Vol.1 No.4 (Fall, 2004)

Special Issue: IT/Network Integrated Solution “UNIVERGE”

KOBAYASHI Kazuhiko
Senior Vice President and Member of the Board

Today, IP networks are becoming increasingly popular and broadband is making rapid advancements. In offices, network connections are shifting to faster services - from 100Mbps to gigabit Ethernet. At the same time, high-speed IP-VPN services that connect companies and company group operations are rapidly expanding owing to their reduced costs. In addition, Internet services for ordinary consumers are advancing to high-speed communications represented by ADSL networks and fiber optic networks. Wireless LAN technology has also made great progress and is now embedded in cellular phones for general use as well as in almost all notebook PCs and PDAs.
With such progress in broadband and mobile technology, the advent of the ubiquitous computing era, when you can do office work whenever and wherever necessary, is becoming a reality.

CHAPTER1

TAKIZAWA Saburo
Senior Vice President and Member of the Board

I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your continuous support of NEC’s IT and network solution.

CHAPTER1: Case Study

MORITSUGU Minoru
Assistant Chief Engineer, Technology Group NEC Business Solutions Ltd.
Gary HASTIE
Product Manager, Solution Group NEC Business Solutions Ltd.

Toyota Australia has become the first company outside Japan to implement NEC’s ground-breaking ‘pure’ IP solution, UNIVERGE, with the opening of their new corporate headquarters in Victoria, Australia.
The building is the first Toyota facility in the world to embrace NEC’s IP technology, boasting a robust voice and data infrastructure designed to support Toyota well into the future. Toyota Australia CEO, Ted Okada said technology had always been an integral component of the building’s design.
“We wanted the advanced architectural and environmental design of the facility to be matched with a leading edge converged voice and data network,” said Mr. Okada.
“Our search for a technology partner led us to NEC - and the result was the implementation of a full IP telephony solution.”
Mr. Okada said Toyota were delighted that the commitment and excellence to technology that drives their innovation in vehicle manufacture, has been reflected in NEC’s commitment to developing an IP solution.
“This new building clearly reflects Toyota’s position as a visionary leader in the automotive space. With the NEC technology, we have further reinforced our reputation for ingenuity, creativity and technical excellence.”

Cheng-Pien WANG
Sales Manager, Broadband Communication Division
YAMAZAKI Yasunori
Senior Expert, Broadband Communication Division

Taiwan is historically famous in catching the new demand in the quickly changing IT industry. Facing the rising IP Telephony services, several government sponsored and industrial consortium supported project are actively developing IP Telecom related technologies. Major carriers, ISPs and the vendors are keen in the mainstream protocol “SIP” for VoIP services as key factors for the Telephony business expansion. Those aggressiveness to the new product & technologies will create more dynamic environment of the VoIP business in Taiwan.

Than HTAY
Senior Manager, Marketing and Sales Division, NEC Corporation (Thailand) Ltd.

When TRUE Corporation started to consider the full broadband wireless office concept in 2003, they had approached a few vendors who could support wireless LAN equipment.
However, NEC was not in the list of vendors for the wireless LAN solution. At this stage, NEC had not yet announced the UNIVERGE products and solutions. When top executive of TRUE visited NEC in late 2003, NEC introduced the UNIVERGE concept for broadband IP solutions and introduced the UNIVERGE WL series, which is designed with enterprise class security and management.
The customer was cautious about the wireless security and NEC had proposed the solution to meet their expectations. Although the customer had already short listed a vendor for the wireless LAN solution, they requested NEC to make a proposal in Bangkok and lease a system for evaluation in the customer’s premises.

TODA Shuzo
Kansai Branch Office, NEC Magnus Communications, Ltd.

Midori Denka Group (Headquarter in Amagasaki City, Japan) is a large retail chain in Japan with 92 stores (As of July 2004), which handles Home Electronic products, Audio Visual products, PCs, Furniture and Interior Decoration. Even during the period of tough competition for retail business, Midori Denka is able to grow their business through providing excellent service. Set up and installation services on the same day of purchase, 365 days repair and information services, are the unique services for the customers and they are the key factors to be the No.1 store in each region. Midori Service provides these unique services.

CHAPTER1: Introduction of Solution

ICHII Hiroo
2nd Enterprise Communications Solutions Division

The broadband environment is rapidly growing for home users and the ratio of broadband users at home exceeded more than 70% in Japan. Japan is currently offering one of the best broadband solutions for home users, however most enterprise users are still deploying narrowband solutions. It is expected that the enterprise will rapidly adopt broadband within the next few years.
In Japan, IP Telephony service, which is called 050 service, was introduced in October 2003. To access the IP Telephone network, the user must dial 050 followed by carrier access code and telephone number.Current telephone charges vary from local calls to long distance calls to IDD (International Direct Dialing) calls where current rates are based on distance. However, in most cases IP telephone service is billed at a flat rate regardless of distance in Japan and even free between users subscribed to the same service provider. This becomes a tremendous cost savings for enterprise customers and can be the trigger for enterprise customers to consider switching to IP telephony. But are there any other benefits to consider in introducing broadband and IP telephony in the office?

Ken RIGGS
NEC Unified Solutions,Inc.

An integral component of NEC’s UNIVERGE family, the UM4730 is an innovative IP-based, unified messaging system built on a standard PC (Personal Computer) platform or server running a Linux operating system. The UM4730 uses the latest software-based, DSP (Digital Signal Processing) and VoIP technologies to integrate to NEC’s UNIVERGE SV7000 telephony server.
For individual users (called subscribers), the UM4730 offers modules that integrate with their LAN letting them access and conveniently manage their voice and e-mail messages, mailbox settings, incoming and outgoing calls directly from their desktop PC. System Administrators will enjoy the intuitive web-browser interface, which allows easy LAN or Internet access to subscribers and system settings.
NEC’s objective is to offer the most intelligently designed and cost-effective unified messaging systems on the market. The dozens of powerful features that come standard with UM4730 were designed with two things in mind: 1) to improve your ability to communicate and 2) to make UM4730 easy and efficient to use.

OTSUKA Kiyokazu
2nd Enterprise Communications Solutions Division
NAGASHIMA Teruo
1st Enterprise Communications Solutions Division
SHINYA Masaji
2nd Enterprise Communications Solutions Division
ABE Takashi
1st Enterprise Communications Solutions Division

In Japan, IP telephony service, which can interconnect with existing PSTN, has been offered fully by many ISP since the second half of 2003. This service uses 050 for head telephone number. This IP telephony service can provide free-call within the ISP group, and drastic reduction of international and long-distance call charges.
The deployment rate of xDSL (Digital Subscribers Line) and FTTH (Fiber To The Home) are growing rapidly in recent years, so it becomes possible to use real-time streaming service such as moving picture, which requires broadband service (see Fig. 1). Furthermore, broadband service is available anytime and anywhere, because broadband is also offered in the mobile field.
Thus, IP Contact Center which can provide wide range of communication options, accompanying the spread of IP telephony services and broadband services, is likely to take off from the second half of 2004.
Some benefits of IP Contact Center, includes lower communication cost, the expansion of the broadband service by integrating image and data, and the possibility of the responding to a call response anywhere.

FUCHIGAMI Hiroyuki
Business Development Division and UNIVERGE Solutions Promotion Division.

“Time” and “Information” are the most important essences along with “human” and “financial” resources to success in the business world. Recent development of IT, network, and “Broadband & Mobile” technologies will help companies to enhance their businesses; however, many companies are not able to find the factors of how broadband technology will change the way they work and produce the benefits from the advanced technology.
To break through this uncertainty, NEC provides customers a total picture of the constantly evolving broadband office by realizing the most advanced technology office and showroom, “Broadband Solutions Center (BBSC).” BBSC contributes opportunities for customers to experience and get a feel for how it will impact work styles.
BBSC was opened on January 2004, and about 6,800 people have already visited (by end of July 2004). BBSC attracts new potential customers who have not had any prior business relations with NEC before, as well. About 20% of visitors are new potential customers.

HATTORI Takaaki
UNIVERGE Solutions Promotion Division

At the start of UNIVERGE, we examined our business strengths and weaknesses. The analysis showed that the key aspect is to develop cooperative businesses which enhance both our and our partners’ strengths. Acknowledging such a goal, we have launched the UNIVERGE Partner Program through which we aim not only to expand our cooperative business, but also to provide our partners with new business opportunities through the interaction among our partners.

CHAPTER1: Topics from the Exhibitions / Seminars

CHAPTER2

YAMAMOTOI Masahiko
Senior Vice President

I would like to express my appreciation for your loyal patronage of our information technology and network products.
NEC has been providing products for years to enable companies to decrease their total cost of ownership while enhancing their operating effectiveness. NEC supports productivity by offering core products for corporate networks such as PBX systems (the APEX Series), wireless business systems based on PHS, as well as LAN and WAN products (e.g., IP switches and routers in the IP and IX Series).
NEC launched an enhanced corporate IT network collaborative product line, the UNIVERGE Series, in November 2003. This UNIVERGE Series utilizes the full power of IT within a ubiquitous environment supported by broadband and mobile networks. The aims are to support our customers’ innovative work styles and to increase their productivity even more.

CHAPTER2: UNIVERGE Hardware

IHARA Takanobu, NAKAMURA Teruo, FUJII Shigeo
KAKIUCHI Motofumi, KOYAMA Junichi, FUKUI Keiji

The IP convergence is needed for enterprise networking by popularization of Broadband. In order to respond to these market needs, we have developed newly architectured SIP Telephony Server UNIVERGE SV7000 system which integrates IT System and Telephony System with Open SIP Protocol Interface.

SUZUKI Toru, TOSHIDA Ryuichi, MATSUKI Atsushi, TATEISHI Tsuyoshi

Recently, an increasing number of enterprises are utilizing the new VPN services such as IP-VPN, Wide Area Ethernet and Internet VPN in order to integrate their IP based corporate telephone and core transaction systems into data networks. To support this integration, even at small to medium sized corporate sites, a high performance access router capable of handling large throughput, reliable QoS processing and high-speed encryption for VPN is in demand. In this paper, technologies employed in the high speed access router (IX1000/IX2000/IX3000 series router) are described. These technologies enable the implementation of low cost solutions for fast packet forwarding via caching mechanisms and high performance VPN processing using an encryption LSI.

KUROKAWA Hideki, MITANI Yukio, SAITO Takashi, MIYAMOTO Rei, YOKOO Iichiro

UNIVERGE WL Series is a Wireless LAN system built on new distributed access point architecture, improved upon the existing WLAN products. More enterprises are now seeking for a solution integrating both voice and data onto a single WLAN infrastructure. However, many key issues need to be resolved to guarantee voice quality and to deploy WLAN handsets for a critical business use. UNIVERGE WL Series solves these key issues with its proprietary voice call handling mechanism.

YOSHII Hiroaki, MOTOYOSHI Gen, TAZAKI Hiromi, NISHIMURA Hiroyuki

This paper describes the UNIVERGE MB series among the UNIVERGE solution, which can offer IPsec for security and mobile IPv4 for seamless handover at the same time. With UNIVERGE MB, you can use groupware or shared servers from the outside and inside a corporate network in the same manner as you work at your own office desk.

SHIMIZU Yoshio

As IP networks have been rapidly expanding in recent years, the move toward VoIP (Voice over IP)/IP telephony services has been progressing at a very fast pace. This paper describes the UNIVERGE iExpress5800/Lite, a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and Presence server for small- and medium-sized businesses and SOHOs. This server features a call control function based on SIP protocol IETF RFC3261 as well as a presence function.

NORIFUSA Masaya

SAFEBORDER is an SSL VPN appliance product that offers a unique remote access solution to any customer. The SSL VPN market in Japan was first addressed a year ago by several leading vendors including NEC, and has been growing very fast since. Many corporations are about to come up with new ways of business operations and models utilizing the Internet far more effectively than ever by taking advantage many benefits of SSL VPN and the rapid development of broadband communications. Many corporations have already moved to the new network environment for the next stage of their corporate IT activities. SSL VPN is expected to play important roles in connecting people with people and data sources instantly through the Internet. In this paper, basic technologies and benefits of SSL VPN are discussed, and SAFEBORDER’s unique features are then explained to show how it can change corporate IT and business operations in their use of the Internet.

CHAPTER2: UNIVERGE Software

TAKATSUKI Katsuhito, Sheryl TEAGUE

The OpenWorX Communications Portal (OCP) is an application to be released in the United States by NEC Unified Solutions Inc. the fourth quarter of this year. OCP presents a unified web accessible “portal” which is easy to use and serves as a launching point for the business communication such as scheduling, collaboration, telephony, multimedia communication, and unified messaging. In addition, the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) platform allows customers to extend their OCP functionalities by also incorporating their business applications such as CRM/ERP.

SUZUKI Seiji

This paper introduces the CommunicationDoor Web Conferencing Solution. CommunicationDoor is itself a web conferencing application, and is also a platform for developing new web conferencing solutions. CommunicationDoor is written in ASP, therefore can be modified to fit into corporate web solutions. This paper also describes how CommunicationDoor works, and how it helps reduce TOC of web conferencing systems.

KANAMEDA Keiji

UNIVERGE Unified Communication is a solution that unifies voice applications and data applications at the Enterprise Information Portal. The user can communicate with anyone at anytime, anywhere by using a PC. Unified Communication provides seamless cooperation among various communication tools, increases efficiency, and realizes a new office work style. This paper introduces the features provided by a Unified Communication solution.

Su-Hun YUN

The WebSAM NetvisorPro realizes integrated network operation and management for the UNIVERGE IP routers, and the L2SW and SIP servers as well as for the multi venders’ network nodes. The WebSAM NetvisorPro provides a series of optional functions, Resource Manager, Device Configuration, Problem Diagnosis, Alert Analyzer, VLAN manager, QoS manager and Unified User Manager, which enable efficient network management for both enterprise and carrier users and significantly cuts their network operation costs.

Rod JOHNSON

The MA4000 Management System is NEC’:s newest “Maintenance and Administration” application that is built upon the Microsoft NET framework providing secure web-based access for performing simple moves, adds and changes. The highlighted features of MA4000 are: 1) Reduce TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), 2) Anywhere, anytime access, 3) Event notification for proactive action, 4) Audit trails for security & troubleshooting, 5) Meets IT expectations such as security, wizard based moves, adds and changes that are schedulable.

CHAPTER2: UNIVERGE Terminals

SAWADA Tatsuhiko, YASUMA Kenichi, TATARA Nobukazu
SATOU Toru, KATSUMATA Tetsuya, HISATOMI Tetsuya

It is the IP telephony server “:UNIVERGE SV series” that will become the core means of realizing the UNIVERGE solution. In this paper, we would like to introduce the lineup of “UNIVERGE terminal” as it corresponds to various user needs.

CHAPTER2: The Next Step of UNIVERGE: Towards the Future

UMAYABASHI Masaki, ENOMOTO Nobuyuki, HIDAKA Youichi
OGASAHARA Daisaku, TAKAGI Kazuo, IWATA Atsushi

The authors propose a high reliable Ethernet technology: GOE (Global Open Ethernet) technology. The GOE technology is a cost-effective and scalable solution for next generation Ethernet VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) that can satisfy simultaneously not only the requirement of high reliability, but also those of flexible network topology, low equipment cost, and low operational cost. In this paper, we focus on the requirement of high reliability for Ethernets. We describe the problems affecting the reliability of current Ethernet technologies, and propose Per Destination - Multiple Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol and In Service Reconfiguration technology to solve these problems. This GOE technology can provide highly reliable and stable networks.

ONO Takashi, WATANABE Yoshinori, SUGAHARA Hiroto
OKANOUE Kazuhiro, YAMAZAKI Shuntaro

The basic concept of the radio propagation simulator “RADIOSCAPE” is reported. The simulator is helpful for wireless LAN area design. RADIOSCAPE is provided to users as an ASP simulation service through the Internet, and it reduces the initial cost of system installation. RADIOSCAPE applies the latest propagation analysis engine and is useful for system design of various wireless systems, such as wireless LANs, cellular phones, Bluetooth, UWB, and RFID.

SHIMONISHI Hideyuki, MURASE Tsutomu, HASEGAWA Yohei, YAMASAKI Yasuhiro

In this paper, we discuss “Session Traceability Technologies,” which realize high quality and high reliability communication that up until now was difficult to experience within a legacy IP network. With this technology, we can provide network node system that handles sessions’ behavior (either TCP or UDP, or whatever) by utilizing end-to-end information from network, servers and hosts, as well as IP and link level information that reflects network local status. Some of the benefits of the system are as follows. For example, 1) attacks, malfunctions and performance bottlenecks over entire business system consisting of clients, servers, storages, and variety of network elements can be quickly identified, 2) application execution quality is increased by eliminating any possible obstacles to the performance, 3) a broader decentralization of such an environment is supported by increased throughput and quality of long distance communications. By incorporating these technologies into the UNIVERGE product line, it will improve communication quality and service availability of dynamic collaboration systems over broadband networks.

From the Speech at Network Summit 2004

TAKIZAWA Saburo
Senior Vice President and Member of the Board

A ubiquitous environment is a society where everything and everywhere are always connected with a network. Japan is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous environment with the evolution of broadband and mobile networks.
Currently the number of a broadband network service subscribers is growing and expanding rapidly, and has exceeded 16 million persons (as of September 2004). This service exceeds South Korea which is one of the leading nations in broadband, and is the fastest in the world as well as the most affordable.
Also in the realm of mobile networks, Japan has the highest ratio of Internet service contracts for cellular phones. Moreover, new 3rd generation cell phone services, which can be thought of as mobile communications going broadband, are beginning to spread in earnest, while the terminals (handsets) themselves have evolved to gain various capabilities such as banking functions and camera functions. It could easily be said that the mobile terminal has indeed evolved into a ubiquitous terminal.
What’s more, Japan has also gained the world’s No.1 market share in major fields in the digital consumer electronics market such as digital camcorders and cell phones equipped with digital camera.
Added to this, due to the advent and spread of terrestrial digital broadcasting, the convergence of broadcasting, broadband, and mobile service domains is anticipated for the future.
Furthermore, in regards to governmental IT policy, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has launched the u-Japan concept. By realizing this concept, the ministry is predicting that the ubiquitous network related market, including the ripple effect to peripheral businesses, will expand to 120,500 billion yen by the year 2010.
Japanese enterprises should take maximum advantage of this world-leading ubiquitous environment. NEC believes the companies that master this ubiquitous environment for their own business purposes will be the true winners.

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