TMCnews Featured Article
October 12, 2009
Telcom New Zealand Goes Live With Opengear
By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor
It includes a couple console management appliances, Opengear KCS6000 and IM4200, deployed as two distributed clusters, supporting access from up to 1000 external specialist engineers and administrators.
Telecom officials said Prophecy Networks and Opengear worked with them to "fine-tune" the product, "something that was not forthcoming from the vendor" of the previous management product."
"Although the Opengear did not initially fulfill our needs out-of-the-box, their engineers were dedicated to modifying the operational software" for Telecom's requirements," said Dave Shaw from the Network Integration Lab, "at a reduced cost when compared to the existing vendor," in a statement.
In August, TMCnet reported that Opengear, based in the high-tech Mecca of Sandy, Utah, announced what company officials called "record revenue and rapid expansion," reporting a "doubling of sales and an increase of staff numbers by 30 percent against comparable period in 2008."
Telecom's Network Integration Lab in Wellington is used for the creation and testing of new products such as routers, switches, DSL concentrators or VoIP gateways, as well as voice, data, and video services prior to release onto live networks. It's also used by its vendors to undertake proof of concept testing against models of Telecom's networks.
The Telecom NIL is used by our vendors to undertake proof of concept testing against the model of the network, allowing for rigorous testing of concepts before releasing them live on a network. The sales teams can also use The NIL as a demonstration and sales support center.
The open source-based Opengear line of console server products are intended to replace the more expensive proprietary products from companies such as Avocent, Raritan (News - Alert), MRV, Digi and Lantronix.
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Amy Tierney