Cisco switches management functionality away from PBX

Cisco last week released software designed to bring the management functionality of PBXs into the world of data routers and switches.

Cisco Works 2000 Voice Manager 2.0 supports Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video, and Integrated Data) by working across a variety of multi-service Cisco platforms.

By expanding platform support, users can manage a variety of voice-port and dial-plan configurations and provisioning more easily.

According to Cisco, the software will enable network managers to configure voice ports to deal with voice-quality issues such as jitter and echo on Cisco devices, through simple templates and pull-down menus.

However, Ian Short, marketing manager at network integrator Getronics, said that uptake of Cisco's AVVID among its enterprise customers had so far been slow.

He added that the vast majority of users continued to regard their PBX as far more reliable than their data network.

Voice Manager 2.0 supports the voice features of several existing Cisco devices, including the 1700, 2600 and 3600 series, the MC3810 multi-service access concentrator, AS5300 series universal access server, and 7200 and 7500 routers.

Peter Crowcombe, of analysts Infonetics Research, said: "Cisco is trying to make sure that anything you can do on a feature-rich PBX, you can do on a networking device."

The software is geared to easing the deployment of voice over IP, voice over Frame Relay, and voice over ATM networks.

CiscoWorks 2000 Voice Manager also includes a reporting tool. In conjunction with information management tools from Telemate.Net, users can track and analyse voice traffic data and create customised reports.

Sebastian Andreatta, senior product manager at Cisco, said: "From a web browser, users can manage multiple combinations of voice-enabled Cisco routers and provides a single point of management for the enterprise."