OpenText Fax & Document Distribution Group

Give fax a break already.

It’s a sad day for one of the world’s most unfairly maligned pieces of hardware. Fax machines just made No. 14 in a list of 15 Current Technologies a Child Born Today Will Never Use. The blogger, Laptop Magazine’s Online Editorial Director Avram Piltch, slotted the hapless device all the way down at No. 14, and for an already misunderstood “gadget that had its heyday in the 1970s” that’s got to hurt.

Now, to be fair, Piltch was only talking about fax machines, and he is almost certainly correct that those appliances will eventually go the way of the dodo. What he failed to mention–and what is too often overlooked–is that fax technology itself (which has already proven its value and resilience for more than a century) can look forward to many more years of usefulness and ubiquity before being forced into early retirement by younger, more attractive methods of communication……or a super-intelligent army of robots.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is not the technology: people are faxing higher volumes faster than ever before, in many cases between IP addresses straight from their email client, or even automatically as preconfigured batches while they sleep. It’s the word: FAX. People can’t help but associate fax with the fax machine and a bygone era of cigarettes and leisure suits.

Facsimile or fax simply means a copy sent using voice technology. With the growing popularity and availability of Fax over IP (FoIP) , there are now dozens of ways to do this securely, even without much of a reliance on analog phone lines or fax machines. Fax servers, protocols and delivery methods are still constantly evolving and have not yet lost pace with competing communication options.

Finally, Mr. Piltch, I will not “let go of the signature requirement.” That “lame excuse for the continued use of the fax machine” is still a very compelling one for newer fax technologies. Keep in mind that fax is a simple, point-to-point transmission involving only two people (the sender and the receiver). A fax can be verifiably tracked throughout its journey between friends and is still much more secure than email or an online signature where receipt confirmation is absent. Fax is still the only transmission that won’t fall down in any court, and thousands of people even use fax to vote in federal elections. Because the basic technology of fax is so simple, it is everywhere: essentially, anyone anywhere in the world who has a phone jack has the capability to fax. This makes it ideal for doing business across industries and borders.

Every day the delusion is spreading that fax is no longer relevant, but with hundreds of millions of faxes being sent and received every single day, I just don’t buy it.

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.

As a fax-nerd, I am pretty excited about our September 22nd webinar: Take the Mystery out of SIP Trunking. From a fax perspective and at its most basic definition, SIP trunking simply means to send a fax from one IP device to another without having to go through the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

This is where the Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSP) comes to the rescue. Ultimately, there are two important “take-aways” from this upcoming session that I think are worth noting:

First, make sure you are using a Session Border Controller.

You have two methods of working with SIP Trunking: a) piggy-back on your existing internet connection and risking the performance and security issues that come with that or b) get a Session Border Controller (SBC) which will be used to manage the connection between your site and the ITSP. The choice of using a SBC should seem obvious if you are in the enterprise fax world.

Second, know your FoIP protocol choices.

In the world of Fax over IP (FoIP), there are really only two options to consider: T.38 Fax Relay (where the IP gateway agrees to “relay” the fax tones sent to/from the fax server) or Fax Pass-through (where the IP Gateway simply “passes” the fax tone samples sent to/from the fax server).  This makes T.38 Fax Relay the better choice as you do not have to encapsulate every little fax squeak and noise and then over the network between the OpenText RightFax server and the ITSP.  It is the fax tone samples that are the most sensitive to network problems and if lost or out of sync, you are most likely going to get some fax transmission errors. This means if you are using Fax Pass-through instead of T.38 Fax Relay, you may have some issues with SIP Trunking (in particular if you do not use a SBC).

If you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to register for Take the Mystery Out of SIP Trunking on September 22 at 10AM PDT. 

If you have any experiences with SIP trunk faxing, I would love to hear them. You can tweet me @JoshuaTeaches or via email at jbutcher@opentext.com

Image provided by amanderson2

By Roopesh Mistry and Ruchir Sharma, Rincon India

It is always a pleasure to meet CxOs of large corporations with a vision to consolidate infrastructure and go green. The Essar Group is a multinational conglomerate and a leading player in the sectors of steel, oil and gas, power, communications and business process outsourcing (BPO), shipping, ports and logistics, projects, and minerals. With operations in more than 25 countries across five continents, the group employs 70,000 people.

When we met Mr. Jayantha Prabhu, CTO, Mr. Prasad Patil – DGM IT and the IT team, they were using multiple fax machines of different brands spread across the group and managing these fax machines was proving to be a challenge. They opted for OpenText RightFax as a centralized solution and decided to integrate RightFax with their existing infrastructure i.e. Microsoft Exchange and Avaya VoIP.

With RightFax integrated with MS Exchange, Essar employees manage their faxes directly from the already familiar mail interface. Sent and received faxes are automatically archived for immediate or later use. By integrating RightFax with their Avaya IP infrastructure, RightFax is now on a virtual server with high availability.

We plan to further fax-enable their MS SharePoint collaboration platform, SAP system and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Servers.

Read the complete case study.

By Jim Marrone, Advantage Technologies

A global manufacturing organization based in Ohio was searching for an Enterprise fax solution that could replace all their traditional fax machines, analog phone lines, along with the toner, paper and maintenance costs that went with them.  More significantly, the organization was moving to a virtual environment for all their business applications and had multiple requirements surrounding outgoing communication to their service representatives in the field straight from their Oracle-based ordering system, with an audit trail of the reports being sent and received.

RightFax features and functionality met all the requirements of the project and unlike their competitors, provided the ability to integrate with the existing infrastructure of the company, primarily the financial and customer management systems they utilize.  Leveraging Fax over IP, SR140 software was installed on a virtual server as the communication layer between the IP-based phone system and the RightFax application.  They used the RightFax SMTP/POP3 Gateway to enable outbound faxing from Oracle and inbound delivery of faxes and notifications to MS Exchange users.  Daily reports and service calls are automatically delivered to the field.  The client’s SQL standard database manages all the metadata for auditing purposes and reporting details.

The RightFax solution was installed by Advantage Technologies’s implementation team in one day and the client was provided an additional day of training.  The customer has commented that if all their IT projects went this smooth and actually delivered the ROI promised, like RightFax, his life would be much easier!  For more information on Advantage Technologies visit www.atechnologies.com.

OpenText RightFax 10 Adds Enhanced Support for Cloud-based Office Systems

Major Release Marks 25^th Anniversary of OpenText’s Fax Server Software, Key Analyst Report Names OpenText the Industry Leader in Fax over IP

Waterloo, ON. – June 8, 2011 – OpenText™ (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC) today announced that its industry-leading fax server software now includes enhanced security for sending and receiving  faxes from cloud-based office systems including Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps with the release of OpenText RightFax 10.

As companies of all sizes look to cloud-based office application suites such as Microsoft Office 365 or Google Apps, the ability to securely send and receive faxes through these services will be critical, while also retaining integration with other parts of the organization. Adding to its cloud support, RightFax Web Access is now included with all systems, allowing users to access their RightFax server from a Web browser.

RightFax 10 marks the kick-off of the 25^th anniversary year for RightFax and represents a significant milestone in the product’s history.  In addition to enhanced support for cloud-based office systems, the new release makes it easier, faster and more secure for customers to integrate faxing into their business processes and workflows with new features such as barcode routing, searchable PDF delivery and enhanced Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Lotus Notes 8.5 integration. It also adds optional accessibility support that meets mandates under the Americans with Disabilities Act

OpenText is the leading overall fax server supplier and the leading supplier in the fast-growing fax over IP (FoIP) market, according to a recently released report called Fax over IP Server Markets: 2010-2015 authored by Davidson Consulting, an independent fax industry analyst firm. OpenText achieved the leading position in the FoIP segment by virtue of its 46-percent revenue growth in the past year and captured 31 percent of the market.

Read the complete press release.

For more information visit: http://faxsolutions.opentext.com/rightfax-10-whats-new.aspx or www.rightfax.com.

Memorial Health System of Colorado Springs started as a community-based hospital that quickly grew to a Level II Trauma Center now consisting of three hospitals and regional clinics. Memorial handles an impressive volume of more than 15,000 faxes per week, both incoming and outgoing. According to Scott Port, Application System Administrator at Memorial, “close to 90 percent of faxes are related to direct patient care.” To support their fax communication load, Memorial relied on nearly 400 fax machines scattered throughout their regional facilities.

With the expert guidance from OpenText Premier Partner Satori Solutions, Memorial turned to RightFax for a more productive, cost-effective method of document management to benefit patient care.

Read the complete case study.

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

By Matthew McWhirter with Axient, an OpenText Partner

The Transport Booking and Invoicing Transformation (also known as Transport Booking, or TBIT) project is the first of a number of projects which fall under the Choice and Maintainability Services program for the Federal Government Department.

The Transport Booking project will deliver a number of business and technical outcomes by replacing an outdated and unsustainable technical booking system. It will also ensure a consistent quality of service delivery as it is driven by nationally consistent business process implementation. With a number of centralized customer service centers supporting the Department’s regional, state, and national operations, fax is a widely used communication channel.

The project will be delivered in two parts – an initial pilot rollout to a selected location in January 2011, as well as a national rollout which will follow the initial pilot. There is a strategic imperative to demonstrate the ability to embed the necessary change management, governance culture, project and program management capabilities using this project; as well as ensuring the Department’s continued efficiency and discipline in maintenance of operations and service delivery in an environment of significant ICT-enabled change. This particular project was chosen because it offers large potential benefits in terms of process efficiency and IT support risk reduction.

So where does Fax fit in? Fax is a required and commonly used service delivery channel. Using the XML and Integration modules, a web-based fax interface is being deployed. Functionality used in these modules includes XML Submit, Action and Query. This will allow the Department to submit faxes from within their IIS application and give them the capability to monitor the fax through their own business process. It will also allow them to deliver real time updates to the web within Book Car With Driver service.

The OpenText RightFax solution, implemented early last year, is a dual server V9.4, SR140 Collective integrated with Avaya.

For additional information or to learn more about Axient, please contact Matthew McWhirter, mmcwhirter[at]axient.com.au or visit www.axient.com.au.

PCI, what is it, how do we support it with RightFax? I’ve seen customers, internal and external; ask this question several times over the last couple months.

Well, it could be an acronym for the Precast Concrete Institute, but in this context it’s not (unless maybe they are a customer of ours). It could be the Peripheral Component Interconnect standard for local bus connectivity, but in this case it’s not (though this is relevant for RightFax due to the Fax Boards we use).

Instead, PCI is the Payment Card Industry (think debit and credit cards) and we are getting asked about this due to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). In October of this year (2010) the PCI Security Standards Council, a global, open industry standards body for this topic, released version 2.0 of the PCI DSS which becomes effective January 1, 2011.

Why is this relevant to RightFax you say? Well, as it happens, PCI DSS applies to companies that process and store sensitive payment card information such as the primary account number, cardholder name, expiration date and service code. Many companies that process and store this type of data are using fax for at least some part of this. When these customers are using RightFax for part of this business process the fax images stored by the RightFax server may contain this sensitive payment card information and fall under the requirements for storage under PCI DSS.

How do we comply with this requirement? Well, in one case, since the requirement for the customer was to get the fax images into an encrypted storage location we engaged our professional services team to develop a solution using the Open Text Document Server, Alchemy Edition to store the faxes in encrypted format using the Alchemy Database Encryption Module. This would meet the storage requirements in the PCI DSS guidelines and still provide employee access to the faxes via an Alchemy client.

If you are in the process of assessing your annual PCI compliance, or needing to understand better how to ensure Open RightFax be compliant with the new PCI DSS v2.0 standard (effective January 1^st 2011); please consult with Open Text Professional Services as soon as possible. Our consultants will work with you to understand your specific business needs and compliance requirements in relation to your RightFax implementation. This includes the option of extending your RightFax system with our Document Server connector and Database Encryption Module. Have you run into a PCI implementation requirement? How did you handle it? For more information on PCI DSS and other payment card industry security standards go to https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/ .