A Community Driven Microsoft Lync Integration to Avaya?

The brainstorming is just beginning, but after that vigorous conversation over at Voipnorm, Tom Kisner summed things up by saying that for most organizations a SIP trunk connecting Avaya and Lync seems to be the best solution. It was noted this method has "some weaknesses such as no indication that a phone is “Busy” in Lync".

My question is: What if the Lync community would put their heads together and come up with a Avaya to Lync integration (or Cisco to Lync, or any PBX to Lync) that was truly "putting the customer first"? (by doing a simple integration that didn't "grey out" a lot of Lync features, allowed using exsisting hardware/investment and allowed the customer to fluidly transistion in the direction that made the most sense for them: towards more Avaya or Lync)  Perhaps it would be as simple as enhancing currently weak points when SIP trunking together Lync & Avaya? Frankly I think the Lync community is so engaged they just might be able to pull it off!

At this point we are at the brainstorming stage…and perhaps its just not doable. But if you want to join in…below are some questions/ideas to get your ideas going. Let’s hear your ideas...either on twitter or in comments below.

Scope:

• Integration with Avaya that enhances a simple SIP connection between Avaya and Lync
• Ability to have Avaya deskphone status set Lync presence
• Any other items that would improve SIP trunking Avaya / Lync integration?

Questions to answer:

• What is required to get extension status (off hook/on hook/dnd) from Avaya server side?
• Is some additional API required?
• Which Avaya PBX should we use in our lab?
  • Avaya IP Office 500?
  • Nortel CS1000?
  • other?

Design:

• Would a tray app on the client PC's be required?
• Or merely a server side "helper"?

Solution Idea:

• Have a Lync UCMA/webservice application that watches for a http onhook/offhook post from the handset or pbx
• snom can do a action url post onhook/ofhook
• aastra 57i series can as well
• http://www.powerpbx.org/content/aastra-xml-unleash-power-asterisk-and-aastra-phones-includes-video
• Avaya 96XX, 16XX
• ftp://ftp.avaya.com/incoming/Up1cku9/tsoweb/9600/101711/46xxsettings.txt
• PRESENCE SETTINGS
• SET PRESENCE_SERVER
• SET ENABLE_AUTOMATIC_ON_THE_PHONE_PRESENCE
• Provision the handset from pbx to post an http GET on a “onhook” or “offhook” senario. For example:
  • http://deskphoneupdate.lync.com/action=offhook
  • http://deskphoneupdate.lync.com/action=onhook
• In the presence application there will be a table that cross references MAC address of deskphones to Lync user ID to determine which phone needs the presence set to “In Call” or “Reset Status”