RADVISION’s SCOPIA PathFinder v.5.5 handles firewall traversal for endpoints without H.460 capabilities, thereby enabling conferencing with partners and customers outside the organisation

7 August 2007. Every vendor has its own way of facilitating firewall traversal and NAT. The ITU wants to standardize the approach to firewall traversal to ensure inter-operability between videconferencing systems of different vendors. H.460 is a set of ITU standards which defines protocols for firewall traversal. It was based on the TANBERG solution (developed by Ridgeway).
 

Based on RADVISION’s award-winning SIP toolkit, the IMS SIP Toolkit is a powerful and highly versatile set of tools that facilitates the development of IMS SIP applications while reducing development time and costs. The IMS-SIP toolkit is suitable for both clients and servers.
  
RADVISION has announced the availability of PathFinder version 5.5.  This end-to-end firewall and NAT traversal solution now includes H.460 support enabling H.460-compliant endpoints to connect without the need for any intermediate client in the connection stream.  SCOPIA PathFinder is the only solution available in the market that handles both endpoints with embedded H.460 support and endpoints without H.460 capabilities, without the need for additional hardware or traversal software.
 
H.460 compliant conferencing endpoints will connect directly to Pathfinder for connectivity through firewalls. For non H.460 endpoints, free SCOPIA PathFinder client software can be deployed at remote sites providing firewall traversal via PathFinder.
 
SCOPIA PathFinder is a complete firewall traversal and NAT solution, offering both a near-end (enterprise network) and far-end (remote site) solution.  PathFinder maintains the security and advantages of firewall and NAT, while opening up IP visual communication capabilities to telecommuters, workers on the move, customers and suppliers.  PathFinder assures the quick and easy establishment of vital communications beyond the firewall boundaries of the enterprise.
 
RADVISION says SCOPIA PathFinder v5.5 achievement highlights are:
 
- Solves near-end and far-end firewall issues without any changes to the firewall.
- Works with any H.323 endpoint, gatekeeper, and firewall.
- Supports any H.460 compliant conferencing system.
- Includes free software for endpoints that do not support H.460.
- Supports AES encryption for all traffic.
- Enables URI dialing (email or URL style addressing).
 
Eli Doron, President and Chief Strategy Officer, RADVISION told us that: “As one of the main contributors in perfecting the H.460 standard, RADVISION is committed to providing highly interoperable standard-based conferencing solutions.  RADVISION collaborated with the ITU in order to define the standard and bring about its ratification. Now that we have incorporated this capability into our PathFinder product, enterprises can easily communicate through firewall boundaries, and IT managers can maintain critical security boundaries whether the conferencing system is H.460-compliant or not.”
 
Bob Romano, RADVISION’s VP of Enterprise Marketing, added: “SCOPIA PathFinder has enabled enterprises to deploy a more flexible video conferencing solution by eliminating the issues of traversing network boundaries.  This has enabled conferencing across all enterprise locations or to partners or customers outside the organization. H.460 further extends the power of an enterprise’s video network infrastructure without creating those undesired security holes.”
 
RADVISION also announced the release and general availability of the SIP Developer Suite version 5.0. The SIP Developer Suite is a highly versatile development tool for building all types of IMS or non-IMS SIP applications, ranging from high-end infrastructure SIP systems to compact embedded devices.