There are numerous emerging security threats that can challenge the integrity of an IP telephony solution. Security vulnerabilities of a network are exposed before, during and after a system is installed. To help address these challenges for clients, NextiraOne is extending its expertise in voice, data and IP telephony engineering to introduce a full suite of information security consulting services. The services are designed to help clients maintain the integrity, confidentiality, availability and reliability of their converged communications environments.

"Information security is an integral part of our overall services value for our clients. We recognize that implementing proper security countermeasures is a critical step to ensuring the success of any convergence initiative," said NextiraOne President and CEO Dale Booth. "With careful planning and precise engineering, our clients' enterprise IP telephony systems can easily integrate with different information security tools to become as or more secure than existing PSTN systems, depending on the requirements of the application. Our new suite of consulting services was created to help our clients properly and successfully navigate to and through an IP telephony environment."

NextiraOne's five security consulting services provide a concrete return on investment across the IP telephony implementation lifecycle. From a pre- implementation perspective, NextiraOne offers two assessment services. The IP Telephony Pre-Implementation Assessment Service assesses the feasibility of VoIP and IP telephony voice communications and applications from a network performance and information security perspective. This offering yields specific recommendations that are intended to help clients ensure the successful implementation and performance of an IP telephony solution. The second pre-implementation solution, the IP Telephony Network & Vulnerability Assessment Service, provides a technical, risk and vulnerability assessment and corresponding recommendation to clients that are considering the purchase of an IP telephony solution or who have been working on an existing IP telephony implementation. Clients benefit from recommendations focused on alleviating risk mitigation concerns and addressing required security controls and countermeasures.

The post-IP telephony implementation services include the IP Telephony Post-Implementation Assessment, IP Telephony Compliancy Service and IP Telephony Architecture & Framework Service. The IP Telephony Post- Implementation Assessment is designed for companies with an existing IP telephony implementation that may be experiencing performance and security issues. This service provides clients with information regarding performance enhancements and known vulnerabilities and recommendations for system administration as well as ongoing support to make the converged environment perform at its optimum level. The second consulting service, the IP Telephony Compliancy Service, is for companies with an existing IP telephony system that are under a new or existing compliancy law, mandate or regulation that requires documented security controls and an IT security architecture and framework. The third service, the IP Telephony Security Architecture & Framework Service, helps clients create and implement information security policies, standards, procedures and guidelines for IP telephony systems that are part of their IT infrastructures.

"These new consulting services allow us to address a broader scope of our clients' needs while incorporating proper security controls and countermeasures into the IP telephony planning process," adds Booth. "This allows our clients to mitigate risk and align security priorities with the key business drivers that led them down the convergence path."

Additional managed security services, which complement the consulting practice, will be introduced during the next few months as part of NextiraOne's maintenance of high voice and data implementation standards.