Polycom And Edgewater Team To Address Enterprise
Video Firewall Issues With Standards-Based, Open Solutions
- Solutions solve majority of enterprise requirements today
at large-scale deployments; Polycom also helping to drive next generation
ITU standards for NAT/Firewall traversal
PLEASANTON and SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Nov. 24, 2004 –
Edgewater Networks, Inc., a provider of solutions that make the deployment
of voice and video over IP easier and more secure, and Polycom®,
Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM), the world’s leader in unified collaborative
communications solutions, today announced an expansion of their co-development
and marketing partnership beyond voice over IP (VoIP) solutions to those
that now simplify the deployment and management of audio and video systems
connecting across organizations and firewalls for enterprises and service
providers. The two companies today announced the availability of the
first open, standards-based solutions for Network Address Translation
(NAT)/Firewall traversal for IP-based video communications, as well
as the first solutions validated as interoperable with other proprietary
firewalls and session border controllers popular in the market. Based
on the H.323 standard, the solution is available for all Polycom systems,
protecting the investments organizations have already made in voice
and video conferencing. Based on Edgewater’s EdgeMarc platform,
the solutions provide enterprise, large educational customers, and service
providers with a scalable way to support cross-enterprise communications
effectively and efficiently without sacrificing network security.
“NAT/Firewall traversal has been an industry stumbling block in
the proliferation of video solutions over IP between organizations,”
said Hans Schwarz, senior vice president and chief systems architect
for Polycom. “Today with Edgewater we are solving the most common
NAT and firewall issues in real-world, large-scale pilot installations.
Polycom is committed to delivering multi-vendor, interoperable, standards-based
solutions for enterprises and service providers alike. We are working
closely with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and other
vendors to drive next generation standards while supporting the current
H.323 standard. While we wait for the new ITU standard to be completed
we are helping customers today with Edgewater using an open solution.”
Edgewater and Polycom Solution
The Polycom and Edgewater NAT/Firewall traversal solution is designed
to address the needs of complex, heterogeneous communications networks.
Polycom/Edgewater streamlined solutions reduce hidden costs from additional
network servers and clients needed by alternative solutions for peer-to-peer
communications; increase efficiencies in bandwidth use resulting in
better performance, scalable deployments, and less latency; and leverage
existing enterprise security policy controls in a standards-based manner.
The solutions are based on an open standards-based platform that does
not violate Quality of Service (QoS) and other network policies. The
solutions are fully interoperable with leading firewall and session
border controllers commonly used by customers including those from Cisco
Networks and Edgewater, among others. The scalable solutions support
both voice and video, and offer redundancy with no single point of failure
from small enterprise to carrier-grade installations.
The Polycom and Edgewater solutions are available today and are currently
in use in several, large-scale pilot programs in North America to address
the needs of complex communications networks with large-scale endpoint
deployments and various firewall and gatekeeper configurations. The
solutions protect the investments of customers by being backwards compatible
with any existing and new H.323 voice and video endpoints from Polycom.
“This scalable solution is easily deployed and is optimized to
fit any size network,” said Doug Wadkins, Chief Technical Officer
of Edgewater Networks, Inc. “It is a standards-based solution
that solves major hurdles to inter-enterprise video conferencing by
providing a secure method to traverse distinct boundaries of trust,
which paves the way for global dialing of video calls.”
Commitment to a Standards-Based Approach
Polycom is working with other industry-leading vendors to develop next
generation ITU standards that will enable H.323 voice and video calls
to traverse the firewall and NAT devices deployed in the network today,
without the need for upgrades to existing equipment. The goal for these
new standards is to support SOHO, enterprise and service provider deployments
with solutions that enables anywhere-to-anywhere H.323 calling “out
of the box”, without special network configuration. Polycom intends
to develop solutions with Edgewater in firewall and session border control
during and after the approval of the next generation ITU standards.
Pricing and availability:
The solution is globally available and ranges in U.S. list price from
$1,000 to $23,000.
About Edgewater Networks, Inc.
Edgewater Networks is a privately held company providing solutions that
make the deployment of voice and video over IP easier, less expensive
and more secure. Deployed at the customer premises, EdgeMarc Series
appliances simplify the managed environment by providing the demarcation
point for real-time, interactive IP services. They include a SIP, MGCP
or H.323 VoIP firewall, VoIP survivability, passive call quality monitoring
and powerful but easy-to-use traffic management that ensures toll quality
voice. EdgeProtect Series session border controllers protect managed
VoIP service providers from network-based attacks, extend the reach
of VoIP services with NAT/FW traversal and deliver breakthrough price/performance.
For more information about Edgewater Networks, Inc. please visit the
company’s web site at www.edgewaternetworks.com.
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. is the world’s technology leader of high-quality,
easy-to-use video, voice, data and web conferencing and collaboration
solutions. The Polycom Office™ is our continued commitment to
make distance communications as natural and interactive as being there
by providing best-in-class conferencing solutions that are interoperable,
integrated and intuitive to the user. The Polycom Office is based on
industry standards and supported by an open architecture that promotes
interoperability in multi-vendor environments and complements leading
network infrastructure platforms. For additional information call 1-800-POLYCOM
(765-9266) or +1-408-526-9000, or visit the Polycom website at www.polycom.com.
