The Cisco VG350 High-Density Analog Gateway is a Cisco IOS ® Software-based analog phone gateway. It connects analog phones, fax machines, modems, and speakerphones to an enterprise voice system based on Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM). The tight integration with the IP-based phone system is advantageous for increased manageability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Businesses can also use the Cisco VG350 with Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express to effectively augment an integrated services router (ISR) environment. Either topology environment will support business needs for high concentration of analog voice ports for modem calls, fax calls, and analog supplementary services (Figure 2).
The Cisco VG350 offers Cisco IOS Software manageability on analog phone lines to enable them to be used as extensions to the Cisco Unified Communications Manager or Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express system. The Cisco VG350 is offered in a 19-inch rack-mount chassis form.
Features and Benefits
• Cisco IOS Software-based hardware: The hardware includes uniform Cisco command-line interface (CLI) and Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3) support for ease of gateway configuration and operation.
• Robust voice quality: Cisco experience in providing toll-quality packet-voice service helps ensure that the Cisco VG350 provides the clear, robust voice quality end users have come to expect from telephony services.
• Investment protection: Customers can continue to use existing analog phones, fax machines, and modems while taking advantage of IP telephony. Basic analog phone connectivity is needed when the infrastructure (wiring) or application does not support or require IP phones. The Cisco VG350 is the ideal platform to support centralized and highly concentrated analog phone line deployments, allowing organizations to deploy IP telephony without having to purchase IP phones for all users and to continue using existing devices. The Cisco VG350 can also be used in a Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express environment and migrated to Cisco Unified Communications Manager deployment with 100-percent investment protection.
• High availability: The Cisco VG350 has three Gigabit Ethernet ports to enable link redundancy configurations toward the LAN.
Customers will experience less voice downtime due to WAN link failure. The Cisco VG350 has built-in Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) failover to an H.323 connection to a Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) router. This failover will maintain voice service for analog endpoints if the WAN link fails and looses connectivity to the Cisco Unified Communications Manager.
• Cisco VG350 powered by high-performance multicore processors: In this platform, power redundancy is available by installing an optional integrated Cisco Redundant Power System (RPS), thereby decreasing network downtime and protecting the network from power-supply failures.
• Reduced barrier to entry: The Cisco VG350 provides a low-cost alternative for low-end analog phones and allows organizations to take advantage of IP telephony with a lower overall IP telephony investment.
