You are here: Administration > Infinity services > About the Distributed Gateway service

About the Pexip Distributed Gateway service

The Pexip Distributed Gateway service enables endpoints to make calls to other devices or systems that use different protocols and media formats.

Traditional hardware gateways are often expensive and are typically centralized in a single location. This means that remote endpoints making gateway calls have to route media over a WAN or over the internet which is costly and uses a lot of bandwidth.

The software-based Pexip Distributed Gateway service allows for a very cost-efficient deployment of local gateway/transcoding resources in every location. This can result in an improved user experience because of reduced latency as there is no longer a need to hairpin media back to a centralized datacenter. The other benefit is reduced WAN bandwidth usage — again due to not having to hairpin media. Reduced bandwidth usage allows an enterprise to deploy more video systems without having to upgrade the WAN infrastructure.

The Pexip Distributed Gateway service supports industry-standard protocols and emerging technologies, including H.323, SIP, Microsoft Lync / Skype for Business (MS-SIP), WebRTC and RTMP.

For example, you can use the Pexip Distributed Gateway to enable:

  • users of Infinity Connect clients to place a point-to-point call to a SIP endpoint
  • Lync / Skype for Business users in your enterprise to make calls to, and receive calls from, virtually any other type of endpoint

It can also as a gateway between Lync / Skype for Business AVMCU multi-party conferences and standards-based endpoints, allowing:

  • incoming calls to be routed directly into a Lync / Skype for Business AVMCU multi-party conference
  • participants in a Lync / Skype for Business AVMCU multi-party conference to dial out to (i.e. invite) other non-Lync / Skype for Business participants.

See Configuring Pexip Infinity as a Lync / Skype for Business gateway for examples of how to configure the Pexip Distributed Gateway to integrate with Lync / Skype for Business.

How it works

Each Conferencing Node can act as a gateway service for placing calls between devices, in addition to the multi-party conferencing services offered by Pexip Infinity.

To enable devices to call other devices or systems via the Pexip Distributed Gateway, you must configure Call Routing Rules. These rules specify which calls should be interworked, for which protocols, and to where they should be routed.

Incoming calls received by Pexip Infinity are routed as follows:

  1. Pexip Infinity receives an incoming call via one of its Conferencing Nodes.
  2. It checks whether the destination alias belongs to any Pexip Infinity Virtual Meeting Rooms, Virtual Auditoriums or Virtual Receptions; if so, it directs the call to that service.
  3. If the alias does not belong to any of the above services, Pexip Infinity checks the Call Routing Rules to see if the alias matches any rules specified there for incoming calls. If so, it places an outgoing call to the destination alias according to the rule's call target settings (which protocol and call control system to use, whether to route to registered devices only, etc).

This means that if an alias matches both a Virtual Meeting Room and a Call Routing Rule, the former will always take precedence and the call will be routed to the Virtual Meeting Room. You must therefore ensure that any regular expressions used in a Call Routing Rule do not unintentionally overlap with any aliases used by Virtual Meeting Rooms, Virtual Auditoriums or Virtual Receptions.

The stage where Call Routing Rules are applied in Pexip Infinity's call routing logic for incoming calls is highlighted in the following diagram:

If your environment includes a PSTN gateway or uses an ITSP (Internet telephony service provider), consider the potential for toll fraud if you have Call Routing Rules that can route calls to the PSTN gateway or ITSP, or if you allow conference participants to dial out to other participants via the PSTN gateway or ITSP. See PSTN gateways and toll fraud for more information.

Note that:

  • By default, the same Conferencing Node that received the incoming call is used to place the outgoing call. However, you can configure the matching rule to place the call from a Conferencing Node in a specific location. As with all calls, signaling and media may be handled by different Conferencing Nodes in that location.
  • Bandwidth restrictions can be applied to gateway calls; you do this by applying the restriction to the relevant Call Routing Rule.
  • If the Pexip Distributed Gateway receives DTMF signaling from an inbound call, it will generate similar DTMF on the outbound call.
  • Call Routing Rules may also be applied when dialing out from a conference to a new participant (where Automatic routing has been selected). When configuring your rules, consider whether the rule is to apply to incoming calls, outgoing calls or to both incoming and outgoing calls.