A Guide to Managing Enterprise Unified Communications

Transcription

1 January 2007 by Vanessa Alvarez, Associate George Hamilton, Enabling Technologies Enterprise, IT Infrastructure Management Director, A Guide to Managing Enterprise Unified Communications The Bottom Line: Key Concepts: Who Should Read:.As enterprises look to deploy a unified communications platform, they must thoroughly evaluate vendors in this emerging space. It is important to choose a vendor with a management solution that can meet the demands of a comprehensive platform FMC, unified communications, connectivity VP of IT, operations, IT and telecom manager Practice Leader: Zeus Kerravala, Enterprise Research Senior Vice President, zkerravala@yankeegroup.com, Executive Summary In 2006, unified communications was at the forefront of the telecommunications industry (see Exhibit 1). Questions regarding the benefits of unified communications no longer loom because vendors extensively demonstrated its benefits throughout the year. Using unified communications, organizations will be more responsive, will deliver more value to their customers and partners, and will adapt easily and quickly to take advantage of market opportunities. Exhibit 1. Title of this exhibit Source: Source for this exhibit VoIP Today Unified IP Communications Integrated management of IP fabric, call control and messaging, collaborative services and applications Management Needs Lab Testing Pre-deployment testing, network audits and assessment Production Service assurance, systems mangement Pilot Active testing and passive monitoring, QoS Time Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Yankee Group published this content for the sole use of Yankee Group subscribers. It may not be duplicated, reproduced or retransmitted in whole or in part without the express permission of Yankee Group, 31 St. James Ave., Boston, MA Phone: (617) Fax: (617) info@yankeegroup.com. All rights reserved. All opinions and estimates herein constitute our judgment as of this date and are subject to change without notice.

2 The challenge for many enterprises is to scale the limited trials of IP communications components and to develop a comprehensive strategy for implementing unified IP communications across their organization. To successfully deploy a strategy for and implement unified communications, both enterprises and service providers must unify their IP communications and their management. In this Yankee Group Report, we discuss the challenges of managing unified communications as well as how enterprises and service providers can reduce their time to value and accelerate their return on investment by adopting unified communications management. We also evaluate key management requirements, profile vendors and provide recommendations for network management vendors, service providers and enterprises. 2 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

3 January 2007 Table of Contents I. IP Telephony Adoption Steadily Increases 3 II. The Need for Unified Management 4 Unified Communications Management Challenges... 5 III. Overview of Unified IP Communications Management 6 Management Requirements... 6 Benefits of Unified Communications Management... 7 IV. Enterprise Solution Provider Profiles 8 Cisco... 8 EMC Smarts... 9 InfoVista Integrated Research V. Carrier-Class Service Provider Profiles 12 Brix Networks CA VI. Emerging Players 13 Clarus Systems Fluke Networks NetQoS Opsware VII. Conclusions and Recommendations 14 Recommendations for Enterprises Recommendations for Vendors VIII. Further Reading 15 I. IP Telephony Adoption Steadily Increases According to the Yankee Group 2006 US Economics of IP Communications Survey, adoption of IP telephony is widespread. Survey respondents believe the convergence of voice and data will enable more collaborative applications, which will ultimately result in increased worker productivity and efficiency. As a result, we forecast large-scale VoIP deployments in the next 12 to 24 months (see Exhibit 2). Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

4 Exhibit 2. Timetable for Mass Unified Communications Deployments Source: Yankee Group 2006 US Economics of IP Communications Survey We have budgeted to install systems within the next 12 months 17% We plan to test with a small number of users in the next 12 months 23% We are evaluating our options and plan to install or test in 13 to 24 months 60% However, organizations still struggle to move beyond the pilot and limited implementations and adopt a universal communications platform. While we continue to see concern among organizations about the same issues (e.g., security), one of the more persistent factors continues to be the fragmented nature of network management tools. Enterprises have had to depend on a fragmented, best-of-breed set of management tools to help them test, deploy and monitor their IP communications. An organization can easily deploy a half-dozen tools to manage network infrastructure, IP telephony platform, call messaging, call quality and applications. The best available tools continue to lack the most important qualities capabilities and integration. This is largely due to how network management tools have evolved to support emerging technologies. The first step in successfully deploying a universal communications platform is to develop the necessary management capabilities; the next step is to integrate these capabilities and build operational discipline. Although vendors, to some extent, have been successful in developing the necessary capabilities, we have reached a critical juncture in unified communications and must take the next step. Enterprises need to adopt a comprehensive strategy for deploying unified communications. More importantly, vendors must deliver the management solutions that enable organizations to deploy unified communications successfully. II. The Need for Unified Management IP communications managers face a myriad of choices in management tools. Equipment vendors, which have developed a long-term strategy for unified communications, are integrating management capabilities into their equipment. Traditional network management software vendors are adding new capabilities to their software, and emerging startup companies are delivering niche tools to fill product and technology gaps. The complexity of this market demands that vendors deliver a more integrated set of tools with common views into the various components of the IP communications platform. 4 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

5 January 2007 Unified Communications Management Challenges The management of unified communications is fragmented and uncoordinated. Most enterprises use a collection of different tools and try to integrate them with a manager of managers (MoM) (see Exhibit 3). The tools consist of a mix of existing network and systems management tools as well as the individual tools included with each component of the unified communications platform. Network and systems administrators are responsible for integrating each product and building operational support practices. In many cases, telecommunications managers and data network managers have adversarial relationships and have little visibility into each other s world. They use separate management tools and struggle to share management and systems information. In particular, provisioning and configuration management are extremely siloed. Most enterprises use several disparate configuration management tools for provisioning and change management. In most cases, this approach results in manual tasks, poor visibility and inefficient support processes that lengthen troubleshooting time, diminish performance and undermine confidence in the system. A major reason for this insufficient management approach is because organizations think VoIP is just another application. As a result, organizations first try to manage it with their existing tools. To some extent, it is true that unified communications are just additional applications, but real-time applications for voice, video and collaboration behave very differently. Managers cannot assume the performance of these applications from the availability of the infrastructure. Additionally, performance issues do not merely slow down these applications they become unusable. In most cases, managers find they have performance issues, but lack the capabilities to isolate and fix them. Exhibit 3. Unified Communication Management Source: Yankee Group, 2007 Data Collection Agents, Real-Time Control Protocol/Extended Reports (RTCP/XR), K-factor, SNMP, Netflow, IP SLA, etc. Probes/Data Collection Management View MoM IP WAN Data Aggregation Data Correlation and Analysis Configuration Management Service View Call Control and Messaging Rich Media and Collaboration Applications IP Fabric IP Fabric Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 5

6 Unfortunately, many enterprises existing network management tools are not adapting quickly enough to fill the gaps. A catch-22 scenario represents the current market for unified communications management tools: Enterprises are not aggressively pursuing their deployments because the vendors they rely on for their management tools are not actively investing in unified communications management. Management software vendors are not investing heavily in unified communications management tools because they view the market as growing too slowly to justify their investment. In addition, most management software providers today lack the capabilities and knowledge to manage real-time applications. Furthermore, education and product development (build or buy) will require a great deal of investment. III. Overview of Unified IP Communications Management Yankee Group believes the lifecycle approach to IP communications management is the best approach (see Exhibit 4). This approach represents a plan, design, implementation and operation process. It is not enough for network managers to focus on IP telephony alone; they need to subscribe to the network lifecycle and develop a strategy that enables them to manage the availability and performance of all IP communications, including voice, video, messaging and collaborative applications. Exhibit 4. IP Communications Management Lifecycle Approach Source: Yankee Group, 2007 Determining whether the network infrastructure is adequate to support IP communications. Planning and Assessment Pre-Deployment Testing Testing to measure call quality, network performance and protocol performance. Measure effect of IPC on other applications and systems before production. Report generation for tuning the network, capacity planning and other management information. Optimization Ongoing Operations Monitoring the production environment using both active testing and passive monitoring to assess the readiness of the network and identify faults. Management Requirements In addition to adopting the network lifecycle approach, it is also essential that network managers have additional context to evaluate management solutions. Managers should assess a tool s capabilities to manage the five core components of IP communications: Performance and availability of IP fabric: Enterprise network managers use a number of tools to monitor a variety of devices, including routers, switches and servers. IP communications requires monitoring the IP phones, gateways and servers that support overall IP communications. With IP communications, performance and availability become more complex to manage. Performance is a more vital measure than availability because call quality degradation more often results from inconsistent performance and temporary issues rather than downtime. 6 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

7 January 2007 Provisioning, change and configuration management: Previous Yankee Group research and many industry sources indicate that 70% of network downtime events result from self-inflicted errors. In unified communications, this pain is felt acutely. In several one-on-one conversations with voice and data administrators from some of the largest IP telephony deployments, provisioning and configuration management were the most important management issues. Data and voice system administrators have no common way of provisioning and configuring the various elements of a unified communications deployment. There are separate tools for provisioning phones, Windows and Linux servers, gateways and network elements. Problem resolution is dependent on accurate change management, which will be a critical area of focus in Management software or platform providers that can offer cross-domain and multivendor configuration management will discover a very eager market for their solution. Call control and messaging: The software for monitoring and managing the initiation, establishment and tear down of calls is unique. The existing network and server management tools are not adequate. The same is true for messaging platforms. Existing tools provide visibility into server health and the processes running on the server. However, they do not provide the necessary visibility into the functioning of the call manager or the messaging software. Rich media and collaboration: The value of IP communications is the integration of enhanced media and collaborative applications such as video, conferencing and content-sharing applications. Management tools need to be enhanced to provide the necessary visibility into these services. The performance of these services directly affects user productivity and the value of IP communications. IP communications applications: Effectively managing the IP communications infrastructure is not enough if managers neglect the applications it supports. A management solution must provide visibility into and administrative tools for call center applications, presence capabilities and mission-critical applications such as 911. In the past several years, VoIP management tools have focused on pre-deployment tasks and managing call quality in production. As the market matures and enterprises seek to unify communications and scale their environment, tasks such as change and configuration management and integration of management tools become the key purchase criteria. An end-to-end solution must not only provide visibility and management into all of the five core components; it must also integrate the management tools so it becomes a seamless management system. Focusing on these core areas will enhance the deployment success for enterprises and the market position for solution providers. Benefits of Unified Communications Management Enterprises that follow the lifecycle approach and deploy a unified communications management solution will realize the following benefits: Faster ROI: Faster deployment means organizations can quickly extract value from their investments. Faster deployment and time to value: Visibility gives managers more confidence in their system and their ability to manage it, which will shorten development and testing times. Reduced management costs: Providing managers with customized views shortens troubleshooting times. Unified management will also enable IT departments to develop operational discipline and standard support processes. This deters manual work-arounds and keeps the management system simple and more scaleable. In particular, a common system for management and configuration data would give data and voice managers a common, but customized, view of the unified communications environment from end-to-end. This will help alleviate much of the acrimony that exists between telecommunications and IT/data systems administrators and will enable them work together more effectively. Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 7

8 Consistent experience quality: Integrated management shortens troubleshooting and diagnostic time. A single console for configuration information can give administrators insight into the changes in an environment that can affect service quality. Repair times decrease and managers can reduce or eliminate repetitive problems. Users will migrate faster and will use the new productivity applications if their experience is consistent and of high quality. Unified communications management enables enterprises to extract the most value from their IP communications investment. Enterprises should evaluate management solutions based on how effectively these solutions unify the management of all their IP communications and applications. IV. Enterprise Solution Provider Profiles Much has happened in the past 12 months, and several vendors have distinguished themselves as reliable solutions. The market has clearly shifted from a focus on pre-deployment testing and call quality measurements to one in which operational efficiency, system management and problem isolation the bedrock principles of management are the priorities. There are still many vendors in the space; the following is not an exhaustive list. However, the profiled vendors have established themselves in large-scale deployments. Cisco Solution Overview Cisco is the market leader for IP telephony platforms. Therefore, enterprise customers have increasingly looked to Cisco to address manageability, and Cisco has responded. Cisco recently launched the Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite (CUCMS), which addresses the implementation and operational phases of the management lifecycle. This suite consists of its Unified Operations Manager, Unified Service Monitor and the CiscoWorks Voice Manager. Operations Manager is a unified dashboard, proactive monitoring engine and diagnostic tool. The dashboard presents service-level views of the unified communications environment. Managers can customize the views and see into the call control and messaging, IP fabric, the collaborative services and IP applications. Operations Manager also includes integrated diagnostics that are linked to monitor every layer of the Cisco unified communications infrastructure and proactive testing with IP service-level agreement (SLA) synthetic traffic. This gives managers end-to-end visibility into performance and availability. Unified Service Monitor delivers real-time measurement of call quality. It has two components: the Cisco 1040 Sensor and the Cisco Unified Service Monitor central software. The 1040 sensor monitors Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams and sends mean opinion scores (MOS) for active calls to the Service Monitor. The Service Monitor stores and evaluates MOS scores and sends Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps for threshold violations to the Operations Manager. The Operations Manager presents the alerts and offers a choice of diagnostic options. Strengths Cisco is always on the short list of management tools because it is also the unified communications platform. Cisco s strength is its vision for moving from VoIP management to unified communications management. The graphical user interface (GUI) enables administrators to build a custom view of their system and individual components. Partnerships with EMC Smarts, IBM s Micromuse and Qovia as well as the development of Cisco Network Application Performance Analysis (NAPA) give Cisco extensive instrumentation, modeling and management capabilities. In addition, Cisco built a solid GUI to present the data as actionable information. 8 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

9 January 2007 Challenges Although Cisco has committed significant resources to management, it is still relatively new to developing management software. It made the right decision to work with industry players such as EMC Smarts, IBM Micromuse and Opsware. However, the competition is skeptical of Cisco s efforts. Building software is not Cisco s historical strength. Cisco also has to balance in-house development with enabling management partners. This can be a tricky task. Cisco is wise to improve the value of its platform with enhanced management capabilities, but it must be careful not to alienate the management vendors that can also facilitate adoption. Outlook Cisco continues to develop products to address support for all phases of the lifecycle. New capabilities will include tools for pre-deployment assessment, provisioning management and enhanced reporting. Cisco will also provide its customers with smooth upgrades for all new releases so users can implement unified management today and easily integrate new features as they become available. EMC Smarts Solution Overview EMC s acquisition of SMARTS in 2005 reenergized it. EMC has been able to integrate Smarts Common Information Model into the Smarts IP Availability Manager to build a model of their objects, relationships and interactions as well as how they behave when problems occur. Smarts IP Availability Manager automates real-time root-cause and impact analysis within changing environments and most importantly across all technology domains. It helps managers pinpoint problems and identify other affected areas and devices in the network. EMC also integrated Smarts Codebook Correlation Technology, which eliminates the need for manually writing rules. It provides network managers with a standard set of rules, which encompass a large selection of resolutions. EMC s Smarts IP Performance Manager leverages the information provided by the Smarts IP Availability Manager to determine when managed elements are unreachable. The Smarts IP Performance Manager identifies two kinds of notification: faults and exceptions (aggregated events). It uses the fault detection to diagnose exceptions. It also adapts to any changes within the infrastructure environment. Both Smarts IP Availability Manager and Smarts IP Performance Manager combine real-time device fault management and performance management across all connected devices, delivering the ability to manage the service delivery environment proactively. Strengths EMC Smarts is leveraging its historical strength in root-cause analysis to complement and support integrated fault and performance management. In each solution, it provides event aggregation and root-cause analysis. EMC Smarts has partnerships with Cisco and InfoVista. In 2007, EMC will extend its platform support to include Avaya and Nortel. Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 9

10 Challenges The challenge for EMC Smarts is often one of perception. It is very good at fault-based root-cause analysis and developing a sophisticated rules-based codebook for diagnostics. It s a critical, but less attractive, part of unified communications management. It s often not the lead story, but EMC Smarts gains exposure through its partnerships and by enabling other vendors such as Cisco and InfoVista. Outlook For the past 2 years, the market has focused on how to get a quality MOS score. After a few high-profile failures and deployment difficulties, basic blocking and tackling of management is coming back into vogue. That bodes well for EMC Smarts because that is its strength. EMC Smarts will increase value in its relationships with Cisco, InfoVista and its expansion to other IP telephony platforms. InfoVista Solution Overview InfoVista s service-centric approach to performance management has increased its presence in the past year. InfoVista s go-to-market messaging has emphasized the need for performance management to manage nextgeneration real-time converged applications, including unified communications. InfoVista s VistaInsight for IP Telephony solution can provide management insight across technology domains (network, servers, and applications), simplifying the management of IP telephony as a service. As organizations move from pilots to actual production, VistaInsight for IP Telephony provides the tools needed to ensure ongoing service quality, including preconfigured service management workflows, proactive capacity planning and personalized service-level reporting. VistaInsight for IP Telephony-embedded workflows help systems managers to develop standard processes for IP telephony operations management. VistaInsight for Networks combines application performance monitoring with network QoS management. Once VistaInsight for Networks triggers real-time alerts, it feeds EMC Smarts event management system, accelerating problem resolution. Strengths InfoVista has strong presence in the service provider market and has been able to translate its expertise into the enterprise. It delivers cross-domain performance management (servers, network, IP telephony [IPT] platform) and is well-known for its in-depth reporting capabilities. In addition, InfoVista is able to scale to large environments with more than 10,000 phones. Challenges Supporting large-scale environments requires sophisticated tools, which can take more IT effort to deploy and configure. With their high level of instrumentation and detail, InfoVista s tools can require more effort by operations to deploy, but they provide very granular performance data. InfoVista s IP telephony management is also still very Cisco-centric. InfoVista can collect data from other platforms and is planning multivendor support; it should accelerate those efforts. Outlook InfoVista has carved out a successful position in IP telephony management by focusing on network performance, particularly for large enterprises and carriers. As more enterprises tackle complex network management tasks such as QoS and MPLS, InfoVista will have more opportunities. 10 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

11 January 2007 Integrated Research Solution Overview Integrated Research s PROGNOSIS is a suite of lifecycle management solutions that cover network assessment, pre-deployment assurance testing and ongoing performance management. Integrated Research continued to make strides within both the enterprise and managed service provider (MSP) markets in Its expansion into MSPs won it multiple deals, including IBM, AT&T, Sprint and Bell Canada. As part of its strategy, it has also focused on moving toward a multivendor platform. Integrated Research has also made a new addition to its product suite the PROGNOSIS IP telephony management reporter. The IPT management reporter generates reports that provide network managers with an array of pertinent information, such as a view into utilization trends. In addition, it can identify inefficient use of existing infrastructure and ultimately can improve overall planning of resources. In conjunction with its IP telephony Manager, the IPT management reporter will provide an in-depth reporting analysis for usage trending and effective troubleshooting. Strengths PROGNOSIS has a solid reputation in the enterprise and service provider markets. It was an pioneer in the evolution of IP telephony management, establishing itself as a VoIP authority. The particular strength of Integrated Research s PROGNOSIS is in systems management. Its deep expertise with the Cisco platform and its scalability in larger environments with more than 5,000 phones has placed it in many large-scale enterprise and MSP deployments. In addition, Integrated Research recently displaced NetIQ in several accounts, following Attachmate s acquisition of NetIQ. Integrated Research is equally adept at selling directly to enterprises and enabling third-party value-added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators to place its management solution. A single management platform to manage multivendor environments resonates with enterprises. However, mergers and acquisitions often prevent enterprises from standardizing on a single VoIP infrastructure. Challenges PROGNOSIS has built it success on helping to manage large Cisco deployments. However, Cisco is not content to hand that business to Integrated Research s PROGNOSIS indefinitely; Cisco s management offerings are becoming more competitive. PROGNOSIS would benefit by partnering with a more networkcentric performance management vendor that could complement its systems management approach. Outlook Integrated Research s PROGNOSIS has benefited tremendously from NetIQ s diminishing market presence. Integrated Research is also developing a multivendor strategy that already includes support for the Avaya platform, and will provide support for Nortel and Alcatel platforms in first half of In addition, it has fruitful partnerships with HP, EMC and IBM, which will become increasingly valuable particularly IBM (which acquired Micromuse).Integrated Research is also pursuing a strategy for deploying and managing unified communications as well. Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 11

12 V. Carrier-Class Service Provider Profiles There are a number of vendors that stand out and provide carrier-class management solutions. These vendors have capabilities and functionalities that fit well with carrier-size infrastructures, which are often found in very large enterprises. Brix Networks Solution Overview Brix continues to increase its presence within both the carrier and the enterprise markets. Brix has long advocated its converged network message; its Brix System has full capability for voice, video, data and wireless. The Brix System solution conducts comprehensive active testing and passive monitoring and helps enterprises effectively manage voice, IP video, and other IM applications. Brix System enables enterprises to assess and prepare their networks for new services, ensure high quality of services and most importantly provide a level of automation for performance monitoring that enables telecom and data managers to alleviate some of the time consumed by manual tasks. Brix designed its solution for larger enterprises as well as service providers. BrixWorx, a unified services assurance solution, performs tasks such as configuration, scheduling, alerts and root-cause analysis. It collects and analyzes information from IP PBXs, call servers, gateways and other devices within the IP environment. Strengths Brix maintains a strong position in the service provider market, providing it with a true end-to-end solution for voice, video, data and wireless. With its recent introduction of BrixMobile, it delivers a quality experience to the handset and provides fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) assurance. Challenges Although it maintains a strong position within the carrier market, Brix is often overkill for enterprises unless they are large, carrier-class infrastructures. Brix can reference some very large enterprise deployments. The challenge for Brix is to be patient. Its solution can do a lot of things including some for which the market is not quite ready. Therefore, Brix has to focus on selling to particular problems, establishing presence and then expanding its reach over time. Outlook Brix has already had success selling solutions for FMC assurance. It can deliver MPLS and IP QoS monitoring from the core out to the customer. Brix starts at the core and can cross-sell and expand its footprint. Yankee Group views Brix as a vendor to watch in It is delivering quality service assurance from the core to the endpoint. Brix s approach aligns with how Yankee Group views the evolution of connectivity and the delivery of applications and communications to mobile users. Users are exploring new ways of communicating and interacting with technology and content from anywhere over any network and with any device. This migration to anywhere communications puts a premium on management tools than can optimize the quality of converged services in a carrier-class network. 12 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

13 January 2007 CA Solution Overview CA quickly rolled out new offerings that integrated technology from its acquisition of Concord Communications, which included Aprisma SPECTRUM. CA is the first of the Big Four management solutions (BMC, IBM and HP are the others) to bring its own management offering to market. Unicenter offers a management framework; SPECTRUM delivers service modeling and fault isolation; Concord ehealth delivers performance management. Because Concord is still a popular choice in service provider environments, CA has chosen to target that market most aggressively. Strengths The key strengths for CA are its platform independence and its integration of fault, performance and service modeling. Service modeling will become more important as unified communications deployments scale and end-user behavior becomes less predictable. In addition, CA has an installed base from the Concord acquisition to which it can cross-sell and up-sell. Challenges Because of its history as a systems management framework, CA has to sell around that market perception. It is not as widely known in emerging network management areas. But its acquisition of Concord, which included SPECTRUM, gives it credibility in that space, and it is right to target that customer base. CA does not offer native Skinny support, but it does extract statistics from the Cisco CallManager that include Skinny information. CA manages the call manager servers for Cisco, Avaya and Nortel without installing an agent directly on the call manager. Outlook CA has enhanced its position in distributed network management in general and in IPT management specifically. It could carve out a strong story to service providers and compete directly with HP and IBM for that business. During the next 3 to 5 years, carriers and service providers will need integrated management for all network services as well as data center/it services. Virtualization and the ability to deliver more ITtype services over a network will demand service-oriented management something CA can address. VI. Emerging Players Nearly every network management tool can handle some level of VoIP management or monitoring capability. We highlight the following vendors as examples of companies that address key areas of the lifecycle and can contribute to the success of enterprise unified communications deployments. Clarus Systems Clarus Systems has carved out a successful niche as a service-assurance solution for service providers and enterprises. It focuses on automated active testing to assess the pre- and post-deployment operational readiness of the VoIP infrastructure and services. Much as Mercury Interactive became successful with its active testing of enterprise applications, Clarus also has the potential to test and optimize the IP telephony environment and provide granular data to shorten troubleshooting times. Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 13

14 Fluke Networks Since its acquisition of Visual Networks in January 2006, Fluke Networks VoIP management solution has become stronger as it extended its capabilities for network and application performance monitoring. Fluke Networks recent acquisition of Crannog Software further demonstrates Fluke s commitment to providing the enterprise with an end-to-end solution. Crannog brings performance management and netflow analysis to Fluke s portfolio. Fluke is aligned with our IP telephony management lifecycle; it is able to deliver tools for each phase of the lifecycle. Although it does not yet have the market presence of others in the space, Fluke certainly has the financial resources to become a lasting competitor. NetQoS NetQoS s offerings have always been able to view VoIP traffic, but NetQoS added a great deal of VoIP management expertise late in 2006 and now has a stronger VoIP development team. NetQoS also recently announced an agreement with Network Instruments that enables NetQoS SuperAgent and ReporterAnalyzer to leverage data collected and analyzed by Network Instruments GigaStor. NetQoS will be a stronger competitor in It plans to release its first VoIP-specific solution in the second half of It will also be a valuable partner to more systems management and fault-based management vendors. Opsware Opsware entered the VoIP configuration and change management space in December 2006 with a new release of its Opsware Network Automation System. Many enterprise IT managers are familiar with Opsware s network and data center automation software. However, Opsware s network and server automation systems have enormous potential to address the serious provisioning, change and configuration management challenges that plague enterprise unified communications deployments. IP telephony and unified communications deployments span both server and network infrastructure. To manage the server components such as Cisco CallManager and the network components such as Cisco CallManager Express, systems administrators need integrated management. Opsware can provide visibility into the configuration of network devices and different server platforms within a single console. By extending its solutions to IP telephony platforms, Opsware would have a differentiated offering in a very hot market. VII. Conclusions and Recommendations It is clear that the market for VoIP has matured; it s just a matter of time before we see mass adoption within the enterprise. Unified communications adoption will be slow as enterprises begin to see the benefits and ROI impact within their organizations. It will be essential for organizations to choose the vendor with the management solution that fits their needs. Once an enterprise is prepared to deploy a unified communications solution, the enterprise solution providers, carrier-class service providers and emerging vendors profiled in this Yankee Group Report are strong vendors with comprehensive management solutions. Vendors must be prepared to provide the market with comprehensive solutions and not allow a catch-22 scenario. Vendors that lag behind in developing solutions for unified communications will lose mind share to other vendors. Enterprises will no longer be tolerant or dependent on fragmented solutions and will look for vendors that can address all the phases of the unified communications management lifecycle. 14 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

15 January 2007 Recommendations for Enterprises Consolidate and unify your communications management. We are still in the early stages, but the value of moving to IP is the integration of communications and collaborative applications. You will not benefit by migrating to IP unless the management is also unified. Do not purchase IP telephony management in a vacuum; it should be critical component of your overall network and communications management strategy. Don t separate management from the platform. Whether you decide on the management tools from a platform provider or a third party, make management inextricably linked to the platform. Evaluate management solutions during pre-deployment and testing and leverage the results as you roll into production. You ll enhance your odds of success. When evaluating solutions, look for vendors that have a vision for unified communications. Those that do will be able to guide you in the deployment and will enhance your manageability. Don t underestimate the importance of testing. Enterprises often overlook the need for testing; or enterprises cut testing at the last minute to meet a deployment deadline. It is estimated that for every hour of testing, it saves 5 hours of network support and maintenance. Recommendations for Vendors Go to the enterprise with a complete solution. There is still no one vendor that can deliver every management requirement for a complete enterprise deployment. Cisco partners and OEMs lead products to deliver their solutions; InfoVista partners with EMC and others; EMC works to enable other vendors management capabilities. What matters is a unified experience for the buyer and getting a solution for the entire lifecycle. Enterprise voice and data managers are frustrated with trying to cobble together disparate tools. Reintroduce the basics of management. The hottest market segments will be provisioning, configuration and change management. The basics of infrastructure management are causing the most problems in enterprise deployments. Common change and configuration data will enable voice and data managers to work more effectively together and more rapidly address performance issues. At the root of nearly every problem is an unknown or unauthorized change. VIII. Further Reading Yankee Group Link Research US Enterprises Use Security as a Crutch to Ignore IP Telephony Operational Issues, Note, September 2006 Exploring VoIP Lifecycle and Operational Costs, Report, May 2006 VoIP Management Solutions Guide: Managing Cisco IP Communications in the Enterprise, Report, January 2006 Copyright Yankee Group Research, Inc. All rights reserved. 15

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