Are ALL Gateways Created Equal?

Is there REALLY a difference between gateways?  Talk to the CEO of a channel partner business and they’ll most likely tell you that a gateway is a gateway is a gateway.  After all, they’re business people – not technicians.  They give little thought to infrastructure elements, tending to be more interested in the “big ticket” items that drive the revenue.  But talk to one of the technical experts in that company – one of those responsible for the success of implementations – and you get a different viewpoint.  After all, from their perspective, every component of a solution is important to a successful implementation. 

Not long ago, as we were exploring gateways in the UC space, we had the opportunity to hear from a channel partner’s CTO, Christian Stegh of Enabling Technologies.   Enabling Technologies is a rapidly growing UC integrator with noted expertise in the unified messaging area.  From Stegh’s perspective, each of the three major gateway vendors’ products have their own strengths and weaknesses for any given customer situation, which is why Enabling is a partner of all of them.  They were recently involved in a UC implementation at the Baltimore Aquarium, in Baltimore, MD.   The Aquarium is a 435-employee educational, research and recreational facility that was looking for ways to improve overall staff productivity as well as reduce communication costs.  But like so many other organizations in the current economy, they wanted to maximize their existing investment in a Nortel PBX for the short term, but with the future plan of switching to Microsoft OCS.  Enabling Technologies’ challenge was to provide a solution that would work with both the Nortel switch and OCS.  In order to achieve the productivity gains that the Aquarium was seeking, unified messaging, plus IM and presence, became the focus of the recommended solution.

Given the overriding goal of a solution that would address the Aquarium’s current situation and future plans, one of the key elements to the solution became an NET gateway that made it possible to continue using the Nortel switch while planning for OCS.  According to Stegh, the NET gateway was the only gateway that offered Active Directory integration necessary for this implementation.  Not only did the capabilities of the gateway make the solution possible, but NET’s hands-on support all along the way ensured a successful implementation in a situation that could have been very difficult.  NET claims that its support goes far beyond what can be found elsewhere, and this situation proved them correct. 

So we’re back to the question, “Are all gateways really alike?”  Chris Stegh offered some examples of how one gateway differs from others – in this case, the NET VX gateway.  Some of the differentiators that Chris called out included:   

• The NET VX gateways run Windows XP Embedded as the main OS but they strip down all unnecessary Windows components to keep it safe/secure.
• Active Directory integration is more native (there is no separate Windows server or another ‘wedge’ software that have to be configured).
• NET released a gateway that removes the need for a separate mediation server in order to make the OCS network deployment simpler and management easier.
• The gateways now monitor quality metrics for TDM-originated and terminated calls and feed information to Microsoft QOE servers.  
• There is auto detection functionality - selecting the right codec depending on network conditions.
• NET VX gateways have the capability with a variety of IP phones (such as snom and Polycom) to have the phones dual register to OCS in a data center and to a VX in a branch.  If the WAN or data center go down, the phone can register to the local gateway in the branch to make/take calls to/from the outside.  NET publishes configuration notes to make it easy for their partners to deploy solutions.
• Single number fax for OCS + UM is available, which is great for clients who want to use OCS and Exchange UM fax but want to have a single phone number on their business card as well as reduce costs.

Which finally brings us back to the original question, “Is there really a difference in gateways?” and to the answer that “yes” there is a difference in gateways.  Be sure to know what you’re looking for so you can select the gateway that best meets your needs.