24 June 2022

BNS Group Achieves 100% Cloud Migration and Saves 50% On Ongoing IT Costs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory – Australia’s leading Enterprise SMS text messaging software developer has left the world of physical data centres behind and partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to fully migrate both the business and its technology solutions into a cloud environment.

Starting its business in 1989 developing fax server software, BNS added enterprise SMS text messaging server software to its product offering in 2009.   Today BNS Group provides enterprise SIP based FAX and SMS communications cloud based software solutions to some of Australia’s leading government agencies and corporations.

In a significant restructuring of the business operations and client infrastructure, BNS Group has achieved what many similarly placed organisations have not; 100% migration to a cloud-based environment.

Following months of research and discussion, Co-Founders Laurence Buchanan and Clive Pereira focused on simplicity and efficiency in their move to AWS, opting to build new virtual machines and relicensing software development tools rather than what other organisations appeared to be doing, in migrating, lifting, and shifting.

What appeared to be a significant obstacle in replacing their physical Optus SIP trunk in the data centre was made easy with Switch Connect CEO Rohan Milne, who commissioned a hosted session border controller supporting T.38 Fax protocol, resulting in BNS Group’s AWS-based fax technology being able to talk directly to Switch Connect.

“Replacing the Optus SIP trunk in the data centre was probably the most complex part of our migration. We had to find a reliable cloud based T.38 service to the PSTN for our fax server technology to use. As Switch Connect was handling our MS Teams PSTN calling already, this was just an easy addition to our monthly service plan” said Laurence Buchanan CEO BNS.

About BNS Group:

BNS Group is a privately owned company based in Sydney and Canberra focused on secure enterprise FAX and SMS messaging. BNS manufactures commercial software products on the Windows platform which are licenced to customers and reseller partners globally.

BNS’s customers include Australian Taxation Office, Defence, Computershare, Panalpina Freight, Suncorp Group: Suncorp Bank and Insurance, AAMI, GIO & Shannons.

BNS has been a certified Microsoft developer partner since the early 1990’s.

To learn more about BNS Group, visit

https://www.bnsgroup.com.au/about/

About AWS ISV Accelerate Program:

The AWS ISV Accelerate Program is a co-sell program for organisations that provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS. The program helps you drive new business and accelerate sales cycles by connecting participating independent software vendors (ISVs) with the AWS Sales organisation.

To learn more about AWS ISV Accelerate Program, visit https://aws.amazon.com/partners/programs/isv-accelerate

Media Contact:

Laurence Buchanan
Tel. +61 412 869 531
Email: ceo@bnsgroup.com.au

1 February 2022, BNS and Switch Connect announce the availability of a cloud-based T.38 fax service to solve the issues customers face when migrating away from legacy telephony to solutions such as Microsoft Teams PSTN Calling.

BNS first identified the problem customers were facing in 2020 when customers were fast-tracking Microsoft Teams for remote working and collaboration. Some of those customers decided to implement PSTN calling for Teams but found no fax capability and could not completely replace their old PBX systems.

Customers, particularly in: healthcare, finance, banking, insurance, and government, need to ensure that fax data handling complies with privacy and data sovereignty laws in Australia, so outsourcing fax to a provider is not allowed.

The solution was for BNS to find a suitable service provider who could deliver a SIP service to any cloud provider specifically designed for enterprise faxing;  then couple that with the BNS Fax server technology within the customer’s cloud tenancy.

“We selected Switch Connect because they offered a Ribbon Software-based SBC in their cloud, which was co-located at a tier 1 telecommunications provider in Australia,” said Laurence Buchanan, CEO of BNS.

BNS being a Ribbon partner for many years with SBCs, which it had deployed in large accounts over the years, was confident that the solution would work.

The design allows the customer to implement the BNS Fax server in their own cloud tenancy (AWS, Azure, etc) and utilise reliable SIP communications to Switch Connect, who can deliver fax over the service with minimal jitter or latency.

“BNS has been a Teams Calling customer of ours for a while, and we were constantly discussing the issues with fax and Microsoft Teams; we got to a point of saying we just need to build something that works and is reliable for our customers and also for BNS’s legacy on-premise customers,” said Rohan Milne Switch Connect CEO.

The solution allows:

• The customer to maintain complete control and security of their fax images because nothing is stored at Switch Connect (SC).
• SC can host existing 1800\1300 fax numbers
• SC can host existing normal fax numbers subject to porting capabilities at the customer end.

Switch Connect can also provide Teams PSTN calling as a service for customers wanting a PSTN service for their Teams implementation.

Technical information is available at https://msxfaxkb.bnsgroup.com.au/switchconnectt38service

BNS Group website:  www.bnsgroup.com.au

Switch Connect website: www.switchconnect.com.au