Network Equipment Technologies Inc. (NET) boasts a UX Series platform that has met all pre-requisites for Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync Server 2010, according to the Survivable Branch Appliance or SBA v2 specification.

NET’s UX Series have fulfilled the criteria set by the SBA specification, which includes modifications facilitating the use of cheap processors and supporting the virtualization capability with processors having more power. An assortment of enterprises, ranging from very small branch offices to large campuses, will be able to apply the capabilities of the UX Series platform, typically used by UC and enterprise session border controller applications.

"The SBA v2 qualification broadens NET's addressable market by enabling us to offer small branch offices a cost-effective solution for an SBA in the form of the UX1000 with Intel (News - Alert) Atom processor,” said Kevin Isacks, Chief Development Officer, NET. “It also allows multiple virtualized applications to run on the true embedded appliance platform in the case of the more-powerful versions of the UX Series platform.”

An affordable Survivable Branch Appliance is available by the UX1000 with an Intel Atom processor, suitable for smaller branches. The UX1000, in combination with a more-powerful Intel Celeron processor and featuring virtualization capability, powers medium-sized offices. A performance-rich, incorporated solution with virtualization capability is offered by the UX2000 with an Intel Core i7 processor and caters to large offices.

“This specification has the potential to reduce the cost for deploying SBA in branches of 25 users or less,” said Ashima Singhal, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Lync. “Furthermore, NET's (News - Alert) use of the virtualization capability available in the new specification can offer additional cost savings to the customer. We are delighted to participate in announcing the availability of SBA v2 on the UX Series at Enterprise Connect (News - Alert)."