Avaya's IP-PBX management suite comes in a number of pieces under the Avaya Integrated Management umbrella, a component of the company's Communication Architecture. The applications are grouped into three areas: Application Administration, Provisioning/Network Management and Alarming/Monitoring.
The various programs are more distinct from each other than such pieces are in the Cisco and Alcatel efforts. The advantage of such an a la carte design is that administrators can choose to use only the segments they want, and can continue using older IP-PBX management products with which they remain happy.
While some network administrators might not like switching from one application to another, it should be noted the applications can be cross-launched. So if you see a fault -- and drill down to determine, for instance, that the problem is a device that can't connect to the network because its IP address is wrong -- you can then launch the Site Administrator application and go right to the device to change the configuration.
Application Administration
The main product under Application Administration is Avaya's Site Administration, a Windows PC-based program used for the main IP-PBX administration. This is where users are configured and templating of phones takes place, and classes of service are established. The tool presents a nice graphical representation of the phones, and we liked the way it even includes images of phones with the available expansion packs. The application will detect and show the expansion packs when they're installed.
Site Administration includes a template for printing the paper labels that go into phones. It can do standard bulk imports and exports of user information and – for all you hard-core PBX pros -- it can go into a terminal emulation mode to present an almost command-line interface.
There is reporting functionality in Site Administration for standard items such as trunk utilization of stations and CDR data.
One other nice tool within the Site Administrator is the Avaya Multi-site Administrator, which allows multiple managers to manage multiple systems.
Another Application Administration tool is the Avaya Voice Announcement manager. This provides for the recording, or uploading, and management of voice announcements that are stored as .WAV files.
Provisioning and Network Management
Under this umbrella, we find the Provisioning and Installation Manager, a tool that helps in the quick deployment of new equipment by eliminating the hassle of one-at-a-time setups. You can define custom templates for large groups as well as device profiles.
Another application in this silo is the Secure Access Administration tool. It's here that network administrators can manage user access rights and privileges. You can deploy defined user lists to large batches of devices.
The IP Address Manager, as the name suggests, allows administrators to easily find IP addresses or hosts. The tool automatically discovers duplicate IP addresses or policy violations and it can be used to make, export or print reports.
The Software Update Manager can be used to automatically download software updates as well as point out devices that need updates and patches. It also handles distributing firmware updates to remote offices. This Web-based tool definitely had the Avaya one-X graphical look and feel. When you go into the application, you can very clearly see all Avaya pieces and what firmware versions they are running. It knows what the current version is, and when you click on a device, the tool checks the service contract and will download the new material.
Alarming and Monitoring
Under this roof is the Avaya Fault & Performance manager, a Web-based application through which you can see all the alarms and errors for a given system. You can select an alarm and drill down into it to find out its cause, and Avaya usually provides a hyperlink to the troubled device's documentation. Additionally, you can usually launch a helper application, a program that comes pretty close to providing expert diagnostics.
The Fault & Performance Manager allows you to run test commands that will help clear alarms and can be configured to send the alarms via e-mail or as SMS messages. Alarming is a standard network operation and all can be dumped out to a syslog server.
There’s also the VoIP Monitoring Manager, which does VoIP quality monitoring and can warn network managers of potential problems that stand to hamper voice quality.
The last dish in the Avaya buffet is the SMON Manager. This traffic monitoring tool is designed for those networks that use Avaya “Cajun”-brand Ethernet and gigabit Ethernet switches for point-to-point transmissions. A VoIP port works with the VoIP Monitoring Manager and allows administrators to filter network information so they can see activity only on ports with IP phones.
Conclusion
All of these vendors’ tools do an exemplary job when it comes to providing IP-PBX management capability. The vendors have stuffed their products with state-of-the art tools. The programs offer administrators not only the devices they need day in and day out, but also a good number of advanced tools that might only be used occasionally but are extremely valuable when one of "those days" comes around.
In the right hands, the management products being offered by Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya will ensure that IP-PBXs are optimally configured and stay running reliably as designed.
Rob Smithers is CEO of Miercom Consulting and Integration and provides independent testing services for No Jitter.
