Avaya Announces SIP Architecture That Connects Users, Applications and Systems

Avaya today announced the launch of a new SIP-based architecture that integrates communications across multi-vendor, multi-location and multi-modal businesses.

Called Aura, the company said it is centered on the new open standards Aura Session Manager, which centralizes communications control and application integration.

Session Manager orchestrates a wide array of communications applications and systems by decoupling applications from the network.

The software simplifies complex communications networks, reduces infrastructure costs and delivers voice, video, messaging, presence, Web applications to employees anywhere.

Kevin Kennedy, CEO and president Avaya

Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya, said that as a result, services can be deployed to users depending on what they need rather than by where they work or the capabilities of the system to which they are connected.

He said Session Manager instantly reduces complexity and provides the foundation for broader unified communications strategies.

"With Avaya Aura, organizations can achieve rapid returns on their business communications investment, while simplifying the development and deployment of applications that improve operational performance," he said.

"We've seen some organizations use SIP routing to reduce trunking costs by 20 to 60 per cent.

"With this new architecture, for the first time, the way we communicate is defined by the applications and the user, not the network."

Avaya Aura will be available globally in May 2009.

The company said Avaya Aura offers the following benefits:

• Ability to create new applications and quickly extend them to users anywhere
• Map applications to individual employee profiles, making the appropriate features globally available regardless of the location, system or device to which they are connected
• Reduce costs through centrally managed, enterprisewide dial plans and on-net calling, global least-cost routing and PSTN access from the most cost-effective location.
• Eliminate local application servers and optimize software licensing across the full breadth of the enterprise rather than for a single location
• Massively scale to 250,000 business users and 25,000 locations.