IPT Management and Budgets

Nemertes Issue Paper

Overview
Resource management is one of the prominent challenges facing telecom and networking staffs implementing or maintaining IP telephony. While company demands increase for streamlined communications between all locations, the IT budgets, in large part, are staying flat or decreasing. Headcount within the overall IT department is stagnant, but demands for new applications, connectivity to branch locations, and quick resolution of any problems continue.

Bottom line: The technical staff must do more with either the same or fewer personnel. They must, therefore, determine early on how they will manage the IP telephony system throughout the enterprise. Leading companies are adopting one of two approaches. They either buy specialty IP telephony management tools to make sure the existing staff can isolate and resolve problems accurately and efficiently. Or, they rely upon third-party “Managed Service Providers” to monitor and manage the system and troubleshoot user issues. By doing so, they are better able to manage IP telephony systems at a lower operating cost.

Author(s): Robin Gareiss, Executive Vice President and Founding Partner

Keywords: VOIP, MSPs, IP Telephony, Unified Communications

Vendors mentioned: Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, Nortel, ShoreTel, Siemens, Infovista, Integrated Research (Prognosis), NetIQ, Clarus, EMC, Fluke Networks, Netcordia

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