IP Office can have full redundancy by running multiple copies running at alternate locations or offices. You can have the IP phones from a primary IP Office cabinet fail over to a redundant alternate cabinet, and vice versa. This redundancy can be either local (LAN), or wide area (WAN)

For example, say you have a primary IP Office in Birmingham with 100 users, and alternate IP Offices in various offices with 30 users each. The handsets from London can re-authenticate to an alternate switche in one of the other locations if the system in London fails, and vice versa with London providing the back-up for the other system. Add SIP trunks, and you can have the dial tone fail over as well. With IP Office, you have the choice to set up your network as a mesh or star configuration. A mesh offers more failover choices than a star, by preventing overloads on any one particular server.

IP Office Voicemail Failover

Not only can the Avaya IP Office operating with release 6.1 support IP Office cabinet failover, it can also support an extremely elegant voicemail failover unprecedented in the SMB market. Various levels are available:

Centralized Voicemail

Centralized Voicemail Pro uses a single Voicemail Pro server to provide voicemail services for all IP Offices in the Small Community Network. Except for use of ContactStore, only the central IP Office hosting the voicemail server requires licensing for Voicemail Pro operation and features. The central IP Office is licensed as normal for Voicemail Pro operation and the voicemail features required. The other IP Offices only require licenses.

Centralized Voicemail with Fallback IP Office

Control of the voicemail server can be assumed by another IP Office if the central IP Office becomes unavailable. This is a feature of IP Office Release 5.0+ with Voicemail Pro 5.0+. The fallback IP Office that assumes control of the voicemail server requires licenses for Voicemail Pro operation and the features required during fallback.

Centralized Voicemail with a Backup Voicemail Server

The central IP Office hosting the voicemail server can be configured with the IP address of a backup voicemail server. During normal operation, call flows and other settings on the backup server are kept synchronized with those of the primary voicemail server. If the primary voicemail server becomes unavailable to the network, voicemail services are provided by the backup voicemail server. This is part of IP Office Release 6.0+ with Voicemail Pro 6.0+. IIS SMTP is used to exchange information between the servers, using only existing licenses.

Centralized Voicemail with Distributed Voicemail Servers

Other IP Offices in the Small Community Network can host their own Voicemail Pro server. That server is then used for the IP Office’s voicemail functions except message storage. This is a feature of IP Office Release 6.0+ with Voicemail Pro 6.0+; IIS SMTP is used to exchange information between the servers. The distributed voicemail server provides all voicemail services except voicemail collection for its associated IP Office. Each IP Office using a distributed voicemail server must have licenses for Voicemail Pro operation and the voicemail features required.

In all the cases above, the central voicemail server remains the store for messages and recordings (except for Exchange UMS users). The central voicemail server does message waiting indication and is the voicemail server used for message collection. Only when the central server is temporarily unavailable will the backup or any distributed server do message storage and collection. In those scenarios, when the central server is restored, messages collected by the backup or distributed servers are forwarded to the central server.

For more information on Avaya IP Office on the IP500 phone system, contact Ryan Altseimer toll-free at 1-855-929-9199.