Does WebRTC Need SBC?

No it doesn't. But that doesn't mean we don't need an SBC. There's a whole area of WebRTC that is left unhandled. I've first tried to approach it at the WebRTC Conference last year (slides at the end of this post). I am not the only one complaining – if you've read what Jeremy Thomas had to say on the joys of using WebRTC to build popexpert, you'd know:

[…] But I’d love to see a more authoritative reference architecture which illustrates how to setup a TURN server, which technologies are good for signaling, etc.

This makes it rather heartening to see Chad Hart from Acme Packet write about the various types of gateways for WebRTC. In Chad's case, it continues with a set of questions that gets the reader understand he really needs an SBC from a large company (hint hint). It did raise a question for me – does WebRTC need SBC?

The straight forward answer is no. it doesn't. This doesn't mean that all WebRTC deployments don't need an SBC – just that most of them won't. Scoping this discussion, let's go back to the basic question of where WebRTC plays. VoIP vendors will treat it as yet-another-interface, which I think will end up being less than 20% of WebRTC related interactions. For these, you probably do need SBC – but what about the rest? Do I need an SBC for a call button on my website? An overkill. Do I need an SBC for a dating site using WebRTC? Probably not. All calls are point-to-point, none really go into my enterprise, so there's nothing really to protect Gaming? No SBC. I guess most of the companies I already interviewed wouldn't gain much from an SBC. They might need a gateway or some other infrastructure component, but not an SBC. An SBC is a firewall for VoIP coupled with a gateway. What happens when firewall vendors add support for WebRTC? This will be easier to achieve than doing the same for SIP or H.323 on the firewall. If (and when) it happens, will SBC be needed for those who just require WebRTC? I am not convinced. Of course for that to happen, the likes of Check Point, Cisco and Juniper need to get their offering updated and support WebRTC. The fact that WebRTC is part of HTML5, and instantly available to anyone makes me believe they will take that plunge. Acme Packet has done the wise thing – joining the WebRTC wagon as soon as possible. Other SBC vendors should do the same, and hope that the firewall won't end up eating their business 5 years from today. http://www.slideshare.net/tsahil/the-missing-webrtc-infrastructure-14686731