Talari Networks (News - Alert) recently announced that Maricopa Region 911 has deployed its WAN Virtualization solution to help the agency improve the resiliency and deployment flexibility of its 911 data network which is responsible for relaying emergency calls to police, fire and other first responders who are located within the Arizona cities of Phoenix, Mesa and Scottsdale.

Maricopa Region 911's network is made up of private Frame Relay T1s and public Internet IPSec VPNs. Talari's WAN Virtualization brings together two or more WAN connections to create an inexpensive virtual WAN with business-class (99.99 percent) reliability and predictable performance, reacting sub-second to link failures and congestion-related network problems. Due to this fast response time, dropped calls and data application time-outs are eliminated.

Before deploying Talari, the agency data network was using Frame Relay as the primary and IPSec VPNs solely as backup links that sat idle, unused except in network failures. Whenever there was a failover, the networks' routers would require up to eight seconds to transfer data to the IPSec back-up links, which is an unacceptable outage for critical 911 services, and untenable for an emergency call.

The Maricopa Region 911 fields more than 2.5 million 911 calls annually. By using Talari, Maricopa Region 911 no longer has to pay for expensive WAN links that sit idle. Network problems will now be immediately detected and mitigated almost instantly. The group's data network currently supports call-taking positions in 25 call centers. Each of these call-taking positions is made up of a workstation with multiple monitors that offer real-time call mapping information, electronic rolodex and on-the-spot voice recording. All of these positions rely on IP connectivity for some functions; while many use VoIP. The end goal is to smoothly transition all to VoIP.

Maricopa Region 911 performed an extensive evaluation and only then decided on deploying Talari's Mercury T3000s in high availability configurations at each of the two networking centers, and Mercury T700s at each call center.

The Maricopa Region 911 was established in the early 1980s and is a consortium of local municipalities in the greater Phoenix metro area that handle emergency 911 calls through 25 call centers. Talari WAN Virtualization solutions bring Internet economics to corporate WANs by transforming broadband and other affordable Internet links to deliver business-class reliability and performance predictability at consumer prices.

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