Tone Software Adds to ReliaTel Solution with Streamline IP Voice Analytics
April 14, 2009
By Jessica Kostek, TMCnet Channel Editor
Managed service providers (MSPs) who monitor Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) use for a network or networks can attest that sometimes ghost stories don’t just exist in the imagination. In the office, the water-cooler becomes the fire and the MSPs become the campers all trying to run away from echoes, delays or worse, dropped calls.
Tone Software has the solution. The company announced today it has acquired the Streamline IP Voice Analytics Management Platform from Communicado (News - Alert), Inc.
“Enterprises and service providers alike are seeking cost effective ways to capitalize on the business benefits of converged and unified communications, and the key to success lies in providing a bullet-proof voice and data management platform that supports these business-critical communications technologies,” said Shirley Balarezo, president, Tone Software (News - Alert) Corporation.
“The addition of Streamline to the ReliaTel Management suite results in a synergistic, ‘best-of-breed’ solution that ensures 360-degree voice network visibility and quality, and the reliable delivery of IP voice and data services across virtually any technology mix,” Balarezo continues.
After listening to their customers, what Tone consistently heard was the ReliaTel solution “was great at ensuring that the infrastructure was reliable and that performance levels were optimized but users felt that they also needed deeper quality of service metrics once they had moved to an IP Telephone or a Voice over IP network,” explained Tracey Whitney, Director of Marketing, Tone Software Corporation.
Tone Software Corporation talked with TMCnet the expansion of its ReliaTel VoIP and IP Telephony Network Management Solution Suite brings a robust solution for service providers.
“The Streamline technology is a very strong QoS offering with a VoIP pre-network assessment capability. In a situation where a company is transitioning to VoIP, the Streamline solution will allow them to very easily and quickly assess whether or not their existing corporate infrastructure is suitable and capable of handling additional voice traffic once they move to a VoIP technology. This is really helpful for MSPs because as they are working with their clients moving VoIP equipment into their network, the client’s level of nervousness can be alleviated by doing these assessments,” Whitney states.
She continues, “In addition to that, many of the manufactures are now requiring business partners and service providers to perform these pre-network assessments prior to deploying their VoIP or IP Telephony solution so that there is more assurance that the deployment will be successful.”
“The ReliaTel solution was geared toward the physical infrastructure of monitoring and managing all of the devices and the connections between devices to ensure that they were functioning properly and to also ensure that they were functioning at optimum performance levels,” Whitney commented.” “The Streamline technology takes it beyond that into a deeper type of management that allows us to actually measure the quality of each and every IP based phone call so that the voice network administration staff who is responsible for this voice network, can in fact find where quality problems are occurring.”
The data is given back to the user via a “quarreled zoom, which is a graphical representation of the quality metrics, showing the exact locations and the exact timeframe when quality degradation occurred and gives the voice network administrators the opportunity to drill down and find out exactly what the possible causes might be,” explained Whitney.
Although the Streamline solution from Tone Software was just announced today, the company has already begun thinking about how they can improve their solution. Whitney told TMCnet that “one of the nice things about Tone is that we’re an extremely strong R&D company and we have a 30 plus year history of software development and delivery and the Streamline solution will be integrated into our development processes and we have plans already for extensions and enhancements for both ReliaTel and Streamline.”
“The Streamline acquisition is a strategic technology move for Tone Software, specifically addressing the needs of service providers who are challenged to deliver on the promises of converged, unified communications for their clients,” said Balarezo.
“Uniting ReliaTel and Streamline provides unprecedented real-time voice and data network monitoring and management across the entire spectrum of VoIP, unified communications and the managed services market space, all in a unified solution platform,” concluded Balarezo.