Avaya's new firewalls speak VoIP

Vendor's new, revamped gear lets users send IP calls through secure network boundaries.

Avaya this week is expected to launch several security gateways that promise to let customers more easily support IP phone calls through firewalls.

Support for the H.323 voice-over-IP protocol in Avaya's SG5/5X and MG200 series firewall/VPN gear could help make VoIP deployment to remote offices more secure and less frustrating to install, the company says. The new gear could work with existing VPN/firewall equipment or be used to set up a security infrastructure from scratch, the vendor says.

Avaya is adding H.323 support for its existing SG5 and SG5X telecommuter security boxes and its MG200 firewall/VPN gateway branch offices. Avaya also is launching the new MG203 and MG208 firewall/VPN gateways for adding H.323-capable security to regional and central sites.

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Avaya this week is expected to launch several security gateways that promise to let customers more easily support IP phone calls through firewalls.

Support for the H.323 voice-over-IP protocol in Avaya's SG5/5X and MG200 series firewall/VPN gear could help make VoIP deployment to remote offices more secure and less frustrating to install, the company says. The new gear could work with existing VPN/firewall equipment or be used to set up a security infrastructure from scratch, the vendor says.

Avaya is adding H.323 support for its existing SG5 and SG5X telecommuter security boxes and its MG200 firewall/VPN gateway branch offices. Avaya also is launching the new MG203 and MG208 firewall/VPN gateways for adding H.323-capable security to regional and central sites.

Many experts say H.323 traffic generally does not travel smoothly through firewall devices or routers using network address translation (NAT), which masks the IP addresses of users behind a router. In the past, users had to leave open ports in corporate firewalls to allow VoIP traffic, such as IP phone calls or Microsoft NetMeeting conferences, into a corporation. Avaya says its new H.323 application proxy can open and close firewall ports on the fly (without requiring administration), letting IP calls pass through securely without leaving open back doors to the network. The proxy function can negotiate IP and H.323 addresses across NAT devices. Avaya's IP telephony gear is based on a proprietary call-control and feature-control protocol based on H.323.

While the new gateways might not replace security infrastructures already in some large networks, they could be integrated into companies rolling out Avaya-based IP telephony, one analyst says.

"Running [VoIP] through firewalls isn't something that's easy to do," says Jaclynn Bumback, a research analyst with Instat/MDR. The SG200 series boxes "are definitely products Avaya customers are going to need" if they are deploying IP telephony at remote sites with firewalls, she says.

Firewall vendors that have announced support for H.323 include Cisco, Check Point and NetScreen Technologies.

The main ingredient in Avaya's new gateway offerings is a H.323 proxy function that can let Avaya IP telephony calls be placed over the Internet without interference from a corporate firewall.

All the new and revamped Avaya gateways will support the H.323 application proxy.