Aura PossibilitiesAura Possibilities

Aura allows the enterprise to consider a wider range of possibilities than were available before the Aura approach was available.

You can do more with Avaya's Aura then just deal with a PBX replacement. I spoke with Lawrence Byrd, Avaya's Director of UC Architecture at Voicecon San Francisco. We covered the bases as to what Aura is and is not.Avaya introduced their Aura architecture at the VoiceCon Orlando conference in March 2009. Avaya Aura became available in May 2009 and is included in the existing Avaya communications pricing bundles.

This is more than an upgrade to their IP Telephony Communications Manager product line. It is intended to be a bridging technology that can use the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as the signaling mechanism to operate with third party PBX and IP PBX communication managers, SIP based phones and gateways and SIP based application servers.

Avaya Aura uses Internet Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) technology developed by the wireless standards community. Aura potentially simplifies communications networking within multi-site enterprises as well as between SIP enabled enterprises.

In the Avaya Aura approach, SIP is used to set up sessions. All communication sessions begin by interacting with the Avaya Aura Session Manager, which then provides the addresses between which the signaling and media should flow.

The architecture behind Aura follows the same deployment model as web and IP based applications. It is centralized architecture based on standards based, loosely coupled components. This architecture is similar to the way network operators use IMS to help scale their IP based communications services. The architecture behind Aura is simpler than traditional communications systems and will allow enterprises to scale deployments faster than they have before.

The Session Manager is the core of Aura. It is a SIP routing and integration tool. It integrates all of the SIP entities across an enterprise network. The Session Manager is a candidate for connecting Avaya and competitive communications managers over SIP trunks. The Session Manager promises:

* Network wide feature deployment * Centralized call routing * Significant scalability * High reliability/availability * Geographic redundancy * Secure environment

Session Manager conforms to specific SIP standards and practices; however, this does not mean interoperability is automatic. Much testing needs to be done to demonstrate the full breadth of features and functions that can transparently pass through the Session Manager.

Session Manager connects Avaya IP PBXs with third party IP PBXs, legacy PBXs through gateways and to PSTN SIP trunks. A May 2009 document describing Session Manager, "Avaya Aura Session Manager Overview" release 1.1 can be found here (PDF).

So what are new possibilities for Aura application? There are many. I want to focus on two: connecting to the cloud and retiring competitive communications managers.

The value of cloud based services is that the enterprise accesses the services through the Internet to gain use of managed technology services. The enterprise does not buy hardware (in reality, the enterprise needs endpoints and some internal network to access the services) or software. The use of a pool of servers, either dedicated or shared, is a form virtualization.

The services would be delivered as a standardized set of features and functions. The enterprise would purchase/subscribe to the necessary features. The financial arrangements for access, by the seat, by the feature, by usage or unlimited usage, flat fee, are still being developed. There is no consistent business model yet. The promise is lower cost to the enterprise.

The Aura Session Manager can be the bridge to access cloud services. The enterprise can access the cloud service for a specific function that is too expensive to deploy with their own servers and software. The Session Manager can also connect to cloud services for trial or experimental reasons. As the service use increases, then the enterprise can determine if the cloud service should be brought in house. If not, then the capital cost of creating the internal service can be avoided. If it can be brought in house, then the enterprise can use that internal deployment to leverage a better financial arrangement with the cloud service provider. The flexibility of the Session Manager to connect to virtually any SIP based service offers bargaining leverage to use against the cloud service provider. The enterprise can have the best of both worlds, internal or cloud support selected by function.

The Session Manager can also provide a connection with any SIP based system, especially a communication manager. The Aura solution can be used to connect to SIP based phones of another vendor. The enterprise can use this connectivity to eventually retire and avoid upgrading a competitive communications manager. The enterprise can retain their investment in the SIP endpoints and gateways and not have to replace the competitive vendor's endpoints; very worthwhile asset retention.

Overall, I believe that the Aura approach can provide a flexible approach for the enterprise. It allows the enterprise to consider a wider range of possibilities than were available before the Aura approach was available.Aura allows the enterprise to consider a wider range of possibilities than were available before the Aura approach was available.