Voice Management

Remote monitoring and management technology can deliver significant benefit to the organization or enterprise, as long as it is performing as expected. When these processes become inefficient and cumbersome, they negate the quality experience they were designed to deliver.

AdvanTel Networks, a provider of voice and data network services, was facing just this type of problem. The existing system would perform periodic polling of managed devices for alarms and then faxed this information to AdvanTel engineers. This process proved to be inefficient and delayed notification, extended response times and negatively impacted maintenance service agreements.

In order to ensure AdvanTel could continue to meet customer expectations in terms of service and quality, they needed to replace their existing management tool. Before making a selection, the provider created an aggressive requirements list that included the support of a huge population of multi-vendor TDM and VoIP network technologies. In addition, the solution had to scale to handle the large size of their clients' large and dynamically changing network environments.

The chosen solution needed to provide key monitoring, management and service assurance features such as advanced alert engine with automatic notification of network issues; powerful historical trending and analysis features for device health monitoring; customizable, Web-based management interface with customer-specific network views; and the capability to manage both voice and data elements on converged voice networks.

With requirements in hand, AdvanTel turned to the ReliaTel Monitoring and Management solution from Tone Software (News - Alert). AdvanTel immediately recognized the value in the power and flexibility of the solution to monitor and manage TDM, VoIP and IP voice network devices from Avaya, Cisco (News - Alert), Mitel and others.

With the ReliaTel solution, AdvanTel engineers take advantage of the advanced alerting engine and robust notification capabilities that provide the critical advanced warning needed to be proactive with client problems. ReliaTel notifies support staff through multiple media methods and demonstrates powerful escalation capabilities to forward alarms to alternative engineers if the primary engineer is unavailable.

AdvanTel also enjoys providing Web access to clients so they can view their own networks without impact to other clients; strong trending and analysis reports to identify problem patterns so AdvanTel can proactively address issues; flexibility to re-brand ReliaTel management interface to allow AdvanTel to fully integrate the solution into their VantagePoint service offering.

"Our customers love the ability to log into our VantagePoint service and gain 24x7 visibility on how their network is performing," said Debbie Roark, Director of Programs. "Because the ReliaTel application can be rebranded, it fits seamlessly into our service and maintenance offerings, and enables us to deliver higher value services to our clients."

As a result of the ReliaTel implementation, the maintenance contracts offered by AdvanTel represent a strong advantage when competing for new business. The company can now represent a response time for client network management and maintenance that is better than ever and AdvanTel engineers operate much more efficiently knowing they will be rapidly notified of all client issues.