Telos Alliance recently introduced the Telos VXs, describing it as a virtualized version of its VX VoIP talk show phone system. Bryan Jones is VX product manager and senior support engineer.
This story is part of our latest Buyer’s Guide on telco and phone system products for radio.
Radio World: What exactly makes the VXs “virtualized”?
Bryan Jones: The term has become somewhat ubiquitous to mean a number of different things.
All previous iterations of the Telos VX were delivered as some piece of hardware that required on-premise installation that often limits its use to that installation location. Telos VXs is virtualized to the extent that it’s delivered as software only, allowing the customer to define what virtualized really means.
“Virtualized” could mean the customer already has some on-premise solution, or it could mean that it’s fully virtualized and running on servers that are in the cloud and that there is no on-premise hardware. A cloud-virtualized solution might mean the VXs could be used across multiple markets from a single install.
Telos VXs is delivered as an OCI-compliant container deployed in the customer’s environment using products like Docker.
RW: What are the key benefits to a radio station of this design approach?
Jones: In short, VXs offers unprecedented scalability and flexibility. To some extent, in hardware-based iterations of ANY product, total capacity is gated by the hardware platform it’s delivered on. A smaller hardware platform means a product might not scale to the desired level, whereas a larger more robust platform might mean overpaying for hardware that will never be used or never needed. Virtualization allows the hardware to scale along with the needs of the facility.
RW: What about compatibility with existing AoIP networks, from Telos or other vendors?
Jones: Telos VXs fully supports Livewire and AES67, the same as our hardware-based VX products.
RW: What else should we know?
Jones: Other benefits of virtualization allow us to support a product for potentially longer periods of time because we’re not encumbered by the hardware the product is delivered on. The hardware is abstracted by the virtualization layer, allowing for future platform flexibility.
More Info: www.telosalliance.com or +1 (216) 241-7225
