VMware and RightFax
Have you considered placing your RightFax environment in a VMware environment?
Is your company moving toward VMware for all of you mission critical applications? Is VMware quickly becoming the disaster recovery method of choice for your organization? Increasingly companies are looking to consolidate their server environments into VMware, and RightFax servers are no exception. The RightFax application is fully supported in VMware environment however the challenge is how to accommodate your existing Brooktrout boards in a VMware environment?
There are a couple of options to explore in order to move RightFax to VMware.
• First, you will need to off-load the Brooktrout boards from the RightFax Server to a Remote Board Server (RBS). A RBS is simply a Windows 2003 server platform that the Brooktrout board is installed in and talks to the application server via the network. The caveat to this approach is that first you must be licensed as a RightFax Enterprise Server.
• Your server must be able to accommodate the full length, full height, Brooktrout fax board. Server manufactures have changed the PCI slots in servers so often that the Brooktrout board that you may have purchased even a year ago may not be able to fit in a new server platform because it only has PCI-Express slots rendering your existing board useless. The second option, SR-140, offers not only a viable alternative to go entirely virtual, but also future-proofs your hardware investment in Brooktrout. Brooktrout SR-140 is a software solution that emulates the functionality of a traditional Brooktrout board while providing Fax over IP (FoIP) capabilities for integrating fax servers with VoIP networks. Below are some of the benefits of SR-140:
• Processing fax without boards reduces complexity and simplifies deployment, logistics and upgrades, which are accomplished with software downloads; the need to stock spare boards is eliminated
• Basing FoIP on the field-proven T.30 protocol ensures a high level of reliability and enables new T.38-based fax devices to communicate with legacy T.30-based fax devices
• Allows easy scalability for FoIP up to 120 ports per RightFax server with exceptionally low CPU utilization that saves resources.
• Enabling FoIP on a VoIP network can reduce toll charges and administrative and maintenance costs.
To date, SR-140 has been thoroughly testing in Cisco and Avaya VoIP environments with more PBX alternatives coming on-line later in the year. So what options do you have if you are not running Cisco or Avaya and you still want to move to VMware with SR-140? The simple answer is instead of terminating your analog or digital lines at the Brooktrout board as you have traditionally done, the lines would be terminated at a gateway platform such as a Cisco router. The gateway would translate the (TDM) to T.38 which is the inherent faxing protocol for FoIP.
Whether VMware is already your company’s standard or it is coming down the pipe, there are some options to explore. For further information, please contact DSGI at 952-224-3340 or sales@dsgi.net for a FREE consultation. Visit our website at http://www.dsgi.net
