SIPit 16 Test Event Mirrors Industry Concerns, Issues
Testing Spotlights Security, Multimedia Technologies – SIP Forum Event Hosted by Jasomi Networks
BANFF, Alb., Canada (May 3, 2005) — The SIP Forum is pleased to announce that the recent SIPit test event, the 16th in the series, addressed some of the most pressing questions in the voice-over-IP industry today, particularly security and multimedia communication.
SIPit 16 was held April 3-8, 2005 at the Fairmont Banff Springs, hosted by Jasomi Networks Inc. The SIPit interoperability events are the leading test events for cutting-edge technology in communication. They are organized by the SIP Forum (www.sipforum.org), the industry organization leading the development and promotion of SIP.Jasomi was honored to be selected to host SIPit 16, which is fundamentally crucial to ensuring multivendor interoperability in the VoIP space,” said Alan Hawrylyshen, CTO of Jasomi Networks. “The honor was magnified by both the number and quality of the developer teams participating in the event. Most of us deploy our products in multivendor environments where interoperability is key to success. SIPit helps everyone make sure their implementations work together, in combinations that are testable only at a large event such as this.”
According to Robert Sparks, coordinator of the SIPit events, the test facilities constructed by Jasomi “provided one of the most stable testing environments the SIPit has enjoyed to date.”
SIPit 16 included 120 individuals from 57 companies, testing more than 80 different implementations of the SIP protocol. The attendees came from 15 countries. (54 percent from North America, 33 from Europe, West Asia, India, 12 percent from the Asia-Pacific region and 1 percent from Africa). There was a much higher ratio of first- time attendees than usual, about one-third of all participants at the event.
As the number of SIP networks has mushroomed in the last year, the industry’s concern with security has also grown. SIPit 16 saw testing of 25 implementations of SIP over TLS, a mechanism for secure signaling in VoIP networks, significantly up from the last SIPit. There were four implementations of SRTP, which provides for secure media.
Also reflecting the growth of the industry, many more implementations were following correctly the instructions of RFC3263, a part of the SIP protocol, on using DNS to locate SIP servers. This helps make large deployments more stable.
Also notable in this round of testing was the large number of implementations of the presence features of SIP. Presence is a mechanism for providing information about a user’s availability for communication and what devices they are using. SIP presence is being adopted by many service providers to provide presence and availability information over a wide range of communication systems and devices. Frequently, these services are coupled with instant messaging using SIP.
About the SIP Forum
The SIP Forum‘s mission is to advance the adoption of products and services based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The forum provides information on the benefits and capabilities of SIP, highlights successful applications and deployments, and directs activities aimed at achieving high levels of product interoperability. The forum promotes SIP as the technology choice for multimedia, real-time communication session control throughout the Internet, corporate networks and within next-generation wireless networks.
About Jasomi Networks
Jasomi Networks enables voice over IP (VoIP) for carriers, enterprises and service providers. By providing the technology that allows VoIP services to be rolled out economically and securely in complex multibordered networks, Jasomi is an integral part of making VoIP work. Jasomi’s product line complements today’s existing security and networking infrastructure, providing VoIP connectivity across network security boundaries without requiring network rearchitecting.
About the SIPit Events
SIPit events, or Session Initiation Protocol Interoperability Tests, are week-long events where companies bring their SIP implementations to ensure they work together. The SIPits are open to anyone with a working SIP implementation. Currently, the SIPits are held twice a year. Different companies or organizations host each event, and each host chooses the venue. The goal of the events is to refine both the protocol and its implementations. The SIPits are a driving force shaping SIP into a globally interoperable protocol for real time Internet communication services. For more information about the SIPit events, visit http://www.SIPit.net.
About SIP
SIP was developed by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), the international organization responsible for all the basic Web protocols, such as HTTP and the mail protocol SMTP. It is part of the newest generation of communication protocols, those that tie together the telecom and Internet worlds. SIP offers many advantages to telecom vendors and service providers, including rapid development of products and services, lower costs up front and ongoing, and a wide choice of compatible vendors and products.
Contact
Larry Schessel
SIP Forum Marketing Work Group
+1-919-392-2187
press@sipforum.org or
lschesse@cisco.com