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One of the most viewed Citrix blog posts of all time is Orestes Melgarejo's post, "To VoIP or not to VoIP". A lot of customers have expressed interest in delivering telephony functions to their users via Presentation Server. The purpose of this blog post is to highlight that there are at least three ways you can already deliver telephony functions with Presentation Server 4.5 today. I'll get into more detail on each of these currently available solutions in subsequent posts, but let's start with a brief summary:
1. Published softphone in "control mode".
There are softphones available today from vendors such as Avaya and Cisco that are Microsoft Terminal Services compatible and can be published on Presentation Server to control a physical telephone set. Likewise, Microsoft's Office Communicator client, a Unified Communications tool, can be used in this way. In control mode, you use the softphone application to make calls, redirect calls to any telephone, establish audio conferences, control telephony features, and so on.
2. Softphone application streamed to the user's Windows PC.
The application streaming feature of Presentation Server 4.5 Enterprise Edition and Platinum Edition can be used to stream compatible softphone applications to client devices. The softphone application then runs within a protected isolation environment. The softphone is never actually installed on the user's PC. This approach to softphone delivery centralizes management and reduces the risk of operating system instability from application conflicts.
At iForum in Las Vegas last year, Citrix, HP and Cisco jointly demonstrated softphone streaming to a Windows XPe thin client. Enabling telephony is one of the common functions of an embedded operating system. We're still accepting requests from customers who would like to field test this solution. Amazingly, it was all done with generally available product releases.
3. EasyCall.
EasyCall, powered by the Citrix Communications Gateway, is a feature of Presentation Server Platinum Edition. EasyCall provides a remote telecommunications capability without the need to purchase and support softphones. With its click-to-call function, users can click on any telephone number that appears on their screen, whether in a directory or any other application, and EasyCall will initiate a call to that number. EasyCall does this by calling the user first and then completing the call to the number on the user's screen. The user can specify whether they are using their office phone, home phone, mobile phone, softphone or whatever. Since all calls placed through EasyCall actually originate from the company's telephone system, long distance charges are reduced.
In addition to the three solutions summarized above, the Citrix Access Gateway deserves a mention in this context. The Access Gateway is capable of tunneling VoIP traffic (which is typically UDP) over SSL. There's a white paper in the Citrix Knowledge Center that explains how to enable the Cisco IP Communicator softphone through Access Gateway.
So, stay tuned for future blog posts where I will elaborate on each of these currently available methods for delivering telephony functions to your users via Presentation Server. And then I'll update you on where all of this might go in the future. Meanwhile, I'd be very interested in your comments on any of these solutions, the 'use cases' you believe are most important to address, and your own strategic thinking around delivering telephony functions to the enterprise.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
Comments (4)
Jan 11, 2008
Anonymous says:
I currently use the Avaya Softphone via Citrix for Remote Call Center agents all...I currently use the Avaya Softphone via Citrix for Remote Call Center agents allowing complete in the office phone features that allow us to not rent office space.
So it works very well with a headset.
Jan 19, 2008
Derek Thorslund says:
If you'd be willing for us to write up a brief article about this, please send m...If you'd be willing for us to write up a brief article about this, please send me an email (derek.thorslund@citrix.com) with your contact information. I'm sure others would like to hear more about this.
Mar 03, 2008
Anonymous says:
I have several smaller customers who wish to pursue the deployment of SoftPhones...I have several smaller customers who wish to pursue the deployment of SoftPhones over ICA, but as a completely integrated Citrix solution - no streaming or hardphone control integration solutions as mentioned above.
The reason for this is they already have an investment in Think Client devices that cannot support the methods mentioned above and they do not have the budget to upgrade, similalrly they do not have the budget to implement Easy Call.
There has been some success in this area but I would like to know if there is any more information 'tucked away' about further enhancing the ability to run a softphone (Nortel PC Client) as a standard published application, or if there will even be further development of such a deployment and whether any up and coming updates to software codecs within Citrix will further enhance the ability to run a softphone (Nortel PC Client) as a standard published application.
Mar 04, 2008
Derek Thorslund says:
Thanks for this input. With the changes in the audio subsystem in Windows Server...Thanks for this input. With the changes in the audio subsystem in Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn), I expect it will be possible to publish a softphone with voice-over-ICA using our upcoming Delaware release of XenApp. So we are making plans with leading VoIP vendors to test this. At the Medium Quality setting, the voice quality isn't great but it may be acceptable for some use cases. On a LAN, it may be practical to use the High Quality setting. The feedback we get on the Ulysses audio codec prototype will help determine how soon that gets productized; it is not part of the Delaware release. So keep the comments coming if you believe a new audio codec that delivers high quality sound with minimal bandwidth consumption would be a needle-mover.
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