OpenText Fax & Document Distribution Group

Question #6: What are fax gateways used for?

You can leverage all the benefits and cost advantages of FoIP without a VoIP infrastructure with a fax gateway. A fax gateway allows for scalability and flexibility of the current state by giving an organization the control of integrating or not, into current or future network infrastructure. This may be relevant if you are planning on upgrading your existing fax server or purchasing a fax server and our planning a VoIP implementation in the future. For more information about the value of leveraging a fax gateway see the whitepapers and datasheets at http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/fax-gateway-for-foip.aspx.

Question #7: What is SIP Trunking?

Many companies have started using or are considering a SIP trunk to connect their PBX to the global telephone system infrastructure (PSTN) via the Internet. Unfortunately, not all SIP trunk providers support faxing through their SIP trunks even though many claim they do. Before making a decision to go to a SIP trunk, you will want to be sure to determine exactly which FoIP protocol is supported so that you can decide whether the solution is best for your fax traffic demands. Theblogs  below will provide more information on SIP trunking and its impact on faxing:

• SIP Trunking: Part 1 – Introduction to SIP Trunking
• SIP Trunking: Part 2 – Faxing and SIP Trunking  
• SIP Trunking: Part 3 – Faxing and SIP Trunking, a more complex scenario discussion

The final installment will be posted Wednesday, November 9th. 

Question #2: What is the best protocol to use for FoIP?

T.38 is the ITU recommendation for Group 3 (G3) fax transmission between terminals where, in addition to the PSTN, a portion of the transmission path used between G3 facsimile terminals includes an IP network. T.38 has become the accepted standard for FoIP communications, in part because of its multi-level redundancy mechanism to maintain fax integrity as well as its low bandwidth requirements.

Question #3: Who is the leader in T.38 innovations?

The global leader in T.38 technology is Dialogic. What differentiates Dialogic from every other T.38 vendor is their documented interoperability list and the testing that they do to ensure that their technology works across the many different fax machines and gateways in the market today. Dialogic’s FoIP solutions also offer G.711 pass-through as an option to ensure that compatibility with legacy media gateways is still possible.

Important: When choosing a FoIP solution, always ask to see the public interoperability lists and compatibility information supported by the vendor.

Stay tuned for part 3, Wednesday, November 2.

Cisco’s David Hanes has written a great article in Telecom Reseller that discusses why T.38 has become the fax over IP (FoIP) standard. One of the reasons why T.38 has become the accepted standard for FoIP is its multi-level redundancy mechanism.

The article also explores the issues with T.37 and its dependency on SMTP. David’s concerns about SMTP should raise a question for anyone using or considering a fax service that relies on email to send or receive the fax from a fax service provider, especially if the faxes are important (mission critical, time sensitive or contain any confidential data).

Check out http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/fax-server.aspx to learn why RightFax is the world leader in Internet fax. We partner with Dialogic, the global leader in T.38 technology. I would be cautious of any fax server vendor who attempts to sell proprietary black box T.38 technology.

As an FYI, T.38 is the ITU recommendation for G3 fax transmission between terminals where in addition to the PSTN or ISDN, a portion of the transmission path used between terminals includes an IP network.

Matthew Brine
Vice President
Fax and Document Distribution Group
Open Text Corporation

http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/ and http://www.futureoffax.com/

Follow me at www.twitter.com/mattbrine

If you are like my organization, you have clear policies on how to destruct your PC and server hard drives after they have run their useful lives. But have you thought about the implications of sensitive data stored on fax machines, photocopiers and printers?

Last week, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) issued guidance on mitigating risks posed by information stored on fax machines, photocopiers and printers. Financial institutions regularly use these machines to process financial transactions, loan documents and other business information. These documents often contain confidential customer information.

The FDIC is concerned that when these devices are disposed of, there is a risk that confidential data may be compromised if the devices hard drives and flash memories are not destroyed, encrypted or erased. They are recommending that financial institutions be aware of the risks posed by these devices and implement appropriate processes and procedures to mitigate the data loss at the time of disposal of these machines.

One way financial institutions can eliminate this risk is to replace their fax machines with a fax server. Fax servers can do far more than just replace fax machines. Not only do they provide an audit trail of what has been sent and received, they can integrate with MFPs and be leveraged by back-end business applications. Users can send and receive faxes from their email inbox and faxes can be routed as part of a work flow (business process).

By using a fax server, the need for fax machines and their associated security risks are eliminated. Of course, with a fax server one still needs to have an appropriate server hard drive data retention and destruction policy but one reduces the risk from many fax machines to a single server.

Replacing a company’s fax machines with a fax server has been proven to reduce costs and eliminate paper waste. According to Gartner, a world leading information technology research and advisory company, businesses can reduce faxing costs by as much as 50% by using a fax server rather than stand-alone fax machines.

In several recent publications by Gartner, they have made it clear that an outsourced fax service option may not be appropriate for organizations if their fax traffic contains sensitive or confidential data such as medical records, financial information or personal details.

Healthcare organizations and other businesses who process sensitive customer data on fax machines can also benefit from the FDIC guidance. You can read the full FDIC guidance on mitigating risks posed by information stored on fax machines, photocopiers and printers at http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2010/fil10056.pdf.

As the makers of Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition, the world’s leading fax server that is used by hundreds of financial institutions around the world, we are proud of our customers’ accomplishments with our fax server technology. If you are interested in learning more about RightFax, please visit http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/ and http://www.futureoffax.com/.

If you have not guessed, I love faxing and secure document communication. You can contact me at mbrine[at]opentext.com and you can follow me on my Twitter business account at www.twitter.com/mattbrine.

Matthew Brine
Vice President
Fax and Document Distribution Group
Open Text Corporation

By Matthew Brine

Casey’s furniture, a family-owned business founded in 1921, is one of the longest-standing furniture retailers in Ireland. Their manual paper-based order fulfillment processes were causing costly delays, inefficiencies and errors. Many of the errors were expensive to fix and caused long delays for customers. Some employees were spending the equivalent of a full day per week on paper-based busywork to keep the business running.

Casey’s worked with Inpute Technologies, an Open Text Fax and Document solutions partner in Ireland, to digitize and streamline their order fulfillment process with an integrated, paper-free content solution utilizing Microsoft and Open Text technologies.

Casey’s orders are now routed for approval by Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Open Text Workflow Server, .NET edition and then electronically faxed to suppliers via Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition. Finally, they are stored in an accessible, easy-to-manage digital database with Open Text Document Server, Alchemy Edition. Employees also have the benefit of being able to send and receive faxes directly from their desktop and to utilize many of the other features of RightFax and Alchemy.

RightFax is the world’s leading fax server for sending and receiving mission critical documents such as purchase orders, invoices and legal agreements where secure transmission and proof of delivery is required. RightFax is used to reduce costs associated with standalone fax machines and paper-based processes.

RightFax has extensive integrations and product certifications with Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and other business applications and is the product of choice for unified communication vendors such as Cisco and MFP vendors like HP, Ricoh and Xerox. RightFax is a leader in production fax and FoIP (fax over IP) solutions and has over 100,000 servers installed worldwide.

Alchemy is a cost effective document imaging and archive solution for departments, work groups and small-to-medium businesses. Alchemy creates a digital file cabinet for your organization so you can securely store any document type and then find it within seconds, even years later. Thousands of customers use Alchemy today because it is easy to install, configure and use.

Among other results, Casey’s Furniture:

Eliminated fax machines and unessential printing for a reduction in printing and stationery costs of more than 60%.

• Reduced average time for order delivery to suppliers by up to eight days.
• Increased profit margins by meeting discount deadlines and reducing duplicate orders.
• Reduced order-related busywork close to 20 percent.
• Sped response time to customer inquiries by up to two weeks

Casey’s Furniture also improved customer service by increasing quality control and consistency of order-related processes, minimized redundant tasks across branches with central, integrated management and supported distribution efficiency with accurate, accessible information.

To read the full Casey’s Furniture customer success story, go to Casey’s Furniture Success Story.

Do you have a customer success story around RightFax or Alchemy? I would love to hear about it. You can contact me at mbrine[at]opentext.com and you can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mattbrine.

Matthew Brine
Vice President
Fax and Document Distribution Group
Open Text Corporation

http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/ and http://www.futureoffax.com/

Looking for a simple and cost effective green solution? Fax servers provide real solutions without the hype!

Fax technology is ubiquitous and faxing is recognized as one of the few electronic mediums where documents can be easily transferred and tracked in real-time. Thus, faxing remains an important component of business communications today.

A modern fax server provides an organization with the flexibility to distribute virtually any document from any application, using a central server integrated into a company’s network. Fax servers are purchased to replace fax machines, leverage investments in multi-function printers or automate part or all of a manual paper based process (for example, sending a fax automatically from a CRM or ERP application or routing a fax based on information contained in the fax).

Fax server purchases are generally justified on the cost savings that they drive within the first twelve months of implementation. But there are many other benefits that a fax server provides, including improved employee productivity and organizational effectiveness, process improvement, leveraging IP and VoIP infrastructure investments, document tracking for regulatory purposes, paper wastage reduction, storage benefits and meeting compliance and information security needs.

Want to learn more about fax servers? A great place to start is the WindowsITPro eBook “The Essential Guide to Fax Servers”.
Matthew Brine
Matthew Brine is the Vice President for Fax and Document Distribution at Open Text. He can be contacted at mbrine@opentext.com.

The new Open Text Fax & Document Distribution Group site (formerly Captaris) is now here: http://faxsolutions.opentext.com