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89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003
www.TheEdison.com
212.367.7400
Competitive Analysis Report
Cisco Unified Communications
Management Suite (Operations
Manager and Service Monitor) vs. IR
PROGNOSIS®
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright 2007 Edison Group, Inc. New York. Edison Group offers no warranty either expressed or
implied on the information contained herein and shall be held harmless for errors resulting from its use.
All products are trademarks of their respective owners.
First Publication: 2006
Produced by: Barry Cohen, Editor-in-Chief
Table of Contents
Introduction and Purpose of Analysis ....................................................................................... 1
Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 1
Yankee Group Report ............................................................................................................ 2
Operational Overview .................................................................................................................. 4
Architecture and Offered Solutions ..................................................................................... 4
Business Overview ........................................................................................................................ 7
Pricing ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Financial Overview ................................................................................................................ 8
Market Penetration ..................................................................................................................... 13
IR Prognosis Industry News and Opinion .............................................................................. 15
Press Releases, Industry Happenings, and Opinions ...................................................... 15
Demographics, Interviews, and Satisfaction Factors ............................................................. 17
Demographics ....................................................................................................................... 17
What Customers Are Saying About IR Prognosis ........................................................... 18
What Integrated Research Has Been Saying About Cisco .............................................. 19
Satisfaction Factors ............................................................................................................... 20
IR Prognosis IP Telephony Network Management Suite ..................................................... 21
Functional Product Overview ............................................................................................ 21
Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite .............................................................. 30
Functional Product Overview (General) ........................................................................... 30
Strengths of Cisco, Weaknesses of Prognosis® ................................................................ 32
Where Will IR Focus Its IP Telephony Management Resources? .................................. 34
Implications for Cisco and Next Steps ..................................................................................... 36
Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 38
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 1
Introduction and Purpose of Analysis
Integrated Research (IR), Limited has disrupted a number of competitive Cisco
engagements using a sponsored report prepared by The Yankee Group as well as
ongoing Cisco sales and marketing channel involvement and feedback. These sources
claim that IR’s lifecycle PROGNOSIS® network management suite of applications are
being touted as superior to and leading Cisco’s own tools, and should be seen as a “must
consider” by all large (>2,500 endpoints) Cisco IP Telephony installations, either new or
established.
The primary purpose of this Edison Group report is to provide a “field oriented”
reference guide for Cisco sales channels and marketing teams to counter IR and
consultant report claims with documented competitive intelligence, so that claims made
during competitive engagement processes can easily be addressed and rebutted.
Sentences in bold convey findings that deserve special emphasis for Cisco Sales channel
personnel.
This report will also be used to provide product marketing and development teams with
the key functionality of the IR PROGNOSIS suite and key differentiators of that suite
when compared to Cisco’s current or future Unified Communications Management
Suite network management portfolio for its Cisco Unified Communications IP
Telephony (IPT) solutions. These include management solutions based around Cisco’s
Unified Call Manager 5.0/4.2, Unified Call Manager Express, Unity Connection, Unity
Express, Unified Contact Center Enterprise, Unified Contact Center Express, Cisco
Conference Connection, Personal Assistant, Emergency Responder, Unified Meeting
Place Express, IP Phones, and all infrastructure products including gateways, routers,
switching elements, which IR claims to manage better than Cisco.
Methodology
Primary and secondary research was performed in all publicly known sources. Targeted
for interviews and information exchanges were Internal Cisco Account and Regional
Managers, TMEs, SEs, and Cisco Business Unit personnel, Cisco customers, IR winback
customers, and some IR customers. Strengths and weaknesses were determined and an
effort was made to discern future product direction and market planning by IR, with
implications and recommended next steps for Cisco marketing and development
planning teams.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 2
Yankee Group Report
A January 2006 Yankee Group report titled “VoIP Management Solutions Guide:
Managing Cisco IP Communications in the Enterprise” was released. The report was
funded by Integrated Research. It states:
“Many IT and telecom managers who are deploying Cisco IP Communications will
continue to lack confidence until they adopt a more complete management solution
from a credible, experienced vendor.”
“The principal strengths of PROGNOSIS are in the breadth and depth of coverage
across the Cisco IPT solution, the ability to provide TDM-equivalent performance
management by monitoring calls and call performance in real time and the flexibility
and scalability of its solution."
"As more organizations adopt larger scale deployments, the ability for PROGNOSIS
to manage highly distributed or very large environments (often exceeding 10,000
phones) will position the company as leading vendor for a variety of deployment
sizes."
Perhaps the most disturbing statement, however, was the following:
“…the top-ranked product in their VoIP Management Solutions Guide.” "The
shortlist for any enterprise should include PROGNOSIS."
This report was developed toward the end of 2005, without much effort made in
understanding that CiscoWorks and Cisco ITEM functionality had been successfully
deployed in hundreds of larger Cisco IP Telephony installations (>2,000 IP endpoints)
even prior to IR’s entry into IP Telephony monitoring in June 2004. The report was
developed before Cisco really started to promote the benefits and vision of its newest
Unified Communications Management Suite. Based on intensive customer feedback,
Cisco Operations Manager and Service Monitor were specifically custom-designed for
all Cisco IP Telephony installations, not just the much larger deployments (>10,000
endpoints, comprising 5 percent of all installations) where IR PROGNOSIS received
most of its kudos in the Yankee report. For as long as IR has been in existence, Cisco has
been very successful in network monitoring for pure data networks. Yankee Group did
give a lot of credibility to Cisco in the <10,000 station markets (which IR does not
penetrate).
Another glaring omission in the Yankee Group report is Cisco’s managed services
company NetSolve. NetSolve is a service provider for large IP Telephony customers who
demand precision WAN monitoring, assessment, and trouble resolution. It can remotely
resolve over 90 percent of network troubles while most of the remaining 10 percent are
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 3
completely diagnosed prior to technician deployment, all from a central Network
Operations Center (NOC). Cisco should stress NetSolve and its track record in large-
scale Cisco IP Telephony deployments.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 4
Operational Overview
Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Sydney, Australia, Integrated Research (IR) is a
member of the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) symbol IRI. Its initial purpose was to
develop a comprehensive line of systems and application management products for the
business computing industry. IR, in their own words, is now developing “precise
performance monitoring solutions for business-critical computing and recently for Cisco
IP telephony environments.” Annual revenues are in the $30M USD range with
approximately 120 people operating in North, Central, and South Americas ($9.5M vs.
$8.7M in the second half of 2004)), Europe from the UK ($3M vs. $2.8M), and Asia Pacific
from Australia ($2.3M vs. $3.5M). IR markets in some 60 countries through a large
network of distributors.
From June 2005 through December 2005, IR reported a 38 percent decline in profit on
$14.8M revenue, 2 percent lower than in the second half of 2004. This occurred mainly
because of (1) major expense outlays in R&D to get PROGNOSIS release version 8 to the
market, and (2) major sales realignment expenses to directly engage customer bases and
prospects, especially in the U.S. IR did not secure one significant new VoIP order during
this entire six month period. During that time, all of its revenue came from licensing
fees, licensing, and maintenance contracts, with a very small amount from post-sales
consultancy fees. The load was carried primarily by their IT infrastructure business-
critical performance management software for computing environments (PROGNOSIS
for Windows/UNIX/Linux and PROGNOSIS for HP OpenView) rather than from Cisco
IP Telephony environments, even though they have some 15 existing customer plus new
customer licensing contacts for IP Telephony.
IR is considered by some as a leader in the field of network management innovation.
Edison Group research shows little direct publicity on this company and its product
portfolios in terms of analyst reviews (Dataquest, Current Analysis, Network World,
Tech Republic, VoIP News, VoIP Line, VoIP Developer, Tolly reports,
KnowledgeStorm), trade show and/or magazine coverage, and even the industry-
sponsored white papers so prevalent among its 30 or so competitors. There was nothing
in leader quadrants (magic or otherwise), and nothing per se on notable innovations,
and no externally published white paper developed by IR itself.
Architecture and Offered Solutions
All PROGNOSIS solutions are built around the same general architecture with the goal
of working seamlessly together. Version 8 was released during the fourth quarter of
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 5
2004. It is somewhat similar to Cisco’s IOS, but IOS travels much farther and controls
many more infrastructure operations than the PROGNOSIS ever will.
IR develops, sells, licenses, and maintains PROGNOSIS software suites for four major
solution areas, as described in the following subsections.
Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and Point of Sale (POS) Networks
Solutions to proactively monitor, measure, and troubleshoot critical components to
achieve optimal performance and availability in BASE24 environments. PROGNOSIS for
BASE24 offers business and operational-level management via a comprehensive suite of
integrated products that include:
PROGNOSIS Transaction Surveillance. Uncovers suspect or failed ATM and POS
transaction details from volumes of data trapped in log files.
PROGNOSIS XPNET Manager. Monitors performance and availability of XPNET, to
identify and correct problems before they impact operations.
PROGNOSIS ATM Transaction Manager. Monitors real-time ATMs resource
utilization, denied transactions, and excess stand-in transactions.
PROGNOSIS ATM Incident Manager. Ensures that Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
are met with alerts directed to the most appropriate resource when a fault occurs.
PROGNOSIS POS Transaction Manager. Identifies trends in denied POS transactions
in real time, and proactively manages POS resources.
IP Telephony and VoIP Systems and Applications 1
A comprehensive suite of IPT lifecycle management software products covering Voice
over IP (VoIP) network readiness assessment, pre-deployment assurance testing, and
ongoing performance management for Cisco IP Unified Communications environments.
Functions include:
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Express
PROGNOSIS for SRST
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Assessor
PROGNOSIS IPCC Management Reporting
1 Covered in a later section.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 6
IT infrastructure Spanning HP NonStop, Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Cisco IP
Telephony
IR offers a PROGNOSIS Smart Plug-In (SPI) that supplements the functionality of HP
OpenView Operations (OVO) by providing secure, centralized, on-demand access to
alerts and problems when monitoring HP NonStop nodes. PROGNOSIS SPI for HP
OVO has been integrated with Operations for UNIX® and Operations for Windows®.
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Smart Link Integration for HP OpenView. Enables
Network Node Manager (NNM) to monitor Cisco IP telephony environments. This
is essentially an HP-tailored, less functional version of PROGNOSIS IT Telephony
Assessor and Manager.
Web Application Service Level and Availability Monitoring
PROGNOSIS for Web Applications monitors, measures, and manages web applications
using two integrated products that view customer application experience, emulate user
activity, and measure browser response through customized web sessions.
PROGNOSIS Web Session Recorder. Monitors web application availability along
with determining user experience factors.
PROGNOSIS Web Session Emulator. Helps to eliminate service level breaches by
emulating, monitoring, and measuring every stage of complex user web sessions.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 7
Business Overview
PROGNOSIS solutions manage servers, networks, desktops, and applications ranging
from Microsoft Exchange and complex eBusiness applications to financial transaction
processing systems. They also offer PROGNOSIS for Cisco IP Telephony. IR provides
training (only 1-3 training classes per month) and consulting services at only three
locations — Denver, London, and Sydney — and at some customer sites. It is interesting
to note that, during a six-month period, IR only offers fourteen 4-day training sessions,
only four of which are devoted to the design and usage of PROGNOSIS for Cisco IPT.
All of the rest are sessions devoted to planning, deployment, and configuring
PROGNOSIS for IT Infrastructures (HP Non-Stop, Windows, UNIX, and Linux). As
stated earlier, a greater percentage of sales comes from its PROGNOSIS for IT
Infrastructures lines, especially their Windows/UNIX/Linux sales then moderate sales in
HP OpenView, and less (but rapidly increasing) sales in their IP Telephony lines. IR is
counting on the IP Telephony market to yield much greater future revenue. IR is
increasing its focus on VoIP for large systems integrators, service providers, and major
larger enterprises, as well as for smaller Cisco customers and, eventually, Avaya and
Nortel customers.
IR has experienced a downturn in its Asia Pacific business along with a change in their
AP management team. The company will increase focus on VoIP revenues in its Asia
Pacific region, review sales models for key countries, and also increase focus on its home
Australian market.
IR has also established strategic alliances with SCO, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard,
IDX Systems Corporation, T-Systems (Germany), Microsoft, and IBM. Conversations
with IR reveal that IR considers its offering a more in-depth tool than what HP has
developed in their HP/Cisco Smart Plug-In for HP OpenView (HPOV) Network Node
Manager (NNM) and against Cisco ITEM itself. No comments were received in response
to questions about Operations Manager and Service Monitor.
Pricing
IR is also going after the small and medium-sized businesses, and just recently has been
very quick to pursue very small customers, as well. A SMB example: for a 50-user basic
IP network that would run Call Manager Express and Cisco Unity, IR sells as a bundle a
10-year right-to-use license for its PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager for an
approximate $1,100 one-time charge. Representative installation charge is around $2,000
per day and would require two days ($4,000). An additional 23 percent of the price,
$253, is charged per year for 24x7 maintenance, patches, upgrades, and all support. So,
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 8
the TOC over a 10-year period for this representative small installation would amount to
approximately $7,630.
For larger customers using Cisco Call Manager and Unity Messaging, IR typically
licenses its software (delivered on CD) at $17.60 per user. This per-user license also
includes 24x7 support, maintenance, patches, and upgrades. Installation charges are
$2,000 per day. Therefore, a 500-user install would price out at around $8,800 per year
plus, say, a week ($10,000) for the installation. For a 1,000-user install, the price would be
around $17,600 per year plus, say, two weeks ($20,000) for the install. For larger
customers, using this structure, the price would be $17.60 per user + $2,000 per day
installation.
Financial Overview
Revenue
Revenue from Ordinary Activities
in '000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Revenue from license fees $7,008 $17,726 $15,842 $12,396 $18,776
% of total revenues 47.31% 53.64% 52.68% 44.93% 58.12%
year-over-year change na 11.89% 27.80% -33.98% na
Revenue from maintenance fees $7,535 $14,877 $13,712 $14,456 $12,689
% of total revenues 50.86% 45.01% 45.60% 52.40% 39.28%
year-over-year change na 8.50% -5.15% 13.93% na
Revenue from consulting and other
services
$271 $446 $518 $658 $772
% of total revenues 1.83% 1.35% 1.72% 2.39% 2.39%
year-over-year change na -13.90% -21.28% -14.77% na
License, Maintenance, Consulting, &
Services
$14,814 $33,049 $30,072 $27,510 $32,237
% of Total Revenues from Ordinary
Activities
100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 99.72% 99.78%
Government grants 0 0 0 78 70
Total revenue from ordinary activities $14,814 $33,049 $30,072 $27,588 $32,307
year-over-year change na 9.89% 9.00% -14.60% na
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 9
Revenue Growth
Revenues are derived mainly from license and maintenance fees and have grown in a
fairly consistent fashion with the exception of year 2003. The lackluster performance of
2003 is attributed to a decrease in IT capital spending.
During fiscal year 2005, new sales in VoIP grew by 153 percent from the previous year.
Fiscal year 2004 saw similar growth, with an increase of 113 percent in VoIP telephony
products for managing the Cisco Call Manager. It should be noted that the six months
ending December 30, 2005 are not on track with prior periods.
Factors for Revenue Growth
Customer Growth
For the six months ending December 30, 2005, the company gained 15 existing plus new
license contracts.
In the year ending June 30, 2005, the company gained 58 new customers, including 31 in
the VoIP business. New customers include JP Morgan, Abercrombie and Fitch, Airbus
Boeing, and British Airways. During fiscal year 2003, the company gained 63 new
customers.
European Markets
Revenues are derived mainly from the Americas (including North, South, and Central
America), Europe, and Asia Pacific (including Australia and Asia). The company aims to
increase penetration in European markets with a new office in Frankfurt, Germany,
coupled with a newly announced partnership with T-System, a division of Deutsche
Telekom.
Revenue from Ordinary Activities
in '000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Americas $9,475 $19,018 $17,762 $17,362 $25,265
% of total revenues 63.96% 57.55% 59.06% 63.11% 78.37%
year-over-year change na 7.07% 2.30% -31.28% na
Europe 3,024 6,946 5,559 3,344 4,620
% of total revenues 20.41% 21.02% 18.49% 12.16% 14.33%
year-over-year change na 24.95% 66.24% -27.62% na
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 10
Revenue from Ordinary Activities
in '000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Asia Pacific 2,315 5,482 5,622 5,469 4,230
% of total revenues 15.63% 16.59% 18.70% 19.88% 13.12%
year-over-year change na -2.49% 2.80% 29.29% na
Unallocated 0 1,602 1,129 1,335 -1,878
Total $14,814 $33,048 $30,072 $27,510 $32,237
Expenses
Expenses from Ordinary Activities
in '000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Research and development $3,803 $5,881 $5,876 $6,211 $4,448
% of total revenues from ordinary
activities
25.67% 17.79% 19.54% 22.51% 13.77%
year-over-year change na 0.09% -5.39% 39.64% na
Sales and marketing $7,270 $15,704 $13,790 $16,106 $15,248
% of total revenues from ordinary
activities
49.08% 47.52% 45.86% 58.38% 47.20%
year-over-year change na 13.88% -14.38% 5.63% na
General and administration [1] $1,945 $3,494 $3,493 $4,567 $4,576
% of total revenues from ordinary
activities
13.13% 10.57% 11.62% 16.55% 14.16%
year-over-year change na 0.03% -23.52% -0.20% na
Total expenses from ordinary
activities
$13,018 $25,079 $23,159 $26,884 $24,272
% of Total Revenues from Ordinary
Activities
87.88% 75.88% 77.01% 97.45% 75.13%
year-over-year change na 8.29% -13.86% 10.76% na
Profit from ordinary activities $1,796 $7,970 $6,913 $704 $8,035
% of Total Revenues from Ordinary
Activities
12.12% 24.12% 22.99% 2.55% 24.87%
year-over-year change na 15.29% 881.96% -91.24% na
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 11
Expenses from Ordinary Activities
in '000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Interest received 214 294 260 561 257
Profit before tax $2,010 $8,264 $7,173 $1,265 $8,292
% of Total Revenues from Ordinary
Activities
13.57% 25.01% 23.85% 4.59% 25.67%
Income tax expense -379 -2,065 -2,718 -193 -1,769
Net Profit $1,631 $6,199 $4,455 $1,072 $6,523
% of Total Revenues from Ordinary
Activities
11.01% 18.76% 14.81% 3.89% 20.19%
year-over-year change na 39.14% 315.57% -83.56% na
Note:
[1] Year 2003 general and administrative costs incorporate $23,000 in written-down
value of non-current assets.
Sales and Marketing
Beginning in the second half of 2004, the company added sales and marketing personnel
to boost VoIP business. Seven people were added during the second half of 2005, sixteen
in fiscal year 2005, and four in fiscal year 2004.
Net Profit
Net profit margin for the six months ending December 30, 2005 was 11.01 percent, which
is low compared to previous periods.
Balance Sheet
Balance Sheet $'000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Cash assets 9,262 9,699 8,510 6,909 6,111
Receivables 10,639 10,079 10,433 7,632 12,152
Other 4,199 3,777 4,006 4,462 3,450
Total current assets $24,100 $23,555 $22,949 $19,003 $21,713
Non-current assets
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 12
Balance Sheet $'000's AUD
Six
months
ending
12/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/05
Year
ending
6/30/04
Year
ending
6/30/03
Year
ending
6/30/02
Receivables 0 0 196 413 696
Investments 0 0 0 0 0
Property, plant, and equipment 1,273 1,238 988 992 810
Deferred tax assets 370 633 1,618 1,910 604
Intangible assets 8,818 10,169 8,302 7,696 7,480
Total non-current assets 10,461 12,040 11,104 11,011 9,590
Total assets $34,561 $35,595 $34,053 $30,014 $31,303
Current liabilities
Payables 1,278 1,793 2,636 3,473 1,164
Current tax liabilities 201 60 960 0 1,783
Provisions 1,205 1,023 988 996 2,636
Other 10,216 8,121 8,225 7,627 7,653
Total current liabilities $12,900 $10,997 $12,809 $12,096 $13,236
Non-current liabilities
Deferred tax liabilities 2,106 2,843 2,339 2,227 2,230
Provisions 190 181 261 267 223
Total non-current liabilities 2,296 3,024 2,600 2,494 2,453
Total liabilities 15,196 14,021 15,409 14,590 15,689
Net assets $19,365 $21,574 $18,644 $15,424 $15,614
Equity
Contributed equity 530 468 427 423 423
Reserves -194 -395
Retained profits 19029 21,106 18,217 15,001 15,191
Total equity $19,365 $21,179 $18,644 $15,424 $15,614
The company maintains a strong balance sheet with substantial cash levels and no debt.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 13
Market Penetration
Some 30 players comprise the VoIP monitoring and network management landscape.
Products vary widely in form factor, price, functionality, and deployment. Some come
from current vendors of test and monitoring equipment for enterprise LANs, WANs,
networked applications, and Service Provider networks, while others are purely
software-based from start-ups. IR considers NetIQ, Viola NetAlly, Spirent
Communications, and Agilent Technologies as top competition for PROGNOSIS IP
Telephony Assessor. It considers ClarusIPC Assurance, Smarts Service Assurance
Manager, and Brix Networks Service Assurance for VoIP as top competition for its
network assurance area, and considers NetIQ, Concord, Micromuse, HP OpenView for
Cisco, and Cisco ITEM as top competition for its Cisco IP Telephony Manager. Other
competition include Acterna, InfoVista, Qovia, Ixia, Empirix, Fluke, Viola, Apparent
Networks, NetScout, Network General, WildPackets, Network Instruments, NetSolve
(Cisco), Candela, Hammer, and Brix Networks.
IDC places PROGNOSIS under its VoIP Management market. IDC predicts a 31.5
percent CAGR for worldwide VoIP Management with 2004 revenue at $81M, and
forecasts a $319M market in 2009. Infonetics Research predicts that enterprise adoption
of VoIP technology in North America will double by 2010, which will include half of
small businesses (triple what it is now) and two-thirds of large enterprises.
Dell’OroGroup further predicts that this market will approach $4.2B in 2010, from $1.6B.
2004 IDC research ranks Integrated Research as number 58 of 132 vendors, having 0.1
percent ($17M revenue) of the overall worldwide network and systems management
marketshare, with Cisco at number 9 with 2.2 percent ($255M revenue). Updated results
for IR would probably place them a little higher, but nowhere near Cisco strengths here.
They could certainly be in the top 10 IP Telephony network performance management
vendors.
A 2005 survey by Integrated Research states that Cisco IP Telephony equipment
accounts for some 62 percent of all deployments, compared to 43 percent in 2004. This is
a significant increase and is why IR is targeting and developing relationships and
platforms for Cisco specifically. Of 1,200 companies surveyed (34 percent from North
America and 66 percent from Europe and Asia Pacific) only 5 percent stated that their IP
endpoint deployments reached or exceeded 10,000 stations. The study clearly shows that
current IP phone deployment is concentrated heavily in the <500 station range, at 57
percent, 501-1,000 at 14 percent, 1,001-5,000 at 14 percent, and 5001-10,000 at 4 percent.
Therefore, by stating that Cisco market share has increased significantly in the IP
Telephony space, that major deployments concentrate in the <10,000 station area, and
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 14
that Cisco’s network management prowess is very strong in the <10,000 station category,
IR research and the Yankee paper both suggest that Cisco should really not be that
concerned over current share statistics when confronted with IR PROGNOSIS
competitive claims, inquiries, or rebuttals. Although IR has a compelling set of network
management tools and a good track record, it is felt that other competitors such as NetIQ
are more significant competition.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 15
IR PROGNOSIS Industry News and Opinion
Press Releases, Industry Happenings, and Opinions
Integrated Research will be available at the June 12 GoldenGate Real-Time 2006 User
Conference in Las Vegas, June 18 at the Las Vegas Cisco Networkers Conference, June 19
at the HP Software Forum in Miami Beach, July 24 at the Australasia HP Non-Stop
computing conferences and tradeshows, August 2 at the VoIP World Australasia,
August 21 at VoiceCon Fall San Francisco, September 10 at the ACI Customer Exchange
(ACE) Americas, September 25 at IPComm 2006 in Nashville, and September 25 at
Networkers 2006 Australia. Four IP Telephony training courses will also be offered
during this same period.
April 2006. IR won a prestigious Australian Consensus Software Award for its
PROGNOSIS for Web Applications, an application that measures the quality of user
experience with a company’s Web-based applications (internet banking, travel booking,
or other online shopping).
Jan. 2006. The Yankee Group released their report “VoIP Management Solutions Guide:
Managing Cisco IP Communications in the Enterprise.”
Nov. 2005. IR announced a partnership with T-Systems division of Deutsche Telekom
for a major VoIP deployment in Germany. IR also announced the opening of a new
office in the center of Frankfurt am. PROGNOSIS has current relationships with Deutche
Bahn and Deutche Bank in their business-critical computing environments. This venture
will require more resources and oversight from IR. Demand for IP Telephony in
Germany is on the rise, but all major players — including Siemens, Alcatel, Avaya, and
many others — are there with their own network management tools.
Oct. 2005. IR announced PROGOSIS ATM Incident Manager, designed to optimize
availability of ATM machines and simplify trouble management.
Oct. 2005. IR was granted DSPP Partnership Certification by HP Integrity non-stop
server systems for their PROGNOSIS precise performance management solution.
Oct. 2005. IR announced a technical and marketing partnership with UK Tiger
Communications plc. Tiger is the market leader in the provision of call management
billing solutions. PROGNOSIS mean opinion score (MOS) algorithm will be integrated
with Tiger Communications’ voice traffic management, integration, and billing solution
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 16
to bill based on call quality, rather than just call quantity. This could become quite
controversial.
Sept 2005. IR announced the release of Version 8.0.1 of both PROGNOSIS IP Telephony
Manager and PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Express. Architectural and feature
enhancements were verified by Cisco for the latest versions of their Unified
CallManager and Unified CallManager Express product sets.
May 2005. IR unveiled PROGNOSIS IP Assessor for readiness testing an enterprise data
network prior to a commitment to deploy voice and video traffic for IP Telephony. It did
not go General Availability until July 2005! IP Assessor simulates, records, and analyses
VoIP traffic in real-time, over extended periods of time, and is used to measure pre- and
post-deployment network traffic and report on how well the network adapts to
additional load.
July 2004. Introduced a major revision for its PROGNOSIS Cisco IP Telephony Manager.
IR has used George Hamilton of The Yankee Group, Robin Gareiss, EVP of Nemertes
Research, David Wall of David Wall Enterprises, and Realtime Publishers to prepare
general articles and some compelling case studies for the IR website and some industry
funnels about the market for and importance of enterprise management topics. Some
eventually explore the attributes which PROGNOSIS for IP Telephony brings to the
market and to actual customer success stories.
There seemed to be no really glowing nationally or internationally publicized reports
about IR except the reporting of their winning the 2006 Australian Consensus Software
Award, a prestigious award given to the new PROGNOSIS for Web Application
software, which provides insight into how well their revenue-generating or critical
online services are functioning for their customers.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 17
Demographics, Interviews, and Satisfaction Factors
Demographics
IR is focusing on key markets that demand high availability, non-stop computing, and
business-critical infrastructure operations in specific vertical industries such as banking,
telecommunications, and government. The vendor has an impressive list of customers.
More notable successes include ATM and POS networks for the banking sector,
including Boston Communications (transaction processing solutions for real-time
wireless subscriber management), State of Washington, Everlink (NYCE), US Bank,
South African electronic transaction switching services provider, BankServ, US-based
State Street Bank, Toronto Stock Exchange, Renfe Spanish Railways, and Singapore’s
Ministry of Defense. Business-critical computing customers include Alstom Australia
Ltd, BAE Systems, Belgacom, Bibliotek, BT Syntegra, DarrComm Network Solutions,
Data Alliance, DB Systems GmbH, Dell Computers, Dimension Data, EDS, Electronic
Arts, Encoda Systems, Getronics, Global Data Systems, HP, IBM Global Services,
Infostream, Intec Communications, Interactive Data, Logical Networks, NCR, Northrup
Grumman IT, Pivot Technologies, Proxima Systems, Raytheon Systems, Southtrust Data
Services, Suntrust Data Systems, Syniverse, Synnex information technologies, T-Chek
Systems, Technosys, TNS Systems Integration, Triaton GmbH, T-Systems International
GmbH, Unicom Shenzhen, Unisys, Verizon Data Services.
Keep in mind that most of these large IR customers do not use network management
software for their PBX and/or IP Telephony deployments, just in their mission-critical
data infrastructures.
IR says that PROGNOSIS for IP Telephony has been deployed in more than 150 of the
world's largest IP telephony implementations including Bank One, NASDAQ, Bellsouth,
Brigham Young University, NCR, CarrAmerica, Internetwork Experts, Dimension Data,
Fannie Mae, Abercrombie and Fitch, Infostream, Global Data Systems, JP Morgan,
Merrill Lynch, Warner Pacific, and USAID in Egypt, mainly in larger (>5,000 endpoints)
installations. A recent NCR PR Newswire Press Release, written by IR and titled
“PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager Tops Analyst Firm’s Competitive Solution
Report,” states that PROGNOSIS provides TDM-equivalent performance management
by monitoring calls and performance in real time. These capabilities exist in a number of
competitive vendor solutions, including Cisco’s.
Keep in mind that Cisco sells in 115 countries with offices in 60 countries. Cisco also sells
through a vast array of VARs, distributors, system integrators, web sales, and e-
commerce portals. Network Management is one division of eight major divisions within
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 18
Cisco. Cisco is known worldwide for non-stop reliability, availability, world-class
customer service, and unmatched investment protection. IR cannot touch Cisco’s
customer loyalties, unmatched R&D, and world-class services organizations.
Following is a list of very impressive Cisco IPT success stories of which Cisco must be
extremely proud, all with individual hot links. This was taken from the HP and Cisco
Strategic Alliance program for IP Telephony. Click on the links to read the accounts.
Hyundai Marine and Fire Insurance
London Stock Exchange (Video, 32MB, 7 min)
Video transcript
Samsung Life Insurance (PDF,87KB)
Sony Europe
Sony Europe (Video, 9.6MB, 6 min)
Video transcript
St. Olavs Hospital (PDF, 93KB)
Visa (PDF,689KB)
Wolfsburg AG (PDF,158KB)
The Carphone Warehouse
Worcestershire County Council (PDF, 1.6MB)
York Health NHS (PDF, 57KB)
York Health NHS (Video, 15 MB, 5 min)
Video transcript
What Customers Are Saying About IR PROGNOSIS
In customer testimonials, Bobbie Parish — senior IT specialist with the city of
Jacksonville, North Carolina — overhauled his data network to also run voice traffic
(400 users, 240 IP endpoints). He could not afford to purchase the voice management
add-on to CiscoWorks, saying that the added features did not justify the costs. He
wanted the ability to see if performance was degraded, determine Mean Opinion Scores
(MOS), tweak QoS settings, and understand bandwidth capacities. I think Mr. Parish
will see all of these capabilities and much more in Unified Communications
Management Suite.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 19
In a case study Gary Audin prepared for IR, he states that Brigham Young University’s
large installation consisted of 12 Cisco Call Managers servicing some 7,100 IP phones,
4,800 analog phones, and 700 non-phone devices (including 25,000 LAN ports). It
needed a management system that offered well-designed intuitive screen displays
presenting easily read and easily used information, and that was capable of determining
traffic and problem trend analysis. Also required were capabilities to measure and
report performance in real time, as well as measure utilization for hardware and
software and report call quality on a per-call basis. “The Cisco product was not
considered visible enough, the TRACE tool overloaded with data, and problem tracing
took too long,” Audin reported. The IT manager picked IR PROGNOSIS performance
monitoring. All of this happened through December 2005, prior to Operations Manager
and Service Monitor promotion.
As stated previously, Edison Group customers, Cisco internal, and industry analyst
interviews suggest that PROGNOSIS is actually not intuitive and is difficult to use, and
actually is often not being used (even where it has been deployed), because it is too
complex and hard to understand. This information came from a very large Cisco IPT
installation. An industry analyst told us that PROGNOSIS is “intricate, costly, and does
not scale down well to installations with fewer than 1,500 phones.”
What Integrated Research Has Been Saying About Cisco
Conversations with IR indicate that the vendor considers itself as offering a more in-
depth tool than what HP has developed in their HP/Cisco Smart Plug-In for HP
OpenView (HPOV) Network Node Manager (NNM) and against Cisco ITEM itself.
Their competitive analyses suggest weaknesses in the depth of Cisco products
monitored. Nothing about Operations Manager was given.
According to IR, a common shortcoming with Cisco management tools for Call Manager
Express is that it presents no overt signs of trouble until a problem has become critical,
and that IR provides graphical displays with intuitive navigation. In fact, Cisco UCM
provides all of this information with Operations Manager and Service Monitor. Edison
Group customer interviews suggest that PROGNOSIS is actually not intuitive and is not
easy to use.
IR has been telling customers “It is the only true real-time assessment solution, as it
allows engineers to adjust a router’s quality of service and view the results instantly.
With PROGNOSIS there is no need to wait for a report, decipher it, and then
guesstimate the next incremental change. “Cisco also provides this capability,
employing interfaces that are easier to use and decipher.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 20
IR states that Cisco Internet Protocol Contact Center (IPCC) records enormous amounts
of data about caller and agent activity that can be used to support management decision-
making, and makes a distinction between data and information. Data represents raw
measurements such as counts, times of occurrence, and durations. Information results
when data is analyzed to answer larger questions.
According to an IR publication, “Integrated Research believes it is well-placed with the
recent addition of major Cisco resellers to our channel.
Additionally, the company is setting up a U.S. East Coast office, whose major focus will
be the IPT market. IR will also continue to develop and market the PROGNOSIS suite of
products for HP NonStop OpenView, Windows, UNIX, and Linux environments, “to
keep our company at the forefront of the technology…”
Satisfaction Factors
Large customers ideally want a “turnkey management solution” and for it to be
“out-of-the-box ready.”
They want to see events such as synthetic transactions, QoS activity, and immediate
issues/alerts, server hardware traps and capacity constraints, network capacity
views, call setup time, dial tone delay statistics and their causes, jitter, call
completion ratios, and even morning site operational checks and customizable
reports.
Customers also want their management solution integrated with their change
management and incident management for both their voice and data infrastructures.
Finally, customers want performance management tools that are easy to buy, install,
and use.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 21
IR PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Network
Management Suite
Functional Product Overview
Detailed functionality, obtained from IR, can be used by Cisco technical market planning
and systems engineers/designers to assess UCMS present and future detail capabilities.
NOTE: The screenshots presented in this section are not very legible and should be
referred to only as a quick view of screen user interface, layout, and menus only. Better
shots could not be obtained.
PROGNOSIS Portfolio
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Assessor (July 2005)
IP Telephony Assessor is a single solution used to assess, predict, report, and prepare
customer data networks for optimized Cisco IPT deployments. It simulates actual VoIP
traffic (synthetic testing), and monitors and records simulated call quality in real time. It
also identifies weaknesses in the network as well as existing hardware limitations, and
can be used to ensure QoS and to optimize network efficiency prior to Cisco IPT
deployment.
Available as a standalone product or as an integrated module on their IP Telephony
Manager. Cisco UCMS does not provide the standalone/integrated module
capability.
Simulates actual VoIP traffic and records network effects. Predicts overall call quality
expected from IP Telephony on an existing data network.
Network settings can be tweaked while tests are underway.
Can be set up to alert users if call quality (MOS score) falls below an acceptable
threshold, which can be administered.
Provides detailed and /or tailored evaluations and manager reports summarizing
network weaknesses and its readiness for IP Telephony.
Provides ongoing post-deployment capacity reporting.
Post-installation testing is used to monitor call-quality levels on an ongoing basis.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 22
Detailed Functionality:
Test templates, pre-defined
Call flow analysis:
Busy hour traffic, blocking or non-blocking, trunk lines
Call Quality Assessment:
MOS Scoring, prediction of call quality over time
Dropped packets
VoIP silence suppression
Simulate call traffic via synthetic transactions
Call delay end-to-end measurement
QoS parameters of DiffServ and 802.1p
NO Tone, noise, and voice sample generation/recording
Configuration assessment:
OS, memory
QoS
Virtual LAN, shared LAN hubs
Speed of interface
NO phone power supply assessment
NO network inventory analysis
Utilization assessment:
CPU and buffer utilization
Bandwidth utilization but NO bandwidth modeling
Auto stress testing based on HTTP, FTP, SQL, SMTP, POP, and DHCP traffic
generation.
NO Remote Installation
NO ROI assessment
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 23
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Manager (Major Revision June 2004)
According to IR’s published financial reports, no new purchases were made from July
2005 through December 2005.
IP Telephony Manager provides ongoing fault and performance monitoring,
troubleshooting support, and performance reporting. Monitors active voice and video
calls, video end-points, and bandwidth consumption in real time.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 24
Target Markets: Enterprises, carriers, and service providers
Certified compatible with: CCM 3.1-3.3, 4.0, 4.1(x) and CCM 5.0
Version 7.07 has tested compatible with Cisco Unified CallManager 3.3(3), 4.0(1) and
4.1(2)
Cisco Unity 4.0(3) and Cisco Unity Bridge 3.0(2)
Unified Call Manager Express, SRST, Unity Express, IPCC (to 8), IPCC Express (to 5)
IP/IVR, Personal Assistant, ICM, and Emergency Responder
Now at version 8.0.1 — not yet certified with Cisco interoperability labs
Automatic installation and configuration
Hierarchical dashboard view of entire network including servers, phones, gateways,
and Unity Express devices
Monitoring Capabilities:
< 1 sec interval polling. Collection on a continuous basis or when a threshold has
been crossed
Error logs
Conference bridge
Monitors transcoders, media termination points, routers, switches, and circuits
Softswitch call details for service providers and carriers
Monitors gateways (H.323) and remote gateway availability, channels, and ports
Individual route pattern availability, views bearer channel status and endpoints
Monitors changes to patterns, lists, groups and gateways and generates alerts if
routes are down or degraded
Provides IP endpoint, system, and inventory metrics
Monitors unregistered, additional, and missing phones
Real-time device monitoring (H.323)
Calls in Progress, delay-to-dial-tone rates, I/O calls by gateway bearer channel
Call setup (H.323)
Call setup performance and functionality
Call volumes (attempts, deliveries, in progress)
NO Call Setup or monitoring (SIP)
NO SIP Proxy or presence server monitoring
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 25
End-to-end call quality capabilities:
Centralized QoS management feature monitors all voice calls, call quality, and
availability in real time against administratively defined Service Level
Agreements (SLAs).
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 26
Tracks QoS and pre-defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs) set to alert via
dashboard view on detecting breaches in call quality or availability
Shows calls succeeded, refused, failed, and the cause of disconnect
Shows real-time and historical statistics on link:
Lost packets, jitter and latency
Shows active and historical Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) by call.
Shows network traffic by phone
Simulates call traffic synthetic transactions, emulating day-to-day
conditions
Reports MOS scoring, prediction of call quality over time
Service Level Agreement management capabilities:
Measure SLAs by enterprise, business unit, resource
Track customers by class of service
Assign ToS (type of service) to applications
Map customer QoS to performance management
NO Billing and chargeback information
Security capabilities:
Failed login attempts
LDAP server
Changes to critical configurations
Handset security enablement allows identification of IP phones configured for
encryption or authentication
Business-level reporting of office-to-office calls, peak usage hours, call origin,
and route patterns, and phone utilization metrics
Capacity planning capabilities:
Measure SLAs by enterprise, business unit, and resource
Incoming and/or outgoing calls
Loading by route pattern, group, list, and gateway
Alert and escalate when service levels are breeched
NO What-if analysis
NO Correlate baseline utilization with trends for change analysis
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 27
NO Forecast call volume statistics
NO Forecast expected gateway usage
Windows component monitoring capabilities:
Windows 2000, SQL Server, IIS Services, TFTP Servers, DNS, and WINS
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Call Manager Express
Version 8.0 certified with CCM Express 3.2 and 3.3, Cisco Unity Express 2.1.2, and Cisco
SRST 3.2.
Version 7.07 tested compatible with CCM Express 3.0 through 3.2 and Cisco Unity
Express 1.0 through 1.1.2.
Same as IP Telephony Manager, for smaller Express installations.
PROGNOSIS for SRST
Monitors and manages Cisco Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) to ensure calls
will always be up with the proper call quality.
Supports all SRST versions. Manages SRST routers by company and location
Alerts when the WAN link to the CallManager at the central site goes down, or
when connection to the CallManager is lost
Monitors SRST from the moment it comes online
Monitors SRST router performance metrics as an ongoing capacity planning tool to
verifying voice and data performance
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 28
Monitors performance of phones and SRST routers in branch offices until the WAN
link comes up, or until phones can re-register with a centralized Cisco CallManager
Uses same monitoring and management techniques as IP Telephony Manager
PROGNOSIS IPCC Management Reporting
Gives real-time visibility into the performance and throughput of Cisco IPCC Enterprise
and IPCC Express contact centers. Provides, at a glance, every detail of every call that
comes in and goes out, combining both Cisco IPCC and non-IPCC data. Supplements
standard WebView reporting tools in Cisco IPCC Enterprise and the two reporting plug-
ins in Cisco IPCC Express. Includes customized reports feature.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 29
PROGNOSIS IP Telephony Smart Link Integration for HP OpenView
Integrated with HP Network Node Manager console to perform readiness assessment,
pre-deployment assurance testing, real-time performance management, troubleshooting,
and ongoing VoIP capacity planning. PROGNOSIS Smart Link Integration (SLI) gives
Network Operations Center personnel capabilities to view real-time, IP telephony events
in the NNM alarms browser. The SLI can then be used to launch PROGNOSIS IP
Telephony Manager for continued troubleshooting of a selected event.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 30
Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite
Cisco has listened to its market, its customer base, and its competitor’s customers, which
has resulted in the development of the Unified Communications Management Suite, a
new generation of IP Telephony network management tools. Without a doubt, this suite
will provide an easier-to-use and more functional agentless suite of tailored applications
to specifically address needs that Cisco’s Unified Communications IP Telephony
products and functionality require.
CUCM will ultimately include its own Readiness Assessment Manager, Provisioning
Manager, CiscoWorks Voice Manager (available now), Service Statistics Manager,
Service Monitor, and Operations Manager which have various release dates by year end
2006. This report will compare capabilities of Operations Manger/Services Manager
functionality to PROGNOSIS offers only.
Functional Product Overview (General)
CUCM Suite Portfolio
Network Readiness Assessment
Cisco has offered its Lifecycle Unified Communications Services for some time. Part of
Lifecycle, the Network Readiness Assessment and Optimization services assess the
readiness of an existing customer data network infrastructure to support Cisco Unified
Communications IP Telephony, provide network configuration and design
recommendations, and provide an execution plan if desired. Assessments address
network hardware, software, traffic, capacity, network design, IP addressing, QoS,
bandwidth, availability, scalability, security, cabling, power, and existing network
services. CUCM Readiness Assessment Manager will tailor these capabilities to the IP
Telephony scope further by predicting overall call quality over the network, and will
perform best practice analysis to ensure that the network is ready for voice.
Cisco Network Assistant 3.0/4.0
This is an unheralded capability which presents a global topological view of an entire
network, even with little IP phones hanging off the switching infrastructures. This nifty
Assistant can make configuration and easily grasped security-level changes to the
switches’ individual port structure. It has the added capability to invoke the Device
Manager which, with Smartports roles activation, can set up and manage IP endpoints,
and can be used for monitoring port utilization, packet errors, and historical trend data,
examining alert logs/details with recommendations as to possible cause of alerts. A
tremendously unique and useful feature icon call “Resolve” actually repairs
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 31
configuration problems or guides the user through repair steps. (PROGNOSIS lacks this
capability.) Another very useful feature allows for dragging and dropping software
upgrades onto the topology icons representing individual network devices, then steps
unfamiliar users through the upgrade process, a much easier process than TFTP
processes. (PROGNOSIS lacks support this capability.)
Cisco Voice Provisioning Tool
This tool is used for moves, adds, and changes, which are greatly simplified by
consolidating telephony and voice mail MOVs all on one screen. The CVPT replaces
approximately six discrete CM/Unity update screens. It can perform multiple (bulk)
MOVs in one operation, and allows the use of device attribute templates. This is a
tremendous time saver and can be operated by less knowledgeable administrators. This
description goes beyond the scope of PROGNOSIS and, to some extent, this report but
PROGNOSIS lacks this capability (other than monitoring).
A main point here is that Cisco has a superior set of multifaceted provisioning,
monitoring, and diagnosis applications which are not really exploited to any degree.
Operations Manager and Service Monitor
Provides a very scalable (with distributed or centralized deployment), unified, user-
friendly, and straightforward view into network health (much more user-friendly than
PROGNOSIS) in terms of operational status (Service Level views) of the entire Cisco IP
Telephony communications and underlying infrastructure network. (PROGNOSIS does
not support as many data infrastructure elements) It continuously monitors and
evaluates all voice and data elements by using open interfaces such as HTTP, AvvidXL,
SOAP, and SNMP without the use of software device or cluster agents (PROGNOSIS
must use agents on each platform monitored). Service quality alerts are presented
directly to OM screens for dashboard-type drilldown and further diagnostic testing.
These include IP phone MOS degradation with Service Monitors installed, WAN and
node-to-node drilldown diagnostic tests, and IP Service Level Agreement tests, and can
be sent on to a higher-level Manager of Managers and to one or many e-mail addresses
and even pagers (PROGNOSIS does not provide pager alerts). These capabilities are
helpful in reducing administrative overhead for network managers.
OM provides simulated synthetic as well as real-time, end-to-end, and emergency call
testing between phones, over links, voice gateways, and between conference connection
links and messaging systems, along with additional contextual information for trouble
isolation. OM provides unique integrated context-sensitive links (with device, user, and
credential synchronization) into other CiscoWorks platforms including CW Resource
Manager Essential, CW Campus Manager, and Cisco View. Even more tools are
presented in pull-down menu form, including SRST, dial tone, node-to-node, and path
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 32
analysis testing, as well as CMExpress and Gateway administration. Service Monitor
allows tracking of endpoint changes (MAC) and inventory status. (Cisco does much
more diagnostic testing than PROGNOSIS).
Strengths of Cisco, Weaknesses of PROGNOSIS®
This section enumerates the strengths and key differentiators of Cisco Unified
Communications Management Suite when compared to IR PROGNOSIS®. It presents a
list of CUCM Suite capabilities that are superior to what PROGNOSIS offers or that are
lacking in IR’s offering altogether. Note that nearly all the capabilities offered by
PROGNOSIS are offered in some form by CUCM. CUCM does not provide an IP
Telephony Manager standalone or integrated module capability for its Telephony
Assessor.
NOTE: Some of the managements applications listed for Cisco generally require the very
latest releases of Call Managers and Unity solutions.
It is not known at this time whether Cisco provides these particular capabilities that are
lacking in the PROGNOSIS offerings:
NO Tone, noise and voice sample generation/recording
NO Phone power supply assessment
NO Network inventory analysis
NO bandwidth modeling
NO Remote installation (??)
NO ROI assessment
NO Call setup or monitoring (SIP)
NO SIP proxy or presence server monitoring
NO Billing and chargeback information
NO What-if analysis (CUCM can simulate certain scenarios, though)
NO Correlate baseline utilization with trends for change analysis
NO Forecast call volume statistics
NO Forecast expected gateway usage
Cisco CUCM network management strengths:
PROGNOSIS lacks the unique and very useful “Resolve” feature for repairing
configuration problems while providing users with guided steps in the process.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 33
PROGNOSIS lacks easy-to-use drag-and-drop software update capabilities.
Cisco’s moves, adds, and changes (MOVs) are greatly simplified by consolidating
telephony and voice mail MOVs all on one screen and allowing bulk template-based
provisioning.
Cisco has a superior set of multifaceted provisioning, monitoring, and diagnostic
capabilities.
Cisco provides a very scalable (with distributed or centralized deployment), unified,
and extremely user-friendly and straightforward view into network health. Much
more ergonomically pleasing than the rougher-edged PROGNOSIS operation.
PROGNOSIS is said to be very user unfriendly, to the point that customers are
actually shying away from its deployed use.
Cisco does a much better job of providing multi-level physical and logical views,
from macro and drill-down levels to dashboard views and assessments.
PROGNOSIS, in its Service Level views, does not support nearly as many data
infrastructure devices and elements as does Cisco.
PROGNOSIS monitoring is done without the use of overhead-laden device agents,
especially in a large network of many Cisco Call Manager clusters. Cisco uses open
interfaces, SNMP, and syslog notifications. Provisioning in PROGNOSIS is very
difficult and time-consuming.
OM provides unique integrated, context-sensitive links (with device, user, and
credential synchronization) into other CiscoWorks and other Cisco Systems®
Management systems platforms, including CW Resource Manager Essential, CW
Campus Manager, and Cisco View. Even more tools are presented in pull-down
menu form. This superb capability allows for further and deeper diagnostic
capabilities.
Cisco does much more total and very intuitive diagnostic testing than PROGNOSIS.
PROGNOSIS’ feature list states that it cannot be remotely installed. It is unclear what
this means in the context of network and/or off-network PROGNOSIS monitoring
operation.
Additional significant differences:
IR does not discover and offer device inventory deployment, real-time monitoring,
and further diagnostic testing for calls/endpoints using SIP protocols, nor for devices
acting as SIP Proxy servers or SIP Unified Presence servers. Cisco offers these
capabilities, and SIP interests and sales have been increasing, especially with the
recent T-Systems (and even IR) involvement in the massive Deutsche Bank
acquisitions and IPT rollout.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 34
IR does not send threshold-based multiple service quality alert notifications to
pagers. Alerts can be sent on to a higher-level Manager of Managers and to one or
many e-mail addresses and even pagers. These capabilities are helpful in reducing
administrative overhead for network managers.
Operations Manager offers deeper methods of device tracking, probing, and testing
along with providing more information around IP/SIP phone inventory and status
changes, while offering a large variety of reports associated with MOVs in very large
networks.
Cisco has a much better and proven approach in providing capabilities for Managed
Service Providers (MSP). OM can display, from one console, Service Level views of
multiple customers with nifty dashboard drill-down capabilities into each and every
customer network, cluster, nodes-to-node IP SLAs, infrastructure, and endpoints
MOS scoring. It is very easy to visualize and use.
Operations Manager provides connectivity and registration-related outages affecting
SIP and SCCP protocol-based endpoints. PROGNOSIS does not go into the detail,
nor does it monitor SIP infrastructure devices, which CUCM does.
Cisco provides much better means of visualizing the business views and operational
impacts that network degradation can incur in overall network health monitoring.
Where will IR Focus its IP Telephony Management Resources?
IR is focusing additional R&D and sales efforts on the Cisco IPT management landscape,
both large and small. Keep in mind that IR has actually been in the “lifecycle mode” of
the IP telephony network management market for only nine months, but has been
managing Cisco IPT for a few years now with a number of impressive wins. According
to IR, by December 2006 they will have PROGNOSIS monitoring for Avaya and “most
likely” by early Q2 2007 will have monitoring for Nortel IP Telephony. It is highly
prudent that IR will also add SIP monitoring capabilities within the next year or so.
Look for IR to enhance its software, sales efforts, and pricing structure for PROGNOSIS
for Call Manager Express and SRST, in order to compete with Cisco primarily in the
<500 station market, and also in the <5,000 station market. They will compete more and
more directly with Cisco’s own sales teams and product offerings, along with other
companies. They will also retool to include management of networks that use more
business value-based applications in intensive operations, such as better integration
with Interactive Voice Response (IVR), video/audio multi-conferencing over IP, instant
messaging/web-based and contact/call center click-to-call scenarios, and meeting place
solutions. Also expect IR to incorporate monitoring of larger web-enabled applications
from SAP, Oracle, and Siebel on IP screen phones or PC portals, using speech-to-text
and text-to-speech monitoring and management techniques.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 35
IR has really missed SIP trunking and SIP endpoint management and Presence and
Collaborative applications, along with rapid advances in IP endpoint applications, as
being important future aspects of advancing the state of IP Telephony. It will, however,
evolve these capabilities into their management suite in the next six months to two
years.
IR will also increase emphasis on VoIP for large systems integrators, carriers, service
providers, and major enterprises (including VoBroadband as other avenues for large-
scale telephony and video management), along with investing in add-on products for
existing customers. IR will always maintain a wait-in-the-wings follower position, which
will allow it to see what evolves then quickly try to manage that, without developing
industry-applauding leapfrog innovations of its own.
The use of integrated performance monitoring and management techniques, long a part
of the data computing world from which Cisco’s heritage stems, is generally regarded
and emphasized now as required for IPT. This is true even though IPT is still evolving,
under development, and under heavy evaluation by customers. Edison Group predicts
that by end 2008 the number of vendors in this field will have been halved, with many of
the prominent vendor technologies of 2006 either absorbed into major and minor IP
Telephony players of today, consolidated with other network management vendors, or
rendered entirely obsolete. As it matures, network and security management will
become an intensely competitive arena.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 36
Implications for Cisco and Next Steps
During the research phase for this study, discovering the sole general repository for
Integrated Research made it much easier to find out relevant information about the IR
PROGNOSIS network management offering than it had been to drill down and find
apples-to-apples information, case studies, papers, brochures, et. al., about Cisco’s
current and future landscape of network management offerings (including the benefits
and details, from assessment to post-deployment). We were obliged to consult many
papers, many well-known VoIP reference sites, many press releases, and to compile
information from a variety of Cisco sources that included Cisco Services sites as well as
test lab reports. Only when all this was all synthesized did the awesome potential and
capabilities that Cisco brings to this part of IP Telephony become clear. Edison Group’s
process may be useful to Cisco in their marketing process.
Cisco has a window of opportunity to develop tactical marketing plans in advance of IR
(and others), to counter moves while advancing its current performance management
portfolio with even better world class tools than it already has. It is Edison Group’s
opinion that Cisco has not done enough to exploit the strengths of its entire systems and
network management portfolios, especially for large customers. The context is in terms
of promoting/bundling for large, very large, and MSP customer bases the real strengths
of current and future Network Readiness Lifecycle Assessment offerings, Cisco Network
Assistant 3.0, Cisco current and future Voice and Provisioning Managers, along with the
very strong (and easy to use) capabilities of Operations Manager and Service Monitor.
Perhaps a theme of “Cisco for Life” or something catchy along those lines should be
employed…a real promotion for these segments. Because of the modular architectural
designs of these offerings, bundling for mid-sized and small market customers can be
easily accomplished around the same theme.
Quick, hard-hitting and easily digested Sales Bulletins (CD, e-mail/web, binder formats)
and perhaps an Americas and EMEA campaign stressing IR myths and how to combat
IR in scalable solutions, also stressing Cisco’s world-class services organization, could be
employed. Efforts should be made to expose and raise awareness of the strengths of
Cisco and weaknesses of PROGNOSIS. Suggestions would be to develop a few more
white papers and case studies specifically addressing Unified Communications and
Service Provider performance network management, for sales proposals and for
customer leave-behinds. These should include as much pricing information as
appropriate, perhaps pointing out benefits of Cisco’s higher pricing structure.
Other suggestions would be to carefully prepare a streaming web ppt digest and/or
conference for sales personnel and for customers at the beginning or on the edge. This
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 37
should not just address IR, but other NM competition against the “new, improved, and
highly capable” Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite.
Enterprises, carriers, and service providers will continue to focus on business efficiencies
and meeting business application needs. Along with their need for education and
direction to migrate to IP Telephony, they have a secondary and pressing need to
understand and improve the quality of these business and application drivers. This is
where and why they invest in management tools to help improve their businesses both
internally and externally. Cisco should evangelize IP Telephony management as a
“critical” part of customer network infrastructure investment. Cisco has a superior set of
multifaceted (and linked) assessment, provisioning, monitoring, testing, and diagnosis
applications which are exploited not nearly as much as they should be. Combining these
together in some sort of tiered venues could certainly go a long way in convincing IPT
customer markets that Cisco has truly superior offerings in the total environment of
network provisioning and performance management.
Product enhancement suggestions would be to continually focus on more intuitive,
easier to sell, easier to install, integrate, use, manage, and maintain performance and
systems management for all Unified Communications management systems. Cisco
could look at furthering real-time root cause analysis, rogue access point and
unauthorized application discovery, automated recovery management techniques, and
automated threshold and corrective action scenarios for its world-class and market-
leading IP Telephony portfolio.
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 38
Conclusions
Integrated Research (IR), a company of some 120 employees worldwide and
approximately $30M in yearly revenue with a good cash position, has been in the
business of network performance management, mainly in business computing markets,
since 1988, and boasts well-known large and established customers for this market.
However, IR has only been in IP Telephony (and, specifically, Cisco Unified
Communications IP Telephony) since June 2004. That is an entirely new arena, which
they have been in for less than two years. By contrast, Cisco has been in IP Telephony
since 1997 when it acquired Selsius, and has been in the data management world since
its inception in 1986.
IR’s PROGNOSIS suite of IP Telephony network management is new, still maturing, and
significantly limited when its capabilities are compared to those of Cisco’s Unified
Communications Management Suite Operations Manager and Service Monitor. Even
some customers are limiting their use of PROGNOSIS due to its non-intuitive and
complicated interface. IR must aggressively seek opportunities with industry leaders,
partners, and integrators in enterprise, carrier, and service provider markets to stay
afloat. It will look to collaborate and spend more resources on technical projects and
joint-marketing initiatives, and to evolve and scale its technology not only to serve a
more diverse customer base but also to serve the individual needs of its business
partners and integrators. IR must also make itself more visible through both mass and
target marketing campaigns, to a larger variety of customers. This will require
considerable resources, but it will take place.
Edison Group research, interviews, and comparative portfolio analyses recommend that
Cisco Product Marketing make sales organizations and potential customers more aware
of how to combat IR in competitive situations with targeted myth-busting and factual
sales bulletins, perhaps a “Cisco for life” campaign, and “what if” questions stressing
distinct and thought-provoking competitive advantages of Unified Communications
Management Suite over IR. Suggested media include targeted Webcast and/or
MeetingPlace conferences and single-sheet bulletins, white papers, case studies, and
customer leave-behinds specifically evangelizing a “new and improved or next-gen”
Cisco IPT Unified Communications Management Suite as it rolls out. These could also
be used for trade show speaker forums.
Internet Protocol Telephony emerged and has evolved within the past ten years. Cisco
has been their since its beginning. The same can be said for managing converged
networks so they work together and act as harmoniously as did the voice
communications of old. The use of detailed and quality-focused network performance
Edison: Cisco UCM Suite vs. IR PROGNOSIS Page 39
management is an absolute requirement for future business network efficiencies and
applications quality. Businesses are beginning to realize this. Cisco’s Operations
Manager and Service Monitor and Unified Communications Management Suite are right
on target. Cisco is beyond the curve and must package, position, and promote what it
already has when faced with determined and formidable competitors such as Integrated
Research’s PROGNOSIS.
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