Firewall Traversal the Stumbling Block For VoIP and Video Conferencing
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by: Admin
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The usage of Voice over Internet Protocol and video conferencing using the internet has increased tremendously over the last decade. Since people found out that making international calls and video conferencing using computers and the internet was much cheaper than conventional telephones the demand for this technology just soared.
However internet service providers as well as organizations that depend heavily on the internet use firewalls to block unknown access to their networks. Usage of firewalls prevents an external unauthorized user from entering the network. For VoIP and video conferencing you need a peer to peer connection. Firewall traversal becomes virtually impossible when you try to make calls over enterprise firewalls like Fortinet. Yes, you can use open standards like ICE, STUN, and TURN to traverse firewalls but these are not enough.
Intelligent firewall traversal is in short supply especially for SIP and VoIP and Video Conferencing. Ask any information technology network specialist and you will get a long winded explanation which will not really make much sense. What you want is a firewall traversal solution and not a lecture on reverse UDP mapping and other similar jargon. What you want is an intelligent firewall traversal solution which is problem free. You don't just want to use open standards using SBC, what you are looking for is a complete solution. Sadly, these happen to be in short supply.
There are solution providers that offer firewall traversal solutions and some offer free downloads for you to try. If you're VoIP and video works without any glitches or hitches then you have the option to purchase the software. When you are looking for firewall traversal solutions that are seamless and allow you to connect, talk and do video streaming without getting blocked. You cannot just pick up a packaged solution and hope that it will work. You need to test it out thoroughly before you decide to invest in it.
As the behavior of NAT is not standardized and network managers want to maintain the security of their networks, and we cannot blame them for that. Most NAT based techniques bypass network security policies, which remains a major issue. What enterprise security managers want is firewall traversal that will cooperate with NAT and not bypass it. This will allow the security policy to remain intact.
Finding the perfect firewall traversal solution is still awaited and your best choice would be to thoroughly test any package that claims to do seamless firewall traversal before you install it across the enterprise.
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