It’s easy for tech people to lapse into a false assumption, and that is that people we talk to have a similar understanding of the technologies we’re talking about at any given time.

When you work around other IT and/or communications technology people all the time, it becomes natural to think that “everybody” knows the acronyms, the underlying technology, and essentially how all this stuff works.

But that isn’t the case, especially in this increasingly specialized world. So when we here at Seamless Enterprise talk about, for example, SIP Trunking as a foundation for Unified Communication, we need to remember that not everybody knows SIP as well as some of our bloggers.

With that in mind, we’d like to point you to a TechNotes column by Gary Audin titled “SIP Essentials: What You Need to Know.” It is concise and very understandable for most anyone, and does a good job of spelling out the basics of SIP as well as its advantages for potential users.

We liked the way Audin presented the five main functions of SIP, which he lists as …
1.    Locating the user and determining which end system will be used in the communications session;
2.    Determining the user’s availability;
3.    Determining the capabilities available at the user end system, such as what media is supported;
4.    Establishing the session;
5.    Managing the session and handling call termination.

It goes on to spell out why SIP Trunking is such a compelling alternative to traditional public network trunks, such as the significant cost savings and ability to offer new and more flexible services. It also talks about security, recommending session border controllers over firewalls for a number of reasons.

It may not be the definitive “SIP 101,” but it definitely offers a lot of information in a mere 700 or so words.