Avaya Upgrades Security for Enterprise Mobile Collaboration

Avaya has upgraded its security portfolio for enterprise collaboration with a new release of its Session Border Controller for Enterprise (SBCE), aimed at protecting collaboration and communications for businesses with remote, home-based and mobile employees.

The SBCE is Avaya’s nod to helping organizations manage their BYOD strategies, particularly in settings where workers use one device both for personal and professional use. The new enterprise edition provides organizations with a solution to secure session initiation protocol (SIP)-based applications across networks and offers new security enhancements for enterprise collaboration and communications.

Avaya reasons that with mobile collaboration on the rise in the workplace, the need to meet security compliance rules and deal with threats from denial of service (DoS) attacks, viruses, configuration errors and the like makes a sound enterprise BYOD strategy all the more important.

"The Avaya SBCE brings the rock-solid security needed to ensure business collaboration and mobility initiatives are strengthened and protected against those with malicious intent,” said Gary E. Barnett, Avaya Collaboration Platforms senior vice president and general manager.

Upgraded security features include support for the Avaya Flare Experience (a touch-based interface providing real-time office collaboration) on Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPad tablets, and Avaya one-X Mobile applications (a unified communications application for enterprise communications from mobile devices) on iPhones.

According to Avaya, with SBCE, workers need not connect to a virtual private network (VPN) for a secure, business-dedicated desk phone or software that seamlessly authenticates to one IP address. With no need for a VPN and by optimizing IP address usage, businesses can drive costs down. And, secure SIP trunking and SIP-based remote worker applications help companies to gain the benefits of SIP with greater protection.

To cement its point about the SBCE, Avaya trotted out its client Teleperformance, a $3 billion, Paris-based customer service and contact center provider to whom businesses outsource those functions. The company, which operates 260 contact centers in 49 countries, adopted the Avaya SBCE to handle its high volume of calls with maximum security. Avaya Connect platinum business partner Sunturn, based in Littleton, Colo., partnered in the installation.

Teleperformance officials said the SBCE enabled them to integrate with client networks easily and securely, protecting client and customer conversations as well as overall call flow.

“Customer service is at the heart of what we do, and as a leader in outsourced contact center services, our clients count on us to ensure superior functions and secure service. The Avaya SBCE delivers this, and does so with an eye toward cost savings,” said Richard Blake, Teleperformance IT Telecom manager.

Version 6.2 of Avaya Session Border Controller for Enterprise will be available worldwide in Q2, 2013. A customized version also will be offered for SMBs, Avaya said.