FoIP Fax Solutions Overview
If you have not made the switch yet from a physical fax server to virtual, you may want to read this. There are so many things to consider like, what virtual app to use, how do you virtualize a fax card and how can the cloud help you with your fax strategy. Well read on my friend, here is the down and dirty from my perspective…
The Background on FoIP
For the past 5 years many companies who have migrated their corporate PBX from TDM to VoIP have figured out the hard way that there is this thing called “interoperability” when it comes to placing your fax server behind an IP PBX. The fax server community came up with the term “FoIP” or “fax over ip” to describe how a fax is encapsulated over tcp/ip using the T.38 fax codec. In order to place your fax server behind an IP PBX, your PBX should support T.38. We have found that while many PBX manufactures and carriers do support the T.38 codec, it doesn’t always work like it should and takes some tweaking.
Virtualization
RightFax 10.5 only runs on Windows 2008 R2 Server. This makes it easy to choose a hypervisor product to get your fax server in a virtual environment. We have had great experience with VMware, Citrix XenServer and XenCloud. XenServer is Ingenium’s preferred virtualization platform for our private RightFax hosted environments. You will also need FoIP licensing for RightFax. This adds SIP/FoIP support for RightFax to communicate with a voice gateway such as a Cisco ISR or Ingenium Media Gateway. Ingenium offers media gateways in both analog and digital flavors, from 2 analog trunks up to 4 T1 spans.
RightFax Unplugged
Another option for providing dialtone to your RightFax server is to use Ingenium’s Virtual Fax Telecom service (VFT). VFT is an Infrastructure As A Service offering that delivers real-time fax communication between your RightFax DocTransport and the Ingenium Cloud. You can see real time fax communication in RightFax and is completely transparent to administrators and end users. Boasting over two thousand channels of TDM in a global cloud, (and growing), VFT uses Depth-in-Defense encryption to securely connect RightFax over port 80. Fax numbers can be ported to Ingenium and routed directly to your fax server using Ingenium’s VFT. You can send as many concurrent faxes as your RightFax is licensed for thru VFT and there is even an API that you can use for native application integrations as well. Best of all, VFT does not require any BrookTrout or RightFax FoIP licensing, thus reducing overall costs for maintenance and infrastructure while improving quality of fax services. Ingenium’s VFT is also a great choice for a DR environment since there are no reoccurring telephone charges and it is highly available at the PSTN level.
Working with your Carrier
Many carriers do not know how to support FoIP and won’t for many years from now. I have only worked with one carrier who was able to get’ter done with minimal issues. Many carriers do not support Error Correction Mode (ECM), which is a key component to a reliable fax transmission. Without having ECM, you will experience blank faxes, half faxes, missing pages and other anomalies. Most carriers require you to open a ticket for each phone number that you are having trouble with, which is extremely time consuming and frustrating to say the least.
Cloud Fax Strategy
There is a lot of hype about fax cloud and there are several interpretations of what it could mean. First off, faxing over the internet is not free; that is a myth.
Ingenium offers several cloud fax solutions:
1) Ingenium hosted RightFax (private and cloud)
2) OpenText hosted RightFax (Fax On Demand)
3) OpenText Easylink (shared cloud)
OpenText Easylink
Easylink is 100% SAAS and does not use any RightFax. The platform is proprietary and sits in several datacenters across North America and the UK. This is a great service for companies who do not have any regulatory requirements. You can send a fax from an email or thru a the web portal. Get a quote.
RightFax On Demand
For RightFax users, Ingenium resells the OpenText rental program for RightFax called Fax On Demand. FOD provides a pay by the month RightFax experience. They provide all software, infrastructure, dial tone and support. Adds moves and changes are extra. The datacenters they use are located in Canada and the United States. Get a quote.
Ingenium Hosted RightFax
Ingenium has been hosting private RightFax servers for over 5 years and specializes in financial, healthcare and insurance industries. Since no two customers have the same requirements, each implementation has been different for us. Ingenium provides the computing infrastructure, network security and dial tone. The customer provides the RightFax licensing. High availability and geographically dispersed systems with automatic failover at the PSTN level are an option. We can also provide connectivity to over 180 different carriers located in our facilities. You can even use our VFT for the highest reliability with fax and experience the most advanced fax communication platform ever. Ingenium is PCI and HIPAA compliant. We utilize industry standards and DOD security encryption specifications. Get a quote.
Summary
There are several ways to achieve a successful RightFax virtual environment, whether you decide to become a fax expert on your own or choose to let the professionals at Ingenium do it for you. All it takes is a little time and money. Contact Ingenium today about your fax strategy and see how we can help you meet your organizational objectives with fax. You can contact us by phone at 770-936-0600 or complete our contact form.
