presentation on inter connectivity options for Instant Messaging today in 2016

1. The State of Instant Messaging
Interconnectivity
Andy Higgins - IMCollaboration

2. Introduction
Andy Higgins – worked with first version of Sametime when at IBM
in 1998 and has been involved with IM solutions ever since
Worked at Bank of America when they moved from IBM to
Microsoft – Sametime to LCS/OCS
Worked back in IBM in competitive technical sales with Sametime
Now independent since 2009 and specializing in the Migration,
Coexistence and Interoperability of Email, Instant Messaging and
Enterprise Content Management systems.

3. Popular Public Instant Messaging and the trend
• AOL – the original
• Yahoo – the ”other” orginal
• Gtalk – now no longer supported and moved to Hangouts
• Skype (A few words about the difference of Skype and SfB)
• QQ – Chinese IM service started in 1999 – has approximately 800 million users presently
• WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app that allows users to exchange messages without having to pay for them.
On February 19, 2014, Facebook Inc. announced it was acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion. Currently, it has 700 million active monthly users.
• WeChat, the mobile messaging application released by China's Internet giant Tencent, has around 500 million monthly active users.
• Viber - Developed by Viber Media, it is a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging voice over Internet protocol application for
smartphones. In addition to text messaging, users can exchange images, videos and audio messages. On 14 February 2014, the company
was acquired by Rakuten for $900 million. It has more than 300 million subscribers.
• LINE is a Japanese proprietary application for instant messaging on smartphones and personal computers that allows users to make free
voice calls and send free messages. Stickers and emoticons used in the app are popular among teenagers.
• KakaoTalk is a multi-platform texting app created by South Korean team that allows iPhone, Android andBlackBerryusers to send and
receive messages for free. It has achieved 100 million subscribers since its release on March 18, 2010.
• Kik Messenger is an instant messaging application for mobile devices. Kik Messenger was released on October 19, 2010, by Kik Interactive.
• Tango - According to a US magazine, The Network Journal, Tango is a free video chat app that allows users to send texts, make video and
phone calls, share photos and videos, and even play games with their family and friends while calling them.
• Nimbuzz is a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging aggregator for smartphones, tablets and personal computers developed by
Nimbuzz B.V. According to ACNielsen, Nimbuzz is a strong competitor to Facebook Messenger in Asia, especially India. As of March last year,
India had 25 million Nimbuzz users out of 100 million mobile Internet users.
• Hike is a communication app that offers both instant messaging and SMS under one roof. It has been developed by Bharti Softbank, which is
jointly held by India's Bharti Telecom and Japan's Softbank telecom provider.
• MessageMe is a free smartphone messenger that offers the freedom and versatility to express users' own unique personality in every
message. Based in Los Angeles, the app was officially launched in 2013 in the intensely competitive IM market.

4. Popular Corporate Instant Messaging services
• IBM Sametime
• MS Lync/SfB
• Cisco Unified Messaging (Jabber)
• Google Hangouts
With the advent of Corporate IM services, the corporate use of
public IM services has declined thus the interconnectivity
requirement to public networks has diminished but corporate
interconnectivity is growing.

5. Instant Messaging Protocols
• SIP: Session Initiation Protocol
– SIMPLE: SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging
Extensions
• XMPP: Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol

6. Types of federation
• Direct Federation
Traditional method
• Clearinghouse federation
This was the great IM hope which never materialized until now
AOL was going to do it… Nextplane offers a great option here
• Enhanced federation
• Open federation
Using the email paradigm

7. Direct Instant Messaging federation
• Allowed Partner Server (aka Direct Federation)
– Configure the domain
– Configure the Access point
This type of federation is used by Sametime and is also the basic
federation used by Microsoft Lync/SfB

8. • Direct Federation
Domain
A
Domain
C
Domain
B
• Lots of configuration on both sides
• Secure!

9. • Clearing House federation
Domain
A
Domain
B
Domain
C
Clearing
House
• Direct federation but with clearing house
• The path to the Clearing House (CH) can be
defined as the path to other domains and
the CH will route onwards based on CH
rules – Nextplane does this

10. Enhanced Instant Messaging federation
• Allowed Partner Domain (aka Enhanced Federation)
– This uses the 2 DNS records but doesn’t allow for “discovery”
• It’s a solution for direct, secure connectivity in an open
environment
• It’s sort of what O365 does

11. Open Federation
• Discovered Partner Domain (aka Open Enhanced Federation)
– A DNS SRV record specifying the domain. It should follow the format
_sipfederationtls._tcp.domain.com. The port value for the SRV
record should be TCP 5061.
– A DNS A record containing the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)
of the Access Edge server. It should follow the format
sip.domain.com.
• XMPP federation uses a similar open federation model
– A DNS SRV record specifying the domain. It should follow the format
_xmpp-server._tcp.domain . The port value is 5269
• Sametime doesn’t support this type of federation for SIP

12. • Open Federation
Domain
A
Domain
C
Domain
B
DNS

13. Comment
• You might think that you could set up federation “open” in one
direction and “direct” in the other
– this can work but Microsoft do NOT support this
• This is why O365 cannot directly federate with Sametime even
using a ST gateway

14. What’s IBM doing?
• They continue to support the Sametime Gateway
We have seen an updated release with V9.01
• Sametime gateway supports:
– Direct Federation with SIP
– Open federation with XMPP
• For interconnectivity requirements, they recommend to use
Nextplane

15. • Integration with NextPlane UC Exchange
• Provisioning via UC Exchange Federation Management Portal
• Sametime-to-3rd party scenarios
• SIP to XMPP
• Presence mapping
• Basic and custom status
• Activity-based status changes
– E.g. ‘Nancy Smith is typing…
• ”One-to-one and group chat
• Competitive pricing
• Contact = nick@nextplane.net

16. • The Nextplane portal

17. Overview
Open Federation is the future
• Microsoft have the best options for federation
• Interconnectivity is in demand for B2B but not for B2C
• Chat-based portals will allow users to visit
• Companies will still require security models for IM, as not
everyone will want total openness