Inter-Asterisk Exchange (IAX): Deployment Scenarios in SIP-Enabled Networks (Wiley Series on Communications Networking & Distributed Systems) [Hardcover]

Mohamed Boucadair (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470770724 | ISBN-13: 978-0470770726 | Publication Date: March 24, 2009 | Edition: 1

Find out how IAX can complement SIP to overcome complications encountered in current SIP-based communications

Written by an expert in the field of telecommunications, this book describes the Inter-Asterisk Exchange protocol (IAX) and its operations, discussing the main characteristics of the protocol including NAT traversal, security, IPv6 support, interworking between IPv4 and IPv6, interworking with SIP and many others. The author presents the ways in which IAX can be activated so as to avoid complications such as NAT and the presence of intermediary boxes in operational architectures. This book analytically demonstrates the added values of IAX protocol compared to existing ones, while proposing viable deployment scenarios that assess the behavior of the protocol in operational networks.

Key Features:

• Promotes a viable alternative protocol to ease deployment of multimedia services
• Analyses the capabilities of the IAX protocol and its ability to meet VoIP service provider requirements, and provides scenarios of introducing IAX within operational architectures
• Addresses the advantages and disadvantages of SIP, and Details the features of IAX that can help, in junction with SIP, to overcome various disadvantages of SIP
• Explores the added values of IAX protocol compared to existing protocols
• Discusses the compatibility of new adopted architectures and associated protocols

This book will be a valuable reference for service providers, protocol designers, vendors and service implementers. Lecturers and advanced students computer science, electrical engineering and telecoms courses will also find this book of interest.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Find out how IAX can complement SIP to overcome complications encountered in current SIP-based communications

Written by an expert in the field of telecommunications, this book describes the Inter-Asterisk Exchange protocol (IAX) and its operations, discussing the main characteristics of the protocol including NAT traversal, security, IPv6 support, interworking between IPv4 and IPv6, interworking with SIP and many others. The author presents the ways in which IAX can be activated so as to avoid complications such as NAT and the presence of intermediary boxes in operational architectures. This book analytically demonstrates the added values of IAX protocol compared to existing ones, while proposing viable deployment scenarios that assess the behavior of the protocol in operational networks.

Key Features:

• Promotes a viable alternative protocol to ease deployment of multimedia services
• Analyses the capabilities of the IAX protocol and its ability to meet VoIP service provider requirements, and provides scenarios of introducing IAX within operational architectures
• Addresses the advantages and disadvantages of SIP, and Details the features of IAX that can help, in junction with SIP, to overcome various disadvantages of SIP
• Explores the added values of IAX protocol compared to existing protocols
• Discusses the compatibility of new adopted architectures and associated protocols

This book will be a valuable reference for service providers, protocol designers, vendors and service implementers. Lecturers and advanced students computer science, electrical engineering and telecoms courses will also find this book of interest.

About the Author

Mohamed Boucadair completed his degree at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieur de Caen (Institut des Sciences de la Matière et des Rayonnements.) He currently works for France Telecom R&D and is part of the team working on VoIP services. He has previously been involved in IST research projects (TEQUILA, MESCAL, AGAVE), working on dynamic provisioning and inter-domain traffic engineering. Boucadair has also worked as an R&D engineer in charge of dynamic provisioning, QoS, multicast and intra/inter-domain traffic engineering. He has published many journal articles and written extensively on these subject areas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470770724
• ISBN-13: 978-0470770726
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.8 x 9.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,587,932 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars NAT problem still not solved, March 10, 2010

By 

Hans Schmid - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inter-Asterisk Exchange (IAX): Deployment Scenarios in SIP-Enabled Networks (Wiley Series on Communications Networking & Distributed Systems) (Hardcover)

The most hindrance of voip acceptance is the infamous NAT problem. IAX does not solve it and can not as NATs are protocol agnostic. The author wants to give the impression that IAX solves a lot of problems SIP is having, like need for STUN and TURN servers. The truth is, IAX needs the same servers to alleviate the NAT problem. To the author's credibility he says with IAX the NAT problem is not worsened. That's true, but it's not made any better either. As I said, the NAT problem doesn't care about protocols and so IAX can't solve a whole class of problems at all.

If you want to buy this book because you think IAX can solve problems you are having with SIP then don't purchase. If you run an Asterisk server - which uses IAX internally and stems from (IAX = Inter Asterisk Exchange) - and want to know more about the IAX protocol then you might think about buying this book. But on the other hand, in this case it would suffice to read more about IAX on Wikipedia and run Wireshark in your network collecting IAX packages - the protocol is very simple. Most difficulties in a telephony environment are just mentioned but not explained at all. So I have to say the book is mostly a waste of time and money.