An Intelligent Approach
In 2008, Avaya took a bold step forward with the introduction of the Intelligent Presence Server. This product solves the silos of information problem by integrating presence from diverse sources, including Microsoft Office Communications Server and IBM Lotus Sametime. The server also supports multiple open standards, including XMPP, SIP/SIMPLE, and Web services.

Avaya designed the Intelligent Presence Server to meet the demands of even the largest enterprise. The initial release supports 20K "presentities" (people who are being watched) per server and can expand upwards through multi-server scaling. A multiple server deployment shares a common user database and employs local caching per server. Avaya's roadmap for Intelligent Presence Servers includes federation and automatic load balancing and failover. These qualities are essential for global WANs with a mix of home and mobile workers.

To build the Intelligent Presence Server, Avaya licensed Jabber XCP, a proven presence and messaging engine, and then added support for SIP/SIMPLE, Avaya Application Enablement (AE) Services, and Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007. The server has a Java-based framework of pluggable presence Collectors and Distributors. The normalization of presence information provides developers with a common vendor-independent platform for application development. Avaya will be releasing a complete Java SDK to enable development of additional collectors and programmatic interfaces with the product.

To showcase the capabilities of Intelligent Presence Server, Avaya recently introduced the one-X™ Communicator. This client application delivers aggregated, rich presence information to the desktop, including telephony presence from Avaya Communication Manager and Instant Messaging presence from Microsoft Office Communications Server. The Avaya one-X Communicator joins the one-X family, which includes Avaya's one-X Portal, a browser-based unified communications client that provides access to telephony, visual voice mail, audio conferencing, and rich presence.

Be Present
Developers should be aware of the many uses of rich presence information. In addition to improving the effectiveness of team collaboration there are likely business-critical applications in your organization that could benefit from knowing exactly who is available to be contacted and the best way to reach them. Avaya's Intelligent Presence Server offers an "always-on" platform with real-time aggregation of presence state from multiple devices (IM clients, calendars, telephony, GPS-enabled devices, etc.) and complementary desktop technologies (IBM Lotus Sametime Connect, and Microsoft Office Communications Server, and so on). You can learn about Avaya's plans for a Unified Communications and Communications Enabled Business Process enabled enterprise at Avaya.com.