Prognosis IP Telephony Manager

Consensus Software Awards

Brief product description

Cisco's Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID) delivers a powerful new alternative for organizations world-wide. An open implementation of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, AVVID will propagate exciting, innovative customer-centric applications, including many that do not exist today. This is all made possible by the seamless integration of voice and data networks. Cisco CallManager is the primary application in the AVVID environment.

PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager is a comprehensive software solution for managing Cisco CallManager and the surrounding AVVID environment. IP Telephony Manager works in organizations of all sizes - from small companies and departments to enterprise-wide, clustered server implementations.

Figure 1: PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager 
Provides simple, comprehensive management of Cisco CallManager and its surrounding technology

IP telephony demands extremely high service levels from a diverse and broad range of technology components. These include infrastructure, applications and IP clients. PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager optimizes availability and performance by ensuring all system components are operating efficiently and within acceptable limits. It achieves this through a unique, holistic approach, which incorporates five key capabilities:

1. In-depth application and infrastructure information
   IP Telephony Manager provides comprehensive real-time performance, status and event information covering the IP telephony environment - from the network and servers through to SQL Server, IIS, TFTP, services, heartbeats and the Cisco CallManager application itself. It also generates and maintains availability status and statistical information for all applications and their sub-components. Simple UP/DOWN status indicators immediately identify failing applications, quickly isolating affected components. Other statistics identify hourly and daily service levels as well as the Mean Time Between Failures for all key applications and sub-components in the environment.

2. Intuitive visualization and navigation
   IP Telephony Manager delivers 'everything at a glance', providing a clear, visual representation of the Cisco CallManager cluster, partner applications and servers within the ecosystem. Sophisticated, yet simple visualization and navigation techniques provide a logical, 'top-down' view of the entire Cisco CallManager environment. Context-sensitive drill-downs and link buttons help users to quickly locate problems and identify their cause. By simplifying and integrating such a diverse range of information, IP telephony Manager brings powerful diagnostic trouble-shooting capabilities to Cisco CallManager environment.
   
   
   
     Figure 2: IP Telephony Manager integrates, simplifies and presents information about the Cisco CallManager ecosystem as well as partner applications and additional servers.
   
   

3. Rapid, automated problem detection and correction
   IP Telephony Manager maximizes availability and performance through an integrated set of problem detection and resolution capabilities. These ensure any problem, or potential problem, is detected and resolved in the shortest possible time. Thresholds continually monitor all application and infrastructure activity generating exception events when pre-defined conditions are exceeded. Once detected, IP Telephony Manager ensures problems are resolved quickly and efficiently through the use of: 

   Automation: It can take immediate corrective action without operator intervention. For example; restart any failing processes or services, identify and restart processes with memory and handle leaks, and monitor heartbeat rates.
   

   Notification: Animated and audio alerts notify operators of problems, guiding them directly to the cause. Integrated paging facilities deliver notification to recipients based on user-defined personnel scheduling and escalation profiles. Advanced features include timeouts, 24x7 scheduling, and multi-level escalation. Multi-level escalation ensures appropriate pre-determined individuals also receive notification of issues that have not been acknowledged or addressed within specific time frames. 

4. Automated reporting and data capture 
   IP Telephony Manager automatically captures data for on-demand replay, greatly assisting trouble-shooting and 'after the fact' diagnostics. It also generates HTML-based reports covering phone and call activity, server and network performance, software inventory and service level reporting, for any defined period of time. It consolidates this information to provide daily, weekly or monthly performance, problem and availability summaries. 
   
   

5. Simple management of large heterogeneous and distributed environments
   Most importantly, PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager is built to operate in distributed environments with multiple servers and server clusters. Figure 4 shows a typical Cisco CallManager implementation with multiple distributed clusters. IP Telephony Manager is based on a peer-to-peer architecture, which is specifically designed to operate in large distributed environments.
   
   Users can access any or all servers locally or remotely with location transparency, efficiently providing management accesses to any server from any point at any time. IP Telephony Manager can easily be configured to meet local and/or centralized management requirements. Combined with its fault-tolerant, scalable and flexible design, it is the ideal solution to manage the large numbers of distributed servers required for enterprise-wide implementations.
   
   
   

Security

In large distributed environments, security is a paramount concern. PROGNOSIS provides flexible security and access control to all managed resources. The PROGNOSIS security subsystem strictly controls user privileges and access to all managed servers and PROGNOSIS functionality. That functionality includes the ability to capture and replay databases, define and start thresholds, create and start automation scripts and issue remote commands. Grant and revoke statements strictly define access and user privilege levels. 

The ability to issue remote commands from the user interface is one example where PROGNOSIS functionality is strictly controlled. The PROGNOSIS security subsystem allows individuals responsible for managing IP telephony to set specific levels of access to this functionality. It can be blocked entirely or it can allow operations to issue only pre-defined commands, while granting administrators full access to all command creation and execution functionality. 

Security configurations are centrally created and administered, then distributed and enforced locally by each server. This security model minimizes administration overhead while allowing each server to operate independently. 

Innovation

Creating a business advantage/breaking new ground
The emergence of VoIP promises not only to lower costs, but enable exciting new applications. This new technology also brings with it new challenges. Relative to traditional computing applications, IP telephony applications demand a truly critical computing environment. That means 24x7 availability and 24x7 performance. Neither can be compromised. 

Managing IP telephony requires a new breed of sophisticated, yet easy to use solutions. 

PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager is unique in its ability to provide fully integrated management of Cisco CallManager and its surrounding technology.

We believe it is the only product available, capable of pulling together information from such a broad range of sources, including hardware, software and network.

New technology

Innovation can be demonstrated in IP Telephony Manager in terms of:

• The unique peer-to-peer architecture which underpins all PROGNOSIS solutions. As applications become increasingly more complex and distributed, the need for a flexible solution, such as IP Telephony Manager - which allows management from anywhere at any time - becomes more urgent.

• The inherent high availability, fault-tolerant software design incorporated into the solution. PROGNOSIS has been proven in what can accurately be described as the world's highest availability environments - organizations such as banks, stock exchanges and telecommunications companies. IP Telephony Manager brings the same commitment to availability and performance, to Cisco CallManager and Cisco AVVID environments.

• Its ability to concisely integrate the management of all components within the Cisco CallManager and Cisco AVVID environments - including the CallManager application and third-party applications, servers, network components, operating system and IP clients.

Performance

Exceptional product support

IR has an established, world-class support organization that is able to provide 24 x 7 technical support and customer service. Its support offices are located in Sydney, Denver and London, and backed up by an international network of distributors.

Professionally executed code

IR's Sydney development group is composed of teams of highly experienced professionals with exceptional development skills, particularly in Tandem, UNIX and Windows environments. 

IP Telephony Manager uses the same extensible architecture on which all PROGNOSIS solutions are built. IR has invested some 200 person-years developing this architecture.

Successful beta testing

Several large customer sites in North America are currently conducting trials of IP Telephony Manager.

IP Telephony Manager is being delivered in conjunction with the latest, recently released version of Cisco CallManager, (v3.05).

Real user benefits

Whether implementing Cisco CallManager environments with 100 phones or 100,000 phones, PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager:

• Accelerates and simplifies Cisco CallManager implementation.

• Visual representation speeds the installation process, quickly identifying improperly configured or missing components.

• Reduces infrastructure costs by optimizing resource utilization.

• Identification and tracking of phone connectivity allows users to optimize IP phone license usage. Built-in capacity planning and inventory analysis ensures accurate decision-making.

• Enhances system availability and performance.

• In-depth, at-your-fingertips information enables proactive monitoring of the entire Cisco CallManager environment. Having the right information in the right place, at the right time, allows the user to quickly understand and resolve issues affecting performance and ultimately, call quality.

• Improves productivity of key personnel.

• Built-in automation takes care of day-to-day tasks such as reporting phone usage, event analysis, or server performance. Many potential performance issues can be minimized or resolved without manual intervention - before users are impacted.

• Simplifies management of Cisco CallManager.

• Integrated alerting, visualization, notification, automation and reporting capabilities that span the entire enterprise, combine to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of Cisco CallManager support personnel.

Testimony from Cisco

Bill Erdman, Director of Marketing within Cisco's Enterprise Voice Business Unit recently stated, "PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager, by Integrated Research, is significant for Cisco customers who have deployed Cisco CallManager and require comprehensive health, vital statistics, and alert management capabilities of these systems."
"IP Telephony Manager keeps track of major system and application failures and offers early warning indicators to ensure 24 x 7 services with Cisco CallManager installations."

Potential

Designed for international use

Like all PROGNOSIS products, IP Telephony Manager is designed for international use. It is already in use in North America.

With wholly-owned subsidiaries in the US and UK, IR already has the necessary infrastructure in place to market IP Telephony Manager at the international level.

Enterprise structured for growth

IR is a rapidly growing company, achieving 36% compound growth for the last three years, and double-digit growth for the last eight. The company listed on the ASX, commencing trading in December 2000.

The company is profitable and entirely self-funded. 

Going forward, the IP telephony market represents a significant new market opportunity for IR.

Identified potential markets

Estimates of the size and growth rates of the emerging IP telephony market vary widely, though nearly everyone tracking it feels the technology has matured and is positioned for rapid growth. Virtually all global markets are participating in this growth.

Market analysts predict that IP-based PABX systems will eventually become the standard, and that the rate of growth in sales of those systems could be explosive. Given the importance of availability and performance in these environments, the market for systems management software for IP Telephony will also be significant.

Other awards or recognition received/ Success in home or export markets

Integrated Research has achieved international success with its flagship product suite, PROGNOSIS.

Key corporate highlights include:

• Wholly-owned subsidiaries in USA and Europe.

• Global sales and distribution network that markets PROGNOSIS into 60 countries worldwide.

• Acknowledged global leader in the Compaq NonStop Himalaya (Tandem) systems and application management arena.

• Over 6,000 PROGNOSIS licenses installed in over 40 countries.

• Achieved double digit growth for the last 8 years.

• Nearly 200 person-years effort invested in developing a fault-tolerant, peer-to-peer management architecture.

• Proven commitment to R & D, and a successful history of commercializing R&D projects.

• Strategic partnerships with Compaq, Cisco, EDS, IBM/Tivoli, IDX and SCO

• Winner of the prestigious Australian Exporter of the Year Award - Information Industries in 1988.

• Invited into the Australian Technology Showcase (ATS) in October 1999 and named as one of the top six Australian technology companies at the ATS Patrons Award ceremony in May 2000 - innovation was one of the key criteria by which IR was judged.

Collaborating with Cisco

IR is working closely with Cisco in the commercialization and on-going development of IP Telephony Manager. 

Bill Erdman, Director of Marketing within Cisco's Enterprise Voice Business Unit recently stated, "We are very pleased with the development efforts that Integrated Research has put forward regarding PROGNOSIS' integration with Cisco AVVID. They reinforce Cisco's commitment to scalability, availability and intelligence for a truly converged infrastructure."

Other information

web-site www.ir.com 
 www.ir.com/avvd.asp  

The success of PROGNOSIS is evident…

The world's largest bank, stock exchange, telecommunications company, computer hardware manufacturer and ISP; and

• Over 50 of the world's 500 largest companies; and

•  7 of the world's 10 largest telecommunications companies; and

• 4 of the world's 10 largest stock exchanges; and

Hundreds of other companies in over 40 countries…all rely on PROGNOSIS.

Because of its flexible, open architecture and the ease with which it can be integrated with third-party applications, PROGNOSIS is an attractive offering for solution providers.

When Compaq Computer Corporation needed a sophisticated, high-end storage solution, IR was able to deliver, extending the power of PROGNOSIS. The resulting product, NonStop Automated Storage Manager (ASM) is now marketed by Compaq's global sales force.

IDX Systems Corporation, one of the world's largest developers of healthcare information systems, incorporates PROGNOSIS with the sale of its LastWord™ healthcare management system, to ensure the highest levels of availability.

IP Telephony Manager is another example of IR's ability to customize its products to provide a solution for a specific solution provider's environment.

Requested method of presentation

Demonstrate PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager in our North Sydney offices.

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