Avaya Aura Device Services

Beginning with release 8 Avaya will be moving away from the Avaya Utility Services platform (aka Utility Server) as a means to manage Avaya endpoints. Instead the Avaya Aura Device Services (AADS) platform has been made available. The Utility Server did have some cool functions but the AADS platform really expands on the ability to fold the Avaya endpoint management into System Manager as well as carry forward some of the functions we have come to love on the Utility server. 

AADS resides with Session Manager even though it is deployed as a separate OVA (virtual machine). You can deploy AADS through VMware, Solution Deployment Manager or Amazon Web Services (AWS),.

Some Services Provided by AADS

AADS can provide the following services to the Avaya Equinox® family clients where applicable:

• Connect to an LDAP server using a contact service that will allow you to add, delete or update a contact. Perform an enterprise search for those contacts.
• Set and retrieve information, user preferred names and pictures. The picture service will allow you to create, delete and update user pictures used by clients.
• The notification service gives a command platform for endpoints to use SIP to subscribe to events from various services using a single event subscription.
• The dynamic configuration service is one of the most important functions provided by AADS. This allows you the administrator to customize internal groups, settings, IP addresses that are handed out to Equinox Clients upon their initial installation. Greatly reducing setup time and saving time and resources while contributing to a consistent and pleasurable user experience.

For end users

Users will login to the client with their email address and provide their enterprise LDAP (Active Directory) credentials. The dynamic configuration service will allow all settings that need to be communicated to the client to be handled without any user or administrator effort.

Utility server functions carried forward

In addition to the new features listed above AADS will still allow managing the 46xxettings.txt file and the firmware images needed for the various Avaya endpoints that we are accustomed to on the Utility server. This is a utility that can be enabled on the AADS server when we install it or upgrade it.

 If you have an AADS server installed the URL's are in different locations

 https://<AADS IP address>:8543/admin.html

 In order to ensure that these Utility services are running on the AADS server we can use the following commands from Linux. Get to your server using a shell session and type the following.

H.323 backup function on the AADS server

The ability to backup H.323 phones is one of the functions carried over from the Utility Server to AADS. This function needs to be enabled from Linux with the command below.

 This will open up port 80 on the AADS server to support Avaya H.323 phones and their backup function when the BRURI setting is enabled in the settings file.

Summary

The addition of the AADS server to the Avaya Aura suite will enable customers to roll out Avaya Equinox clients to users using existing enterprise directory as a means of authentication. It carries forward previous functions of the Utility server while adding new functions to finally centralize endpoint management into the Avaya Aura core. We are excited to see this development and will check back in soon with new information about the AADS platform as it becomes available.