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TeleManagement Solutions

 

Today’s networks have evolved into business-critical services that organizations rely upon every day. However, unplanned remote site downtime due to equipment and power failure, and adverse environmental conditions can severely impair network service.


PBX vendors and providers of voice services to business customers are looking for new ways to offer maintenance services for voice networks. In the past, “buffer boxes” with built-in modems lacked security features primarily because they did not provide access to the customer’s network. Today, with the prevalence of broadband connections, customers have legitimate security concerns. Allowing a 3rd-party vendor to access equipment within their network could potentially serve as a gateway to attack the customer’s IP network. Asentria TeleManagement solutions address these issues:

1. Overcome customer’s security concerns by providing a specialized security device that allows the 3rd-party vendor secure VPN access, along with a host of other security protocols such as SSH, SSL, SFTP, RADIUS, and SNMPv3.

2. Provide limited or controlled access to a 3rd-party vendor’s maintenance personnel to only the devices, operations, or functions on the customer’s network for which they are responsible.

3. Envision new applications for which service providers can provide maintenance on the customer’s network.

For remote sites and understaffed computer rooms, conditions such as extreme temperatures, humidity, water, open doors, low voltage, and equipment failures are major causes of unplanned downtime. IT professionals responsible for providing high availability networks for customer offices are becoming increasingly aware of the need to protect these vital, yet vulnerable sites from the physical conditions within the environments that house computer and telecom equipment.

Asentria brings remote PBX management and the often complex array of equipment within reach of the NOC, by enabling IT personnel with proactive monitoring, access, control and collection. Our proactive TeleManagement solutions alert network IT personnel of problems, locate the problems, route alarm information directly to the people who need it, and automatically correct problems. These capabilities help make the difference between an inconsequential event and critical downtime.

Asentria’s TeleBoss products enhance Operational Support Systems and maintenance operations by allowing service providers to monitor, analyze and manage their remote telephone and computer network equipment at remote customer sites.

Access methods include dialup/wireless modem, Ethernet, and DSL connectivity. Security features include VPN authentication and encryption, and standard configurations to allow outside users to only access what they need, and nothing further. Flexible scripting capabilities enable user-definable functions to be performed on customer networks. Alarm messages can be relayed back to the central NOC via SNMP, email, TCP alert and pager. To ensure PBX uptime, secure VPN dialup and DSL connectivity enables device and environmental condition alarm reporting, providing secure access to conduct ongoing site monitoring. This ensures continuous monitoring of legacy and IP-based PBXs, and other equipment and environmental conditions located within customer sites.


Data polling is enabled via a TCP/IP network connection, direct serial connection, modem, SFTP/FTP Server or SFTP/FTP Push. Reliably storing call records and monitoring PBX switches 24/7, Asentria products deliver prompt notification via email, text message, SNMP Trap, pager or modem when questionable phone activity is detected.


Monitor, Access, Control, Collect

Equipment and environmental monitoring and power switching, when combined with remote device access, control and data collection, enables a powerful alarm reporting and management solution which can be integrated into network management systems. Alarms can automatically trigger reboots, check equipment configuration parameters, connect users to restricted ports, collect, buffer and securely transfer data, and much more. By combining all of these capabilities into a single, unified platform, network management is simplified, consolidated, more reliable, and more cost-effective.


Monitor

Asentria TeleManagement products receive input from various equipment and devices, then evaluates and forwards the device status to IT personnel. Whether evaluating temperature sensors or contact closures, or reading variable voltage levels of batteries, Asentria products receive automatic messages over serial ports when an event occurs, and sends an alarm on the event. For more granular monitoring, using a script allows you to interrogate devices, such as going through a menu in order to gather detailed device information. This can be done over a phone or wireless modem or network to provide alarm notices on monitored devices.


Asentria’s proactive TeleManagement solutions alert IT personnel of problems, locate the problems, route alarm information directly to the people who need it, and automatically correct problems. These capabilities help make the difference between an inconsequential event and critical downtime. Monitoring equipment via serial ports, contact closures, SNMP Traps, sensors, pings, and script-based network access, TeleBoss continuously monitors remote sites for failing equipment and environmental conditions, proactively notifying IT personnel via email, pager, TCP Alert and/ or SNMP.


Access

The need to re-provision equipment to restore communications especially at remote locations is often difficult and costly to service. When it comes to remote access, traditional network management systems often fall short because they only work in-band, or over the main connection. If that connection goes down, that site goes down, and no alarms and management data will be collected or reported. NMS also lacks the control and automation capabilities to correct problems without manual intervention. A support technician must still be dispatched to solve the problem, which can take hours or even days, depending upon the location and availability of the technicians. Traditional in-band software solutions are limited due to their dependence upon the underlying network being up and available in order to function. By contrast, existing out-of-band technologies, such as terminal and console servers, provide local access via serial connectivity to networked devices. However, they lack robust management capabilities, such as automated maintenance and recovery.


Asentria provides secure dial-up phone, wireless, and ADSL modem access via VPN for secure login and encrypted communications to Asentria devices and other serial connected equipment. Asentria products are designed to reduce the dependence upon IT personnel to physically maintain, troubleshoot, and configure distributed network devices. Our products are co-located with PBXs, routers, switches, servers and other equipment to overcome traditional remote support barriers, delivering proactive out-of-band communications to complement and integrate with existing network monitoring systems.


Control

Minimizing or even eliminating truck rolls saves you time and money, while keeping your customers satisfied. Asentria’s control capabilities allow you to remotely send commands to enable or disable power plants and relay switches, change equipment configuration parameters, connect remote users to restricted ports, collect, buffer and securely transfer data, and much more. Asentria’s products use your existing dialup line, phone or wireless modem out-of-band control, or your communication network for in-band power-cycling control and reboot for transceivers, servers, routers, A/C power, etc. Our TeleBoss products enable you to control remote equipment using DSL, telnet, phone, modem, serial port, com port, and RS- 232.


Collect

Asentria TeleManagement products collect device and alarm data from status logs generated by monitored equipment. Asentria products help to prevent loss of call data from legacy PBXs and IP telephony switches to call reporting applications. For PBX data collection we enable Data Filtering, IP Record Collection (IPRC), and SNMP Trap Capturing.


Asentria TeleManagement products collect and forward CDR, alarms, syslogs, and other text output from PBXs and other monitored equipment. Asentria leads the industry in collection from Ethernet-enabled PBXs with our development of IP Record Collection (IPRC) technology. Supported PBXs include Cisco CallManager, Avaya, Mitel, Alcatel, Intecom and others. Asentria products can also collect SNMP Traps from other co-located network devices and convert them into text alarms that can then be forwarded into existing alarm management systems.

 

The Company

Asentria develops remote site monitoring and telemanagement solutions that enable providers of critical communications infrastructure to more efficiently and reliably run their networks. Asentria’s products help ensure quality of service and lower operational costs, while making it easier to provision, maintain and support remote equipment. Our strategic solutions fit both large and small communication networks and provide high-value, cost-effective and competitive differentiators to our customers.


Asentria helps administrators cost-effectively manage their call reporting data and remote site infrastructure, while extending confidence and security to ensure availability, integrity and performance. Asentria enables administrators to avoid failures from poor performing equipment that threaten end-user service expectations, while providing better control to predict the performance of remote infrastructure. These new levels of protection shield end-users from remote site equipment failure. Our service provider and enterprise customers trust their remote equipment sites to Asentria. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.