Avaya is expected to launch a raft of updates to its IP PBX family this week at Interop, including features that bolster VoIP reliability and ensure call quality.

The server software Avaya is introducing lets different IP PBXs deployed across a WAN take control of an entire business VoIP network in case regional segments of a network fail or if an Avaya call server goes down. Avaya also is expanding its IP-based conference calling features and adding new VoIP network monitoring and traffic rerouting capabilities. A new development platform for integrating Avaya VoIP into corporate applications also is on tap.

Avaya is launching Communication Manager 3.0, the software that runs its IP PBXs. Among a list of new features is Enterprise Survivability Server (ESS), which lets up to seven Avaya IP PBXs (based on the S8700 hardware) act as a "master" node on a distributed VoIP network. In case of a network outage or hardware failure to one or more main IP PBX servers in a network, ESS allows all users on a VoIP network to be rerouted and registered to an active IP PBX. Previously, this type of wide-area failover required a technician to switch a secondary IP PBX into a main-server role, Avaya says.

The ESS feature is important to Scott Mah, assistant vice president for IT infrastructure at the University of Washington in Seattle, where Avaya IP PBXs tie together dozens of campus locations, as well as university-run medical facilities throughout the state.

"If there is an earthquake in the Seattle area and connectivity to the main server is lost, our hospital trauma center and 911 police emergency dispatch will be able to operate in a stand-alone mode," Mah says.

ESS is similar to Cisco's CallManager clustering technology and Survivable Remote Site Telephony feature, as well as Siemens' distributed IP PBX technology on its HiPath products.

Avaya also is introducing its Converged Network Analyzer software, which runs on the Linux-based S8000 series server hardware and provides VoIP network monitoring, management and call rerouting in case of network congestion or VoIP call quality degradation. The software constantly tests a VoIP network by sending low-bandwidth dummy VoIP call traffic to test for call quality. If poor quality is detected, the software scans the WAN for alternate paths and reroutes calls based on technology from Avaya's acquisition of RouteScience..