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F E A T U R E

For Converged Networks, It's All In the Delivery

May 1, 2003
By Sean Doherty

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Categories and Winners

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	In this article
	Introduction
	Categories and Winners
	Digital Convergence Product of the Year
	Web Links

Content Delivery Device | Streaming Media Product | Unififed Messaging Solution

Content Delivery Device

Winner: Volera Excelerator 2.1, now shipping 2.2, Novell, (800) 453-1267. www.novell.com

Novell's Volera Excelerator proved to be a better performer with a better price point than its rivals, speeding delivery of frequently requested Web content to end users. This lightens enterprise bandwidth requirements and reduces latency for HTTP and streaming media requests. Although Novell and Blue Coat support RealNetworks and Windows media extensions, Excelerator can stream media from origin servers at less than the encoded bit rate and deliver that media to users from the cache at the encoded bit rate in real time. And it can be configured as a reverse- or forward-proxy cache, or a combination of the two, without modifications to the OS configuration.

Finalists:
• Blue Coat SG800, formerly CacheFlow Security Gateway Appliance, Blue Coat Systems, (866) 30 BCOAT, (408) 220-2200. www.bluecoat.com

• Forum Sentry 1500, Forum Systems, (866) 333-0210, (801) 313-4400. www.forumsystems.com

Streaming Media Product

Winner: MGW 2400, Optibase, (800) 451-5101, (650) 230-2400. www.optibase.com

The MGW 2400 is our favorite streaming media product, thanks in part to its Element Management System (EMS) management console, an SNMP-based application that supports Pentium III with Microsoft Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000 Pro and 128 MB of RAM. It can set a target stream as unicast or multicast. Although unicast is limited to 10 simultaneous users, the MGW 2400 can multicast a stream directly from the appliance and leverage up to four external Windows Media servers to distribute video to an unlimited number of users. The MGW 2400 is also our pick for best digital convergence product of the year.

Finalist:
• Squeeze 3 Compression Suite, Sorenson Media, (888) 767-3676. www.sorenson.com

Unified Messaging Solution

Winner: Communité 2.2, Interactive Intelligence, (317) 872-3000. www.ININ.com

Interactive Intelligence's Communité edged out Cisco's Unity for the most well-connected unified messenger. Although both products support SIP, run on standard Intel-based processors supported by Microsoft Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000, and scale to several hundred ports or sessions per server, Communité's integration with TDM-based and

IP-enabled PBXs and its ability to leverage enterprise directories and e-mail servers earned it the top pot. Communité uses LDAP-supported directories as a central repository for user information and attributes such as e-mail addresses, preferences, call-screening rules and message notification. Communité also integrates fax services with the unified messaging server and provides broad support for mail clients. Its client applications support handheld devices running Microsoft Pocket PC, Palm and RIM BlackBerry. And for those with voicemail only, Communité employs XML to utilize a standard file system as a message store.

Finalist:
• Cisco Unity 4.0, Cisco Systems, (800) 553-6387. www.cisco.com

Sean Doherty is a technology editor and lawyer based at our Syracuse University Real-World Labs®. A former project manager and IT engineer at Syracuse University, Doherty helped develop centrally supported applications and storage systems. Write to him at sdoherty@nwc.com.

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