■ V S S
Voipack SoftSwitch Systems (VSS) is a softswitch system developed by Voipack
Corporation for enterprises and service providers to deploy VoIP applications. In
addition to basic telephone call features, VSS provides abundant value-added
applications with user-friendly and powerful management. capabilities. VSS is compatible
with a full array of terminal equipment and backbone equipment. It offers benefits to
enterprises with multi-location telephone system (iPBX) that reduces operating costs
and maximize workfource productivity. It also gives the service providers the
advantages to run flexible, reliable and profitable Internet telephony
(VSBC)
service (IP-Centrex).
VSS is designed as a distributed multi-layer system with centralized management
capability, which consists of 4 logical layers: Core Layer, Application Layer, Boundary
Layer and Management Layer, realized by four key application subsystems: Voipack Call
Master (VCM), Voipack Billing System (VBS), Voipack Message Server (VMS) and Voipack
Session Border Controller (VSBC). Voipack also has a management system, NMS for
administrator and web Java based GUI for users.
[Core Layer]
The Core Layer provides the call establishment function through VCM. It is designed
with load balancing redundancy backup, and fault tolerance capability in mind to ensure
system availability. VCM is responsible for terminal registration, call authentication, call
establishment and various basic telephony features. VCMs allow terminals under its
management to communicate with each other in the IP network, and access to PSTN
network through digital gateway (e.g. Cisco Gateway 5300) connections. VCM monitors
VoIP terminals through standard protocol such as H.323, SIP and MGCP.
[Boundary Layer]
The Boundary Layer is in a position to interface the end terminal equipment from the
topology point of view. VSBC, by implementing the boundary layer's function, provides
NAT/Firewall traversal function to simplify the process of terminal installation. VSBC
features network topology camouflage, which can fend off DoS attack to ensure normal
operation of server cluster. VSBC supports traversal function for multiple protocols such
as MGCP, SIP and control functions such as QoS, traffic measurement and security
watch.
[Management Layer]
The Management Layer provides distributed or centralized management to all function
layers through web pages and other GUI interfaces. The integrated client service
platform provides automatic client registration and parameter setting procedures, and
the integrated management platform provides efficient and friendly system management
and monitoring capability.
[Application Layer]
The application layer offers VoIP related value added services, consisting of VMS and
VBS modules. VMS comprises Auto Attendant (AA), Voice Mail (VM) and Interactive Voice
Response (IVR). AAVM offers friendly phone greeting to the caller according to the per-
designed menu. VMS can integrate 3rd party applications through Open API, e.g. OPSI,
JAIN, Parlay. VBS performs call authentication and real-time billing on each call, and
generates call records accordingly.
 
■System Package
VSS provides the following system packages to satisfy commercial application of
different enterprises and service providers
 
VCM
VBS
VMS
VSBC
  
1
√
Small sized enterprise, point-to-point and point-to-PSTN communication
2
√
√
√
√
Small medium and large enterprise, point-to-point and point-to-PSTN communication
3
√
√
√
Medium and large enterprise, IPBX, auto Attendant and Voicemail capability
4
√
√
√
Service providers, to develop services such as Phone Bar and Enterprise IP Telephony.
5
√
√
√
Service providers, to integrate variety of phone services, such as IP-Centrex and call center
6
√
√
√
Service providers, to provide phone card service
■System Advantage
·Compatibility
Enterprises and Service Providers today will not accept the deployment of closed system
that is based on proprietary protocols, which restricts the usage and lifespan of
equipment. VSS adopts standard protocols, such as TCP/IP, MGCP, SIP, H.323, etc and
remains highly compatible with a variety of 3rd party equipment.
· Functionality
VSS as a system provides abundant voice, data. video triple-play value-added
applications. With such capability, service providers can offer a lot of value-added
services to retain customer loyalty, protect market share and grow high profit margin.
· Reliability
Reliability is vital to a communication system. In addition to the immanent reliability, VSS
takes advantage 。 of distributed “N+1” backup and anti blocking mechanism to further
enhance system reliability, whereby the communication system keeps running even
when unexpected events, such as power failure and network disruption, occur. VSS can
send short message to alert administrator upon such events.
· Security
VSBC can camouflage the network topology from malicious attacks. By monitoring
session and traffic volume, VSBC can fend off the Internet DoS attacks. VSS key
subsystems come equipped with firewall and VPN function, so various measurements
can be adopted to protect the system against malicious attacks.
· Performance
Based on Linux operation system, VSS software platform maintains a high level of
system performance and availability. Its distributed and cluster architecture enable
service providers to scale up their operation to millions of subscriber population.
· Serviceability
The serviceability is a fundamental factor deciding whether VoIP application can be
easily introduced and promoted. In addition to the Voipack Plug and Play (PnP) gateway
and IP telephone, the VSS also provides user friendly registration and parameter setting
through web page to ensure serviceability for other 3rd party VoIP systems. VSBC
enables the terminal equipment on private network to be easily installed and
configured. The after-sales service or heavy telephone support will no longer be
impediment to the VoIP business expansion. The billing system can effectively control
the call admission and provide the accounting department with detailed phone expense
information.
· Expandability
VSS gives full play to the expandability of VoIP. The enterprise-based network is
generally s mall in scale, where all services can run on single server unit, while service
providers' networking is generally large in scale, where services run in parallel on a
number of servers. VSS hardware platform runs on the reliable 1U server. Enterprises
and service providers may increase investment in hardware platform with the growing
Needs. VSS supports systems ranging from 40 lines to tens of millions of lines.
■System Hardware Platform
Voipack offers one hardware model, VSM9000, for running VSS, which can also run on
other 3rd party PC servers:
Hardware model
Specifications
VSM9000
1.2GHz , 512MB RAM , 80G-HD
One VSM can host one or more service functions depending on the hardware capacity
and operation requirements. One service function can be run at one or more VSM
depending on actual need.


vss vcm vbs vms vsbc voip iad