From SIP Security Video Interview of Ingate by TMC

  Steven Johnson, a President of Ingate Systems, served prior to this as CEO of Abrena, Inc., a business development consulting firm focused on assisting European and N. A. firms expand in the USA. Ingate’s heart and soul is housed in its Technology Center, located in Linköping, Sweden. We interviewed Steven on Ingate history, the SIP Trunk Summit at ITEXPO and their partner program.

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of IP communications leaders from around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen. Today we have with us Steven Johnon of Ingate Systems. Hello Steven.

Steven Johnson: Nice to speak with you. It’s been a while.

Suzanne Bowen: We have a set of questions that people have submitted of which I will ask you three. Quite often a website, blogging, etc. do not really tell the history of a company. Would you share with us the history of Ingate Systems?

Steven Johnson: Ingate was formed in 2001. We’ve been around for about nine years, formed specifically to bring SIP to the enterprise, to solve some particular issues related to SIP that occur at the edge of any company network that is trying to bring SIP into that network. Specifically we solve the NAT and firewall traversal issue that gets in the way of bringing SIP into an enterprise.

So we resolve the NAT traversal issue as well as many others, such as interoperability between IP-PBXs and SIP Trunking service providers that enable people to bring SIP to the enterprise. Our company was actually formed about ten years ago  by two companies, one of which was  focused on security for data networks and the other which continues in business and is headed by Ingate’s chairman. It was called Intertex Data and had actually been operating since the early 80s. Karl Stahl, our chairman, focused on SIP starting in 1998, very early in the evolution of SIP, but he recognized the need for the kinds of products that Ingate now sells.

We began to bring our developments into the market in 2001 and have delivering product ever since. We’re a recognized leader, and it’s been a lot of fun.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly, and you are definitely seen as SIP experts. Just to kind of go back, I remember meeting you for the first time during ITEXPO East 2009 in Miami Beach, Florida. It was funny that each morning around 5 AM, you and I were the only ones up and working in the lobby already. I was impressed by you on that.

Steven Johnson: It’s because my boss is in Sweden, so he’s about six hours ahead of us here in the East Coast. At 5:30 in the morning, it’s almost lunch time there.

Suzanne Bowen: That makes sense. Now we understand.

Steven Johnson: We all don’t know why you were up that early yet?

Suzanne Bowen: I actually get up at about 4 o’clock every morning to run. Then, I’m wide awake. I like to get some work done when I’m not going to be interrupted by instant messages and phone calls. I have to do a lot of thinking, researching and writing.

Steven Johnson: Good idea as well.

Suzanne Bowen: People are excited about ITEXPO East scheduled for Jan. 20-22, 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida, next week.

Ingate is sponsoring one of the most popular items on the agenda. It’s the SIP Trunking workshop. It’s complimentary and full of demos, lectures, discussions, interactions, and more from Avaya, Digium, Ingate itself, ShoreTel, VOIPSA, Bandwidth.com, Dialogic,  Cbeyond, Mitel NetSolutions, The SIP School, Intertex Data, DataAB, and the SIP Forum. There is even a SIP Trunking Bootcamp. A bit wordy there from me, but tell us more. What will be different? What else can everyone look forward to?

Steven Johnson: This is our seventh time doing this. We do it at each ITEXPO. Each time, it is different. We want the information fresh. We’ve added new participants like those you mention who bring a different perspectives to the event. Each is a co-sponsor. We have encouraged our partners to bring in various companies who have implemented SIP in some way. These are case studies.

Now that SIP trunking is becoming a reality for many enterprises. We think it is a good idea to bring people together who have actually done it to share their roadmap. They will share with those who have yet to implement SIP, the benefits they enjoy, best practices and even some things they wish they had done as great advice to the new people.

I think the big thing is that we are offering case studies. We will show three cases where we will show how a particular PBX can be connected through an Ingate device and onto a service provider and how that can be easily accomplished. 

Avaya, ShoreTel, and Digium Asterisk will each demonstrate getting their systems connected from the front end of our conference room and make calls back to somebody in the audience. This will demonstrate how easily this is done and the good quality available. We will be doing this with those three vendors as well as Bandwidth.com providing the SIP trunk.

We bring in new participants such as http://www.thesipschool.com this time. The SIP Forum will also participate. They will present their perspective of where SIP trunking is today. As a member of the board of directors of SIP Forum, we are doing a lot of work to make SIP trunking an easy thing to do.

You also mentioned the SIP trunking bootcamp. That is an all day event on Friday where we will show how to set up an Ingate unit. We will provide a free training to show how to use the unit as an interface to a SIP trunking provider.

All this is complimentary. Attend one day or all three days. 

Suzanne Bowen: This is excellent. You ought to have a packed audience. I know that conference participants crave real case studies and demos, not long, boring lectures and Point Point presentations. The variety on your panel is very good.

Will the SIP Trunking Bootcamp participants get a certificate when they finish? 

Steven Johnson: They get a certificate. If they go through all of the sessions on day one, they get a SIP Trunking Expert certificate from that. If they particate in the SIP Trunking Workshop Bootcamp on day three, they get a certificate.

Suzanne Bowen: The last question is how can companies and service providers become partners with Ingate? I see you offer choices such as strategic partners, resellers, distributors, confirmed SIP trunking interoperability partners.

Steven Johnson: Let’s take the confirmed SIP trunking interoperability partners first. These are service providers who have worked with us to insure that our SIP products such as SIParator and the Ingate firewall work well with their service. They can become listed on our website as a choice of service in our drop down box in our installation tool. We document how to interface between our product and their service.

The Strategic Partners are generally PBX vendors who have gone through a similar process to insure interoperability. We exchange logos, etc. so we can advertise to the world that we know we are compatible. When we have a PBX on one side and a service provider on the other that we can interoperate with either… then we can make the two of them operate successfully without having to involve either one with the other. We become the interoperability engine in the middle.

Resellers and distributors… we are interested in those involved in SIP and VOIP implementations. Generally, it is more advantageous to everyone if they are also representing another SIP product like a PBX or phones, or they are representing a service provider. We are very interested in talking with all of those kinds of people to resell Ingate product and provide complete solutions to their customers and the end-user.

Suzanne Bowen: People who qualify, should be able to trade business cards and possibly sign up sometime at the end of any session or at the Ingate booth.

Steven Johnson: We will be in room A 108-109 in the Miami Beach convention center. That is where all of our seminars will take place. I’ll be there all three days and look forward to hearing from anyone in attendance. We’re ready with the distributor agreements and sign ups for interopability partners. By all means, come by!

Suzanne Bowen: The listeners will be able to meet with Steven Johnson. Ingate’s website is http://www.ingate.com. We’ll both see you there. I’m Suzanne Bowen. I do appreciate this time with you, Steve.

Steven Johnson: Thank you very much. My email is steve@ingate.com. Call me at 1-603-883-6569. I look forward to seeing you at the show.

Suzanne Bowen: Sounds good. Thank you!