There is no specific configuration requirement needed for connecting the VBVoice/HMP IVR with a local PBX or VoIP provider. The expectation is that the PBX or VoIP provider will support session initiation protocol (SIP) standard. The IVR can connect to a SIP trunk or to a SIP extension (also called SIP agent). The IVR behaves as a user agent with multiple channels, where the number of channels is determined on the IVR by the number of host media processing (HMP) and VBVoice licenses. The PBX or VoIP provider is simply providing the bandwidth connection for the IVR to send/receive calls.
Once you install VBVoice and the Dialogic HMP driver on the VoIP IVR system, the VBVoice Interface Installer should run to select the Dialogic HMP card type. This enables the VoIP capabilities of VBVoice applications. VBVoice (with Dialogic HMP) supports H323 and SIP protocols. We always recommend that customers use SIP due to its general ease of interoperability between different endpoints and widespread usage.
When integrating with a customer site PBX or with a VoIP carrier, VBVoice has some basic pre-configurations. The following is based on a SIP setup:
If the VBVoice/HMP IVR is required to register to the local PBX or VoIP provider, configuration entries must be added to the VBVoice software. This can be done directly in the vbvoice.ini configuration file (Start>Run>vbvoice.ini) or via the VBVConfig utility.
The two supported options are:
The required entries to have the VBVoice/HMP IVR register WITHOUT authentication are:
RegServerIP - IP or a domain name of the proxy server
RegEndPointIP - Account to be used on the proxy
RegTerminalAlias - Username and IP of machine running VBVoice
RegTimeToLive - Time-to-live for the registration in seconds (When this expires, VBVoice will automatically retry to register with the proxy)
The required entries to have the VBVoice/HMP IVR register WITH authentication are:
RegServerIP - IP or a domain name of the proxy server
RegEndPointIP - Account to be used on the proxy
RegTerminalAlias - Username and IP of machine running VBVoice
RegTimeToLive - Time-to-live for the registration in seconds (When expires, VBVoice will automatically retry to register with the proxy)
SipAuthenticationRealm - domain part of the authentication triplet (optional)
SipAuthenticationUsername - user name (optional)
SipAuthenticationPassword - password (optional)
An example of the VoIP entries for SIP registration is outlined below:
[VoIP]
RegProtocol=SIP
RegServerIP=proxy.example.org.
RegEndPointIP=hmp@proxy.example.org
RegTerminalAlias=hmp@192.168.1.1
SipAuthenticationRealm=proxy.example.org
SipAuthenticationUsername=hmp
SipAuthenticationPassword=pronexus
Connectivity Testing and Packet Tracing
When looking to evaluate a new SIP installation we install a packet analyzer tool. (We use WireShark, available for free download.)
With the packet analyzer tool installed we can clearly see the IVR perform SIP registration. We can also analyze test calls to ensure that audio quality, touch tone and call transfers are working as expected.