NATD in the News
International banking
institution chooses VeraSMART solution
Veramark
Technologies, Inc. announced a VeraSMART order from an international banking
institution. The customer purchased SMART Directory (VeraSMART’s core
module), SMART Call Accounting for up to 5,000 extensions at four sites,
SMART Allocation, EZ‑Share data export and tie line reconciliation. The
customer plans to utilize VeraSMART for internal chargeback of telecom usage
costs and data export to a corporate general ledger system. Tie line
reconciliation will be used to track calls that are routed through multiple
networking systems. The flexibility of Veramark’s offerings—which gives
clients the option to select a managed-services model delivered by Veramark
or to purchase a right-to-use software license—allows small, medium, and
large business enterprises to buy what they require today and expand as
future needs dictate.
Visit www.veramark.com.
Disaster Recovery Part One
by Joe
Marion, NATD Executive Director
A couple
of months ago the NTTN and the NATD Office survived the onslaught of
Hurricane Wilma when she slammed into South Eastern Florida, but our old
disaster recovery plan did not. We learned a lot of things that we
should have done before the disaster struck. I promised while we were
recovering from the disaster that I would share what we learned with you, as
there are lessons to be learned. So here we go with Part One of my
"mini-series" on Disaster Planning. I'll send one every two
weeks, so save them all. It might help in your disaster recovery plan.
This first article was written using my laptop, plugged into my automobile's
DC charger at 5:00AM, sitting in a two-mile line waiting for gas......
Hurricane Wilma + 2 Weeks
Now, two weeks after the storm we still have no power, no Internet and only
two phone lines. Our company's disaster recovery plan was perfect, I
thought. We had 10 hours worth of UPS for our servers. After
that, we had generators to power our servers and workstations. We made sure
that our data was backed up in placed in a secure location. We arranged for
an alternative office location out of state (although as I found out later,
none of us wanted to leave our homes and families AFTER the disaster struck.)
We knew that we could always get new computers overnighted to us and our
phones replaced immediately by one of the members of the NATD. We were aware
that if a disaster hit our office our Internet connection might go, bringing
down our Web presence. The NTTN and www.natd.com are critical
information tools for many of our members, so we arranged to have a redundant
site set up far away from our primary site. We were all set, or so I thought.
We've got the Power
Start with power, since you can't do anything without power. I was not
worried about power until I found out that our generator was not large enough
to power all of the new servers we had recently installed. Furthermore,
a printer, a fax and a workstation mysteriously died when we turned on our generator
after the hurricane. What I found out was that the generator we were using
delivered 'dirty' power, which spiked and blew out our equipment. Now
picture this. No power anywhere, people in line for hours waiting for
gas, most stores were closed and whatever stores were open were sold out of
generators, gas cans and everything else. Luckily TWO phone lines
miraculously worked in my office! I plugged in my laptop (which I
charged along with 3 extra batteries before the storm) and found a web site
that sold generators. I ordered two Honda EU3000 gener-ators which are
designed to power electronic equipment and had them 'overnighted' to our
office. The EU3000 is equipped with an inverter which generates a very clean
power and two EU3000's can be joined in parallel for even more power.
One other advantage of the EU3000 is that it is QUIET, as far as
generators go. And it is started by turning a key instead of pulling a
cord. Before I placed the order I called several freight carriers (on my cell
phone which I charged in my car) and found out that only United Parcel
Service was delivering to my area. OK. Power was ON THE WAY! But we need
to be able to store a lot of gas, assuming we could find some. Gas cans
were all sold out in the stores. I was able to reach Bob Boyle, our
legal counsel in Minneapolis. Bob ran down to Home Depot (at least he
said he ran) purchas-ed a dozen plastic gas cans, and send them to me via UPS
overnight. It cost more for shipping than the cans themselves!
(But unlike what they say about lawyers, I still haven't seen the
charge for those cans on my legal bill!-Thanks Bob!) The next order of
business was to make sure the NTTN and our web www.natd.com would continue to
service our members. I will tell you about that Herculean effort in my
next 'edition.'
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Upfront
Yankee
Group reports significant change in the enterprise telephony landscape over
the next 5 years
Yankee Group reports that critical shifts are about to
occur in the enterprise telephony landscape in the coming 18 to 24 months as
a number of supply and demand trends coalesce to bring about integration of
fixed PBX and mobile telephony systems in the enterprise. These forces will
encourage fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) in the large enterprise segment in
the next 5 years, creating new service models around high-value managed
telephony services. Vendor support in the past 12 months and key demand
trends have propelled enterprise FMC into the spotlight. This has underscored
the prospect that desk phones across many large enterprise markets will soon
be replaced by various flavors of smart phone-based solutions that offer end
users mobile data and PBX functionality and IT managers centralized control
of mobile and fixed services. As a result, multiple service providers,
including mobile operators, will profit from this evolution. The report, “The
Emerging Effects of Enterprise Fixed-Mobile Convergence,” offers insight into
the evolving market strategies and offers recommendations for both mobile and
fixed operators to reap some of the benefits.
Visit www.yankeegroup.com.
News in Review
Air
filters
Telecom switch air
filters are NEBS Certified
Telecom switching engineers and technicians can look to
Universal Air Filter for their equipment replacement air filter requirements.
Universal Air Filter is the sole manufacturing source of supply to Lucent
Technologies, Nortel Networks, Cisco Systems and Alcatel for switching, transmission
and access equipment air filters. Universal Air Filter ships direct to these
OEMs for manufacturing of, among other applications, 5ESS and DMS 100
switches. Universal is also specified for aftermarket replacement filters.
Universal Air Filter is the only Telcordia certified switch air filter
manufacturer. Certification is a result of meeting the rigorous requirements
of Telcordia NEBS for fire resistance, dust arrestance, particulate
contaminant bypass, and temperature change that have been identified by the
telecommunications industry as critical parameters. These characteristics
help Universal Air Filter products support the highest level of telecom
equipment performance.
Visit www.uaf.com.
Disaster
recovery
Disaster Recovery Directory released
Following the most active hurricane and natural disaster
season in years, many business owners and professionals have felt the
frustration of not knowing where to turn to find the help they need to get
their operations running normally again.
Edwards Information announces the release of the 15th edition of
Edwards Disaster Recovery Directory to help businesses and organizations plan
for and cope with disaster. Now in its 15th year, Edwards Disaster Recovery
Directory is a 400 page business-to-business directory designed to help
companies be better prepared and save time and money when every second counts
by quickly locating crucial but hard-to-find recovery services throughout the
United States and Canada. Available in both hard copy and on CD with hotlinks
to vendor websites, Edwards Disaster Recovery Directory contains thousands of
vendor listings organized into more than 400 categories such as data
recovery, drying and dehumidifica-tion, disaster planning software and more.
Markets
Demand in SME space to
drive IP Centrex/Hosted PBX revenues
The IP Centrex/Hosted PBX market is poised for explosive
growth over the next 4 years, with revenues reaching approximately $1.3
billion by 2009, reports In-Stat. The demand in the Small and Medium business
(SME) space, the sweet spot for these hosted services, has been accelerating
for several years, the high-tech market research firm says. "The main
drivers for the service include cost savings, an enhanced feature set
including mobility and integrated messaging options, ease-of-use, greater
control, convergence and system access via a Web portal," says David
Lemelin, In-Stat analyst. "However, it’s worth noting that growth in
this market lags significantly behind the dynamic growth we have seen with
broadband VoIP in the US." The
report, "Steady Growth Ahead for Hosted VoIP Solutions US IP
Centrex/Hosted PBX Services,“ provides analysis of market drivers and
challenges, and of opportunities in vertical and horizontal markets, along
with available pricing options. It also includes a forecast through 2009 and
profiles of leading solutions providers and service providers.
Visit www.in-stat.com.
Moves, adds &
changes
John Coyle at Virtual PBX
Virtual PBX of San Jose, inventors of hosted PBX services,
named John Coyle vice president of business development. Coyle was manager at
Xiotech and held sales, marketing and channel management positions at
Hewlett-Packard. He also held channel and sales roles at LSI Logic and
Netreon.
Visit www.virtualpbx.com.
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PBX
Teltronics Inc. to
deliver Esnatech embedded fax as pure software solution
Teltronics, a global manufacturer of IP PBX systems,
announced it would release Telephony Office-LinX version 6.5, which includes
embedded soft fax solution for their 20-20 PBX. Esnatech, a leader in Unified
Communications platforms, will integrate its embedded fax services into
Teltronics unified communications platform - Telephony Office-LinX Enterprise
Edition. This enables Teltronics to deliver a soft fax solution to its
enterprise customers, eliminating the need for dedicated fax hardware and
dramatically lowering the cost to deploy fax services. Organizations will
receive and handle fax documents directly from their e-mail client, such as
Microsoft Outlook, providing them with the ability to seamlessly collaborate
fax content as if it were any other office document. With the release of soft
fax for the 20-20, organizations can seamlessly edit, manage and collaborate
faxes easily with other users through e-mail, securely access faxes with
total privacy, store and manage fax documents within e-mail folders, store
and save critical signed fax documents on the computer or network drive for
document archiving, and integrate fax within an organization’s CRM
environment by delivering the documents directly into an organization’s data
network with no manual intervention.
Storage
Backup service
providers witness substantial growth
Asigra, the technology leader in agentless distributed
backup and recovery software for network computing, announced that backup
service providers have reported substantial increases in data under
protection for the first ten months of 2005.
Reviewing physical compressed capacities that are under management by
Asigra Televaulting in the period from January 1, 2005 through October 31,
2005, backup service providers are showing dramatic increases of 140 percent
in the first ten months of 2005 as compared with figures for the entire 12
months of 2004. Asigra Televaulting for Service Providers incorporates
everything needed to deploy, provision and sell storage services, including
business features not available from off-the-shelf backup software
packages. Televaulting’s agentless
architecture ensures that installation and maintenance is fast and easy, and
its built-in multi-tiered storage billing system saves the time and expense
of developing or modifying an existing billing system to accurately track
expenses by operating unit, division or department.
Training
Special Offer for NATD Members
Learn what the booming M&A market can mean for
your reseller business.
Find out during a FREE Webinar 2 PM ET Wednesday, Jan. 18.
Click here for details.
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VoIP
Backup phone service
provides PBX disaster recovery
Remotely hosted, hot-standby PBX Parachute Plus! can mirror functions
of clients’ primary PBX system and take over voice communications if the
primary system fails. Failover can be automatic and almost instantaneous,
with calls being routed to alternate phones in any location. Because PBX
Parachute Plus! is provided over PSTN from a remote location, client power
outages, data system failures and large-area disasters will not interrupt
phone communications.
Visit www.virtualpbx.com.
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OEM Roundup
Avaya
partner
Envox CT Connect is Avaya compliant
Envox, a Boston-based voice solutions company, says its Envox CT Connect call
processing software is Avaya compliant and Avaya has certified the
compatibility. Envox CT Connect is computer telephony call control server
software that connects a wide range of telephone switches to a variety of
data processing environments. It enables managing, monitoring and call
controlling across multiple locations within mixed telephony switching
environments. Envox CT Connect is compatible with Avaya Communications
Manager 3.0 telephony software for both VoIP and ISDN environments. Certified
switch configurations include Communication Manager 3.0 using MAP D cards or
using new Avaya Application Enablement Services 3.0 with CLAN cards. It
supports industry-standard hardware, operating systems, network services and
call control programming interfaces such C, C++, Java and ActiveX, enabling
value added resellers, system integrators and application developers to
easily integrate more intelligent call control features into their existing
business applications.
Visit www.envox.com
Cisco
Linksys
announces SIP-based IP PBX, desktop phones and Gateway
Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, Inc., announced a
new line of SIP-based telephony products for Internet Telephony Service
Providers (ITSPs) targeting large residential, SOHO and very small business
customers. The new line of IP communication solutions includes an IP PBX/Key
system, a wide range of IP desktop phones and an Analog Gateway for
connection to the Public Switched Telephone Network. Used together with an
ITSP voice service, they provide a complete IP telephony system for up to 16
users. According to AMI research, there are more than 35 million small
businesses worldwide. 56% of these businesses have 1 to 4 users, and another
11.8% have 5 to 19 users. The new Linksys IP telephony products target this
market segment. ITSPs focusing on the higher-end of the residential market or
the lower end of the small business market can deploy services on this
platform to help customers save money.
Visit www.linksys.com.
Mitel
Mitel enhances marketing and sales teams
Mitel announced the appointment of seasoned executives to
spearhead the company's continued growth.
Doug Michaelides, a highly accomplished senior executive, has been
named global vice president of marketing. Gilles Rousso, a 13-year veteran of
Mitel and an instrumental figure in establishing a presence in Latin America,
is now regional vice president of Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America.
The two executives will report to Paul Butcher, president and COO of
Mitel. Doug Michaelides enjoyed a
highly successful 20-year career in Sales and Marketing at Nortel Networks,
culminating in the role of vice president and general manager of their global
professional services business in 2002. Most recently, he was senior vice
president of marketing at Allstream, one of Canada’s largest business
telecommuni-cations service providers, where he transformed the go-to-market
model with a segment-driven, solutions-marketing approach, driving brand
awareness and market growth. Since joining Mitel in 1992, Mr. Rousso has been
instrumental in establishing the Mitel brand in Latin America, where he grew
revenues year over year. He has more than 20 years of business experience in
the avionics, electronics and communications industries.
Visit www.mitel.com.
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Nortel
Nortel plans endpoint
security for internal networks
Nortel Networks Inc. will launch a product providing
endpoint security on its customers’ internal networks in the first quarter of
this year, claiming the advantage over Cisco in that its technology will be
clientless and non-proprietary. The Nortel Secure Network Access (NSNA)
switch will provide classic network access control (NAC), but specifically
for endpoints requesting access on an internal network. The company already
has endpoint security for devices seeking access from outside a corporate
firewall with the TunnelGuard function on both its IPsec and SSL VPN
products. The NSNA
switch has a lot of TunnelGuard technology in it. While its first iteration
will be Nortel-specific in that it will only support the company’s own
switches, Shirley O’Sullivan, Nortel EMEA leader for security and WLAN, said
that by the end of the second quarter Nortel will add support for other
companies’ switches.
Visit www.nortelnetworks.com.
The Flag: EU & International Telecom News for
IATD Members
Showtime calls for Avaya
Showtime Arabia has signed communications provider Avaya
and integrator EMW to upgrade its contact centre facilities to an IP
infrastructure. EMW will implement Avaya’s Communication Manager, Proactive
Contact Management, Interactive Response (IR) and Modular Messaging products.
The solution will be implemented across all of Showtime Arabia’s contact
centres in the region, including branch offices. Staff across Showtime’s
regional operation will now be able to access more relevant customer data
when dealing with queries. Another advantage of the system is that all staff
now have access to the same data, regardless of their geographical location.
“The Middle East’s television and entertainment market has become
increasingly competitive, and enhanced customer service is a critical way for
Showtime Arabia to differentiate itself in the minds of viewers and serve
customers better” says Nidal Abou-Ltaif, managing director for Avaya in the
Middle East and North Africa. “The result is that Showtime Arabia’s new
Avaya-based contact centre can deliver is a more unified sales, marketing,
and customer care operation that links the company’s customer service agents,
branch office employees and entertainment experts across all of its locations
in the region.”
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NATD Charity: Give a gift that really matters!
Looking for a special gift? Visit the NATD Charity page,
and honor someone with a gift in his or her name.
About NATD Charities
NATD Charities are selected as organizations that have had
a big impact on the lives of our members. We begin with a “cornerstone”
donation of $5,000 to a not-for-profit (501-C) charity in the community of
the NATD member that was provided assistance. While we believe in and
support many fine charities at the national level, we realize that our
members are being assisted by volunteers and in facilities.... locally. NATD Charities puts the emphasis where it
helps our member the most...right in the hands of the local assistance provider,
the 501C organization that directly helped our member.
Help Us Select Our Next Cause
NATD members may send Nominations for the $5,000 award to
the Executive Secretary of the NATD, Ms. Ruth Marion. Funding for this
award will be solely from funds received from the annual NATD Charity Golf
Tournament, held during the Winter NATD membership meeting.
Funding for other projects and issues will be as solicitation
permits, depending on the issues. Other than emergency issues, fund disbursement
from NATD Charity general funds, will be as directed by the membership in the
General Meetings.
Please visit our newly revamped page at http://www.natd.com/public/committees/charitycommittee.asp
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Sponsors
Plug Into Profit! –
Monitoring, Maintenance, Service and more for Any PBX & Any
network device!
OutPost Sentinel provides an
integrated hardware and software solution that delivers everything necessary
to remotely access, efficiently manage and proactively monitor your
customer’s PBX as well as any other console device such as routers, switches,
frame relays etc. SAM (Sentinel Alarm Manager) provides a powerful and
flexible centralized, scalable reporting, alarm monitoring and automated call
escalation procedures for all phone systems, servers and networking
equipment. To see how you can get this comprehensive, leading technology to
work for you and your customers email: [email protected]
or call 1-877-868-8767. www.pbxmonitor.com
Check out the Next Generation of Quintum MultiPath
Tenors!
Quintum Tenor MultiPath Switches support both H.323 and SIP! Tenors
assure QoS through MID-CALL transparent failover switching between IP and
public phone network. Unique design makes it easy to install in any
existing network. Ranked #3 in NJ Technology Fast 50 and #2 in market share
of low density gateways. Rated UP TO SPEC by Tolly. Read white papers, case
studies and application notes at: http://www.quintum.com
Ship with CTS- Now a member of World Cargo
Alliance
Computer Transportation Services, Ltd. is now a member of World Cargo
Alliance, Inc. WCA is the world’s largest network of independent air
and ocean forwarders in the world and was established in 1998 with no freight
forwarders in ownership, thus preserving group neutrality and ensuring equal
benefits for all members. Visit our innovative Ballpark Rates - http://www.ballparkrates.com,
the instant online transportation rating program for blanket-wrap trucking,
economy motor freight and time definite air freight services. Call
1-800-831-0030 or email Todd Partridge, [email protected]
for more information.
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