Session Border Controllers for Dummies
Discover why you need a session border controller in your network.
Service Provider Core Network
Ribbon's family of next-generation session border controllers (SBCs) provides robust security, simplified interoperability, advanced session management, and carrier-grade reliability for fixed, mobile, cable, and wholesale service providers. Ribbon's SBCs offer powerful deployment flexibility that meets or exceeds the demanding levels of security and service quality for applications such as SIP trunking (including Microsoft Teams Direct Routing), Unified Communications, Network-Network Interconnection, VoLTE, VoWiFi, and RCS. Ribbon SBCs deliver network security, routing and policy management, overload controls, SIP normalization along with IPv4-IPv6 interworking, and robust media transcoding. They also deliver support for STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephone Identity Revisited / Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs) standards for caller identity authentication and verification.
SBC Cloud Native Edition
Ribbon’s Session Border Controller Cloud Native Edition (SBC CNe) delivers best-in-class real-time communications security. Designed using cloud-native architecture and operational principles, SBC CNe reduces the cost and complexity of securely connecting a very wide range of VoIP services. SBC CNe delivers:
- VoIP Security (topology hiding, encryption, protection against Denial-of-Service attacks, and much more)
- Proven interoperability with leading cloud UC and cloud contact center services, IP-PBXs, SIP endpoints, and SIP trunking providers
- Certified for Microsoft Teams Direct Routing and Zoom Phone BYOC
- Powerful media services including extensive media transcoding
SBC CNe has been designed based on a microservices architecture deployed in containers using Kubernetes for lifecycle management. This architecture dynamically scales up to meet increasing demand and scales down when traffic is light, reducing cloud compute costs. The cloud-native design inherently provides a high degree of resiliency by loosely coupling services such that a software operation can fail without impacting other active services. Furthermore, SBC CNe is designed to seamlessly integrate into a customer’s observability framework with APIs for many open-source applications.
SBC CNe is managed by Ribbon Application Management Platform, a common solution used across the Ribbon portfolio making it an integrated part of a multi-product, multi-site Ribbon deployment. A customer deploying SBC CNe will leverage Ribbon Automation to simplify and automate cloud-native operational processes for software delivery, testing, lifecycle management, and provisioning
Virtualized Software SBC
Deploying IP-based unified communications, conferencing, collaboration, or contact center applications on private or public (AWS, Azure, GCP) clouds is becoming commonplace. And each of these applications needs the security and interoperability that SBCs deliver.
So you will need a virtualized SBC that was designed to be deployed in multiple private or public cloud environments and to meet the scalability, reliability, and functionality to provide carrier-grade services.
Ribbon's virtual SBC Software Edition (SBC SWe) has been designed to meet the unique requirements for reliability and scalability of real-time communications in a VM/KVM, or OpenStack/Virtual Networks Function (VNF) private cloud deployment. The SBC SWe aligns with both ETSI and ONAP orchestration models when running in a VNF deployment.
Similarly, the SBC SWe is deployable in public clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP) providing the same degree of scalability and reliability.as in private clouds.
Capitalizing on Ribbon's legacy of innovation and feature richness, the SBC SWe shares its software code base with the SBC 5400 and SBC 7000 , making it one of the most trusted security solutions on the planet.
Virtual Core SBC
Turnkey Hardware Platforms
STIR/SHAKEN and Identity Assurance
Service Provider Intelligent Edge
Microsoft Teams Direct Routing
Teams is the fastest growing business application in the Microsoft’s history. Many organizations are already using Teams for video conferencing, collaboration, file sharing and chat. Microsoft Phone System Direct Routing allows organizations to connect to external phone lines and use Teams as an office phone system. Direct Routing requires a Microsoft certified Session Border Controller (SBC) to connect Teams to a communications service provider.
Along with Direct Routing, Microsoft Operator Connect is a next generation cloud-to-cloud interconnect solution that tightens the integration between service providers and Microsoft Teams to simplify the Teams customer experience,
Ribbon’s extensive portfolio of Microsoft-certified SBCs, coupled with decades of experience building session border controllers for SIP trunking, make Ribbon the right solution for service providers to deliver market-leading Direct Routing services to new and existing business customers.
Organizations can select from hundreds of service providers across the globe. Each service provider has multiple choices to provide the required SBC, including both software and hardware options in the Ribbon Intelligent Edge portfolio that can be on the customer’s premises or in private or public cloud.
Microsoft Operator Connect
Microsoft Operator Connect is a next generation cloud-to-cloud interconnect solution that tightens the integration between service providers and Microsoft Teams. Designed to simplify the Teams customer experience, service providers can combine their SIP Trunking services with Microsoft 365 workflow APIs to make it easy for an enterprise to acquire and deploy PSTN calling services for Teams. Enterprises can configure users for Teams calling and at the same time buy and assign DIDs/DDIs from their preferred service provider.
Ribbon SBCs are fully compatible with Operator Connect and Ribbon is working with Microsoft and many service providers who are rolling out this new service.
- Service providers connecting to the Microsoft 365 cloud use their peering SBCs to secure and ensure interoperability for SIP trunking. Ribbon’s core SBCs deliver multi-tenancy, scalability and high-availability that is required to provide cost-effective connectivity between a service provider’s network and Microsoft Azure
- Operator Connect provides integration tools (APIs) to automate the interaction between a service provider and Microsoft, enabling carriers to sell and deploy SIP trunks (DIDs/DDIs) from inside of the Microsoft 365 portal
Microsoft Certified Core SBCs
| SBC Products | Maximum Sessions | Fit | Deployment Environment |
|---|---|---|---|
| SBC 7000 | 150,000 | CSP or Enterprise | Turnkey Hardware |
| SBC 5400 | 75,000 | CSP or Enterprise | Turnkey Hardware |
| SBC SWe | 75,000 | CSP or Enterprise | Virtual - Private/Public Cloud |
| SBC CNe Edge | 10,000 | CSP or Enterprise | Cloud Native - Private/Public Cloud |
| SBC SWe Edge | 1000 | Enterprise or Small Business | Virtual - Private/Public Cloud |
| SBC 2000 | 600 | Enterprise or Small Business | Turnkey Hardware |
| EdgeMarc Portfolio | 300-2,000 | Enterprise or Small Business | Turnkey Hardware |
| SBC 1000 | 192 | Enterprise or Small Business | Turnkey Hardware |
Managing Service Provider SBCs
Ribbon’s portfolio of service provider core and edge SBCs are managed from a centralized Ribbon Application Management Platform that offers a complete Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security solution. Delivering intuitive, reliable, scalable, and automated management, a service provider can quickly configure systems, identify and remediate issues, deliver improved customer experience, and do so at reduced operational costs.
Ribbon Application Management Platform manages service provider SBCs deployed across physical, virtual, and cloud-native environments. The platform itself is designed using cloud-native principles and can be deployed in multiple data center and public or private cloud environments, in standalone or high-availability configurations, including options for geographic redundancy.
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