AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers

DATASHEET

Introduction
The world of global telecommunications is a highly competitive
AudioCodes Service Provider SBCs - Highlights market where the goals of growing revenues and preventing
Applications customer churn have to balance the challenges of widespread
• Interconnect SBC for peering and wholesale services deregulation and keeping up with technological advances. As
• SIP trunking the transition towards all-IP communications networks gathers
• Microsoft Teams Direct Routing
pace, it is essential for service providers to maintain their
agility by delivering seamless and flexible connectivity with
• Hosted PBX
other operators’ networks on the one hand and customers
• Hosted UCC as a Service
(business and residential) on the other. At the same time, their
• Residential VoIP
core networks need to guarantee “five nines” high availability
• OTT services, connecting SIP and WEB-RTC clients
and ensure robust security to protect their own infrastructure
• Managed E-SBC and MSBR
as well as that of their customers.

Key Benefits The AudioCodes Mediant family of session border controllers

• Comprehensive, field-proven interoperability (SBCs) provides the scale, security, flexibility and high
• Flexible SIP protocol manipulation availability required by service and cloud providers for building
• Carrier-grade availability and scalability and delivering next-generation communications services. The
• Available as hardware, software and virtualized Mediant SBC software is available on proprietary hardware,
• Robust data security COTS servers or as a virtualized solution for private and public
• Powerful media handling capabilities data centers and clouds, supporting flexible deployment
• Cost-effective floating license options and smooth migration strategies. With rich access,
• Built-in WebRTC support interconnect and WebRTC capabilities and leveraging widely
• Reduced operational costs with centralized
deployed, advanced home-grown signaling and media
processing technologies, the Mediant SBCs are the perfect
management
solution for service providers as they advance towards all-IP
communication networks.
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

AudioCodes SBCs for Service Providers

In a service provider environment, AudioCodes Mediant SBCs function
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs support multi-
as interconnect SBCs providing reliable connectivity between different
tenancy ensuring complete separation
operators’ networks and as access SBCs facing the service providers’ business
between tenants’ traffic, configuration
customers.
and call routing plan.

SBCs are typically deployed in the data centers of service providers that offer
SIP trunk, hosted UC, hosted contact center or other VOIP services. Among the tasks performed by SBCs are:

• protect the network from DoS/DDoS attacks, fraud and eavesdropping

• perform protocol and media interworking
• route voice calls between end customers and peering service providers
• guarantee service availability and high voice quality
• enable full visibility and monitoring of the VOIP traffic.

When deploying an access SBC operators are faced with two options: either one SBC per end customer (tenant) or
supporting multiple tenants on a single SBC platform. The latter option saves resources and simplifies management.
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs support multi-tenancy ensuring complete separation between tenants’ traffic, configuration
and call routing plan.

When deployed for interconnection, the Mediant SBC handles security (topology hiding, encryption, CAC, DoS/DDoS
protection etc.), routing between peering partners and interoperability functions such as number normalization, SIP-to-
SIP-I conversion and voice codec transcoding.

For smaller locations, a single SBC can function both as an interconnect SBC and as an access SBC simultaneously. In
virtualized environments, the Mediant SBCs support all leading hypervisors,
A single SBC can function both as an
including public clouds and orchestration systems running on NFV-compliant
interconnect SBC and as an access SBC
networks. The Mediant virtualized SBC (VNF) is available as an integrated
simultaneously.
SBC or in a cloud-native microservices cluster architecture with dynamic
elastic scalability.

2
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

Security
Located at the edge of the service provider network and fronting untrusted networks, AudioCodes SBCs protect the
service provider internal network from DOS\DDOS, fraud and eavesdropping, hiding internal topology and enforcing call
admission policies defined by the service providers.

The Mediant SBCs handle security in multi-layer approach:

• Access lists and dynamic black lists to block suspicious sources and provide wire-speed DOS/DDOS protection
• Integrated intrusion detection and prevention
• SIP application firewall functionality, including authentication, encryption, fraud detection and topology hiding

AudioCodes SBCs’ security mechanisms are built from the ground up to work on any x86 server, whether COTS, virtual
machine or public cloud deployments, and do not require any proprietary hardware.

Protocol Interworking
AudioCodes SBCs are based on a home-grown SIP stack that has been
deployed globally in thousands of production setups for over two decades. AudioCodes SBCs boast field-proven
interoperability with a long list of IP-PBX
AudioCodes SBCs boast field-proven interoperability with a long list of IP-
vendors in multiple environments
PBX vendors in multiple environments (e.g. service provider networks and
contact centers) and have achieved formal certifications with multiple
unified communication and call center environments such as Microsoft, BroadSoft, Genesys and Alcatel Lucent, assuring
seamless service delivery.

The rich SIP protocol interworking capabilities provided by the Mediant SBC include a comprehensive range of flexible
and easy-to-use message manipulations and scripted call control actions that allows SBC users to overcome virtually any
interworking problem that might be encountered in the field.

3
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

AudioCodes’ vast experience in deploying its SBCs in hundreds of environments has led to the creation of a comprehensive
interoperability database. This database lies at the heart of Mediant SBC Wizard utility which helps administrators and
technicians to set up AudioCodes SBCs in a matter of minutes.

Media Handling
Building on over 25 years of voice expertise, AudioCodes Mediant SBCs incorporate a rich media engine that supports
multiple media types (including audio, video, fax, BFCP) with the ability to perform a variety of media conversions.

The Mediant SBC supports voice codec transcoding for a wide range of fixed,
The Mediant SBC supports voice codec
mobile and Internet codecs, including variable rate wideband coders such
transcoding for a wide range of fixed,
as WB-AMR, SILK and Opus. Media transcoding is not limited to voice only
mobile and Internet codecs
and supports fax and DTMF translations, answering machine detection and
silence suppression.

In addition, the Mediant SBC has an embedded voice quality monitoring probe and enhancement engine that can
monitor and detect voice quality problems and dynamically adjust the codec, rate, redundancy level and packetization
time to improve the voice quality. Voice quality data can be sent to external management systems for end-to-end voice
quality monitoring, alerting and analysis purposes.

The Mediant SBC media engine and related functionality are supported on proprietary hardware platforms, utilizing
hardware DSPs, as well as on virtualized deployments supporting general purpose CPUs and dedicated GPU acceleration1.

Routing
The Mediant SBC includes a comprehensive, flexible and simplified embedded routing engine that assists service
providers to manage complex networks with thousands of business customers and corresponding SIP servers or with
routing policies requiring complicated number manipulation.

Call routing is made simple using a multi-stage routing and classification

The Mediant SBC routing engine is highly
engine with the ability to integrate with external databases and collect
flexible and its decisions can be based on
routing information from sources such as local number portability platforms,
a wide range of criteria to meet service
CNAM, fraud and spam databases, using protocols such as ENUM, Rest API providers’ needs
and LDAP.

The Mediant SBC routing engine is highly flexible and its decisions can be based on a wide range of criteria to meet
service providers’ needs.

1
Roadmap

4
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

For large network setups consisting of multiple AudioCodes SBCs and third party servers, the AudioCodes Routing
Manager (ARM) can be implemented to deliver simplified end-to-end routing and dial plan logic from a centralized
location.

Scale and Carrier-Grade Redundancy

The Mediant SBC product line is built around a highly scalable multi-core
architecture for SIP, media forwarding, media processing and data plane A single integrated SBC can scale up to
networking. As such, a single integrated SBC can scale up to 70,000 sessions 70,000 sessions and 500,000 users on a
and 500,000 users on a 1U COTS server. For cloud and NFV deployments, the 1U COTS server
Mediant CE (Cloud Edition) employs a micro-services architecture enabling
it to reach 40,000 sessions in virtualized (private/public cloud) environments, featuring cost-effective dynamic elastic
scalability.

The Mediant SBCs support carrier-grade, 1:1 Active-Standby high availability, preserving call continuity during switchover.
The Mediant CE SBC supports 1+1 redundancy for the signaling elements and cost-effective n+1 redundancy for media
elements.

Multi-tenancy Support
The Mediant SBC’s multi-tenancy feature enables the SBC to support multiple business customers (tenants) on the same
device while keeping each tenant as a separate entity from the point of view of configuration, connectivity and routing.
Mediant SBCs support up to 5,000 distinct tenants per device.

Separation between tenants ensures that any configuration changes and monitoring of calls can be performed without
affecting any other customers’ traffic (“non-bleeding” architecture). Automation is supported in various methods (e.g.
simple CLI scripts and REST) for tenant adds, moves and changes.

Tag based routing and classification can be used to reduce and simplify routing rules. That way a single routing and
classification rule can be used to route traffic from the service provider towards different tenants, reducing the number
of routing rules dramatically (from hundreds or thousands on other SBCs to few on the Mediant).

Regulatory compliance is supported by prioritizing emergency, call preemption, session replication LI support2 and CDR
local storage

WebRTC Gateway
WebRTC technology enriches service providers’ offerings by enabling them
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs support built-in
to deliver services such as click-to-call from customer websites and WebRTC-
WebRTC gateway functionality
based soft clients for consumers and contact center agents.

2
Integration with LI Mediation Device (LI-MD) is in the roadmap

5
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

AudioCodes Mediant SBCs support built-in WebRTC gateway functionality which enables simple integration of voice and
video communications into browser and mobile applications.

AudioCodes provides client SDKs (JavaScript, native IOS and Android) to simplify integration of WebRTC clients (e.g. for
click-to-call services) and WebRTC based contact center agents. The WebRTC gateway benefits from the built-in SBC
functions such as security, high availability, authentication, call admission control, recording, quality monitoring and
cost-effective simplified setup, eliminating the cost and operational overheads of an external WebRTC gateway solution.

Comprehensive, Future-Proof SBC Portfolio

The Mediant SBC is a highly flexible and scalable solution. The software
is suitable for virtually any scenario from very small locations up to high- The Mediant SBC software can be
deployed as an integrated hardware
capacity service provider core networks and can be deployed as an
appliance and as a virtualized, software-
integrated hardware appliance and as a virtualized, software-only solution
only solution in private and public cloud
in private and public cloud environments. Mediant SBC customers can retain
environments
existing software licenses as they migrate from hardware to software and
cloud deployments with feature parity guaranteed across all form factors.

Flexible Licensing Options

AudioCodes SBCs offer a variety of licensing options to suit service provider
AudioCodes SBCs offer a variety of
business models. These options range from device-based licensing to various
licensing options to suit service provider
cost-effective pooled license schemes, which address the needs of large SBC
business models
networks.

• Device-based license - each SBC is assigned a fixed license defining the maximum number of concurrent
sessions allowed. Once a device reaches its maximum call capacity it will reject any additional call requests
• License pool - the service provider purchases a pool of licenses which it can assign to the SBCs in its network
according to each device’s needs. Licenses can be transferred from device to device depending on changing
network traffic demands
• Floating license - the floating license option determines the maximum number of concurrent sessions
available to the service provider across its entire SBC network. There is no specified maximum limit for any
particular device. This option is especially attractive for service providers offering managed or cloud-based
services as it grants them a high degree of flexibility

Powerful Management Capabilities

AudioCodes SBCs support a wide variety of management and monitoring interfaces, e.g. a user-friendly, web-based GUI,
CLI, Rest API, SNMP and more.

With vast experience in deploying and configuring solutions at customer locations across the world, AudioCodes
recognizes the complexity of SBC configuration. To overcome this, AudioCodes offers an intuitive, assisted configuration
tool with simplified SIP message language (featuring auto-complete assistance) that can be used throughout SBC
configuration to enable basic message manipulations, external data base queries and conditional routing to be defined
simply and rapidly.

6
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

The AudioCodes SBC Configuration Wizard tool includes hundreds of online,

The AudioCodes SBC Configuration Wizard
up-to-date interop templates that can be used to rapidly configure an SBC for
tool includes hundreds of online, up-to-
the first time in many common use-case setups (e.g. SIP trunk, hosted PBX,
date interop templates that can be used
PBX-to-PBX etc.). The underlying interoperability technology enables “any-
to rapidly configure an SBC
to-any” interop between all IP-PBXs, SIP trunks and softswitches included
in the Wizard’s online database. Using the SBC Wizard, a newly configured SBC can be up and running, handling live
sessions in less than five minutes.

Alarms, performance monitoring indicators and CDRs are provided through multiple channels, e.g. Radius, Syslog and
CDR local storage.

For managing a large network of SBCs, AudioCodes offers a centralized lifecycle management solution – AudioCodes
One Voice Operation Center (OVOC) - that combines management of voice network devices and quality of experience
monitoring into a single, intuitive web-based application.

AudioCodes SBCs for Service Provider - Highlights

AudioCodes SBCs offer a variety of licensing options to suit service provider business models. These options range from
device-based licensing to various cost-effective pooled license schemes, which address the needs of large SBC networks.

• Seamless connectivity to business customers and peering partners using comprehensive, field-proven and
flexible SIP interoperability and media handling technologies
• Increased customer satisfaction with cutting-edge voice quality monitoring and enhancements
• Carrier-grade high availability and UC security, ensuring 99.999% service availability and confidentiality
• Choose your datacenter technology – same SBC code base across all form factors – whether hardware
appliance, software, virtualized, NFV or public cloud deployments
• Easy to configure, maintain and monitor using intuitive GUI, SBC configuration wizard and simple-to-use
message manipulation language with self-assisted auto-complete options
• Supports large business customers’ deployments with built-in “non-bleeding” multi-tenant configuration and
monitoring and automation of adds, moves and changes
• Cloud-native SBC built on cost-effective micro-services cloud architecture with resource optimization using
dynamic elasticity
• Ability to integrate with external application servers and databases e.g. local number portability, fraud
detection, CNAM etc.
• Execute complex routing rules and policy with advanced embedded routing engine
• Enable browser-based user engagement with embedded WebRTC gateway
• Certified by Microsoft for Teams direct routing and Skype for Business voice connectivity
• A single SBC can function as interconnect and access SBC simultaneously saving costs and operational
complexity in smaller deployments
• Cost-effective pooled licensing options for large and/or cloud deployments

7
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

Specifications
• Multiple modes of transparency ranging from B2BUA to stateful proxy
• SIP Registrar
• NAT traversal
General
• Integrated WebRTC gateway
• Integrated HTTP Proxy
• Feature parity across all platforms

SIP, SIP-I, SIP-T, SIP Connect, LDAP, ENUM, RADIUS, DNS, SNMPv2, SNMPv3, IPv.4, IPv.6, UDP, RTP, RTCP, TCP, TLS, SCTP,
Protocol support
SIP Over WEB Sockets, ICE lite

• Interoperability with numerous Softswitches, IP-PBX vendors, contact centers platforms

• PRACK, Session timer, Delayed Offer, Early Media, Hold\Retrieve, Forking, Reinvite\Update
• Local handling of 3xx and REFER
SIP protocol interworking
• Comprehensive flexible and easy to use SIP message manipulations
• Scripted call control actions
• Surrogate registrations and authentication on behalf of IP-PBX and user devices

• Media transcoding - G711, G729, G723.1, OPUX, SILK, AMR/WB-AMR, EVRC, G722
• Tones detection/generation – DTMF, Fax, AMD, Ring back\Held tones
• Media translations – RTP to SRTP, DTLS, Fax to G711, In band DTMF to RFC 4733
Media handling
• Voice quality monitoring and enhancements – Embedded QoS probe, VoIPerfect dynamic quality enhancements
• Codec and media policers – enforce the set and order of media and codec types
• Available on HW, SW, Virtualized and public cloud deployments

• Layer 3/4 and SIP access lists

• Scan tools detection and prevention
• Fuzzing attacks prevention
• Dynamic access control list
• Dynamic intrusion detection and prevention system (IDS\IPS)
Security
• CAC and rate limiting enforcement
• TLS/SRTP and SIP digest authentication
• DoS/DDoS and SIP flood protection
• Topology hiding
• Dynamic Black listing

• “Five nines” service availability 1:1 Active-Standby, local redundancy

• Call continuity in case of Switchover
• Scalable capacity
Carrier grade
• Regulatory compliance
• Distributed architecture which allows Signaling and Media handling optimization
• 24/7 support

• Simple, yet powerful on board routing rules - multi stage and tag-based routing
• Various match criteria - Source and designation numbers, hostnames, IP addresses, applied tags, TGRP, Route headers,
SIP-I attributes, Special routing rules for 3xx and REFER local handling
• Different routing destination types - Predefined SIP servers, Request-URI, registering users, tag-based routing
• Multiple routing methods - Alternative routing, forking, User and session aware load balancing, QOS and bandwidth-
Routing
based routing, Least cost routing
• Routing based on external databases - ENUM, LDAP and HTTP/REST queries, e.g. CNAM, Fraud servers, local number
portability
• Configurable WEB triggers for notifying external WEB servers about routing incidents
• Advanced centralized routing via AudioCodes Routing Manager (ARM)

• Rich Call admission control (BW, call rate, #calls, register rate, #users etc.)
• E911 Calls priority and preemption
Policy and regulatory • Routing based on location information (ELIN)
compliance • Call back in case of call disconnection
• Lawful Interception (LI) integration *
• SIPREC

* Roadmap

8
AudioCodes Mediant SBCs for Service Providers
DATASHEET

Specifications
• Multi-tenancy options
- Connecting to up to 5K customers
- Configuration and monitoring separation between tenants
- Simplified routing rules
Advanced access SBC • SIP registration throttling
capabilities
• Embedded WebRTC Gateway
- Integrated WEB-RTC gateway, secured, highly available
- Recording, monitoring, Authentication
- Client SDK for Java Script, native IOS and Android

• Simplified WEB-based GUI, SNMP, CLI, Rest API

• Intuitive, assisted configuration - Auto complete for message manipulations
Operations, administration • SBC Wizard with hundreds of online, UpToDate interop templates
and management • Alarms and Performance monitoring indicators
• CDR’s – Radius, Syslog and CDR local storage
• Centralized lifecycle management console – AudioCodes OVOC

• Bare metal COTS

• Virtualized – VMWare, KVM, HyperV
Deployment and licensing • Public clouds - Azure, Amazon, Ali Cloud
options
• Cloud edition - Cloud-native microservices VNFCs.
• Flexible licensing models- Device, Pool, Float

Service Provider SBC Portfolio

Software and Virtualized SBC Integrated SBC appliances
Mediant CE Mediant VE Mediant SE Mediant 4000B Mediant 9030 Mediant 9080
AWS, Azure, VMware, KVM, Dedicated Intel Integrated Integrated Integrated
GCP*** HyperV, AWS, Server (certified appliance appliance appliance
Deployment options
Azure, AliCloud, on DL 360
GCP* Gen10)
Max. concurrent sessions 40,000** 24,000** 70,000 5,000 30,000 70,000/ 60,000****
Max. concurrent users 100,000 75,000 50,0000 20,000 200,000 500,000
Max. transcoded sessions* 26,000** 600 2,100 5,000 1,100 2,100/ 30,000****

* for G711<->G.729
** Depending on the specific platforms and specific machines used
*** Roadmap
**** Media transcoding cluster

International Headquarters AudioCodes Inc. Contact us: www.audiocodes.com/contact

1 Hayarden Street, Airport City 200 Cottontail Lane, Suite A101E, Website: www.audiocodes.com
Lod 7019900, Israel Somerset, NJ 08873 ©2019 AudioCodes Ltd. All rights reserved. AudioCodes, AC, HD VoIP, HD VoIP
Sounds Better, IPmedia, Mediant, MediaPack, What’s Inside Matters, OSN, SmartTAP,
Tel: +972-3-976-4000 Tel:+1-732-469-0880 User Management Pack, VMAS, VoIPerfect, VoIPerfectHD, Your Gateway To VoIP,
Fax: +972-3-976-4040 Fax:+1-732-469-2298 3GX, VocaNom, AudioCodes One Voice and CloudBond are trademarks or registered
trademarks of AudioCodes Limited. All other products or trademarks are property of
their respective owners. Product specifications are subject to change without notice.