Branch network influences IP telephony management
Treating a network of branch locations as if they were one large office has its benefit
Branch Office Best Practices Alert
By
Robin Gareiss
,
Network World
, 10/07/2008
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Delves into the issues vital to network managers who support branch offices and remote workers.
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One of the drivers encouraging companies to implement IP telephony throughout the organization is the ability to provide consistent
communications features from any location.
Treating a network of branch locations as if they were one large office has its benefits: Think 4-digit dialing, easy call
transfers, and paging between locations, as well as the ability to log on to a similar phone from any site to retrieve voicemail
and contact lists.
From an IT perspective, though, challenges emerge regarding how to manage this infrastructure. Typically, organizations with
fewer than five locations can monitor and manage their IP telephony system using the tools that come with their IP PBX.
But move beyond five locations, and those tools generally do not provide the detail, user interface, or sophistication most
companies require for effective performance and troubleshooting. For the largest companies, then, it’s no surprise that they
tend to look at third-party tools that offer new insight into the IP telephony application, events relating to IP telephony
performance, or the network supporting it. These tools come from companies such as CA, Clarus, EMC (which OEMs Integrated
Research’s Prognosis product), Fluke Networks, Integrated Research, NetIQ, Psytechnics, and others.
Drilling down into just SMBs, or those with fewer than 1,000 employees, the larger the rollout, the more you’ll need third-party,
specialty tools. Among companies with fewer than 250 employees, 56.4% use IP PBX monitoring tools compared to only 16.7% using
specialty tools. But in the 250-1,000-employee category, 34.4% use IP PBX tools and 48.5% use specialty tools.
Bottom line: As your VoIP project grows in number of employees and number of locations, complexity increases—particularly
as you add new real-time applications to the mix. Take the time to evaluate third-party tools, and make sure they’re in the
project budget.
Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click here for the newsletter archive.
Comments (1)
Managing IP Telephony with 3rd Party Tools Also Saves MoneyBy David Shephard of NetIQ on October 7, 2008, 11:25 amNice piece Robin we certainly see this in the market. I would also like to add a comment based on some Nemertes market analysis. Basically that without IP Telephony...
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