBC platform, which will offer more granular bandwidth control. For example, David Tipping said the policy engine can allot essentially unlimited bandwidth to two endpoints conducting a video across a LAN/campus infrastructure, where bandwidth is free and abundant, but can dial back the available bandwidth between the same two endpoints if one is now located across a wide area link where bandwidth is more constrained. The policy element can also allocate bandwidth according to the identity or role of the endpoint, Tipping added.

Another interesting point that David Tipping emphasized with the release had to do with the SBC's ability to provide interworking among different video endpoints, something he called out as the "Blue Jeans model". Blue Jeans Network has been successful as a cloud-based provider of video interworking, and Tipping is clearly suggesting that enterprises could bring this capability in house rather than using a service like Blue Jeans.

It'll be interesting to see if this approach takes off. For years--probably still, in many enterprises--the business case for voice-centric Unified Communications got made on the cost savings of UC systems' audio bridges, which enabled enterprises to get rid of expensive conference-bridge services and bring basic audio conferencing in house. When it comes to video, two issues will determine whether the situation is comparable:

* Does BYOD-based desktop video become as business-critical as audio conferencing has been? (Video's clearly not there yet).
* Does SBC-based video interworking save money versus Blue Jeans-style cloud-based services? (Too soon to tell at this point.)

One other point of interest in my conversation with David Tipping. I asked him where the new release and the SBC 5000 roadmap come down on WebRTC. David told me Sonus is taking something of a wait-and-see approach, and will likely focus more on WebRTC next year rather than in the remainder of 2013.

Sonus believes in WebRTC, he said; "I'm just waiting for the big giants to battle it out and tell me which way is up." In other words, Sonus will follow where the standards bodies and major players like Microsoft, Google, and Cisco lead the technology.

So this announcement is incremental in terms of new features and positioning. To me, its significance is that, increasingly, the SBC is where a lot of the meaningful enhancements for running future communications networks are happening.

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