New Lync Survivable Branch Option: The Resilient Branch Appliance or RBA Keeps Branches Up Via 3G/4G

I was just alerted to the fact that there is a new Lync Survivable Branch option called the “Resilient Branch Appliance” or RBA. The RBA brings branch survivability via 3G/4G wireless mobile broadband to keep the signaling and data layers operational during WAN outage.

From my quick reading it appears that 3G/4G keeps signaling, presence, address book and web conferencing going during an outage of WAN. Voice is handled via PSTN breakout.

This means that there are 3 options for branch survivability: RBA, SBA and SBS. Alan Percy, in his article on the Audiocodes RBA, gives the below comparison of the RBA, SBA, SBS:

An article by Telecom reseller notes that RBA’s are designed for <15 Office # of Seats, which means the RBA is designed for very small offices. (not sure Telecom resellers source for this though)

The RBA is an interesting idea new option in the survivability line-up, but it should be remembered that it’s design will not survive a datacenter WAN interruption.

RBA Models:

RBA Configuration:

Sonus: Click Here

NOTE: I’m still trying to figure out if this is an official Microsoft moniker or just vendors (Audiocodes and Sonus mention it). I don’t see it mentioned here. or here.

I need to admit that if I had my dream SBA it might include the below features:

• Ability to do Response Groups locally (& during outage)
• Ability to do Call Park locally (and have call park for location) (& during outage)
• some local seamless Voicemail option

See the links below for more information from vendors Audiocodes and Sonus on the RBA:

Audiocodes: http://blog.lyncmigration.com/2013/08/the-cloud-and-lync-survivability.html
Audiocodes models: click here

Sonus
http://stage.sonus.net/sites/default/files/DS_ResilientBranch_9_May_2013.pdf

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Cisco SRST: Click Here