NetIQ bets on Cisco VoIP technology

NetIQ has taken a Cisco focus with the second generation of its voice-over-IP [VoIP] management technology.

“We decided that since most people do their whole voice implementation with a single vendor without mixing and matching, we would take the same model,” said Steve Joyce, NetIQ’s networking technology director. “We ended up picking Cisco because they seemed to be the dominant player in the up PBX market.”

The latest release builds on first-generation equipment by making it VoIP-focused, Joyce said. “We’re managing Cisco’s unified messaging platform and one of their voice recognition systems.” The new product gives network administrators increased control of their VoIP environments through performance management and real-time network monitoring. The first announced customer, Avnet Enterprise Solutions, will use it as a primary component to provide comprehensive dispatch services, help desk support and VoIP monitoring.

The product suite, he emphasized, is aimed more toward the enterprise space than carriers. That’s where a company such as Avnet fits the picture. It’s also a growing customer space, whose speed to the marketplace caught NetIQ “off guard,” Joyce said.

“We figured a year or two out that this would start coming, but I think it’s really coming fast,” he said. “When I think of managed service offerings, I tend to think of all the little ISPs two years ago who called themselves MSPs instead. They all went out of business.”

Today’s managed services space is “AT&T, Sprint, BellSouth, Verizon, Avnet and Compaq--all sorts of big vendors putting energy into this,” Joyce said.

While NetIQ’s initial product is proprietary and intended to work with Cisco-based systems, Joyce did not preclude future versions working with other vendors’ equipment.

“We have a platform on which it’s very simple to build strong, multi-vendor support,” he said, noting it’s not the time for such a product. “If we built it today, we’d be ahead of everybody else.”