Visual Networks Inc. today will release a new version of its Visual UpTime fault and performance management software aimed at high-speed IP service providers who want a view into exactly how their wide-area capacity is being used by their most sophisticated customers.
Visual UpTime v7.1 adds more than 15 application protocols, enabling specific bandwidth consumption measure for packet voice, streaming media, file-sharing, database applications and other capacity-hungry services. The suite builds on v7.0, released last January, which already enables carriers including AT&T Corp., Sprint Corp. and WorldCom Inc. to monitor and validate capacity, availability, latency and dropped packets for contracted classes of service. Now, said Bob Norberg, director of product marketing for Visual Networks, those and other carriers delivering frame relay and ATM links will be able to monitor private IP services at the same 1.5mbps T1 to 45mbps T3 speeds.
“Many branch offices are upgrading from 56-kilobit to T1, and there’s a greater and greater proportion of T3 installations. Among IP-over-frame and IP-over-ATM providers, there is growing adoption of network-based IP virtual private networks, so we’re seeing a thirst for this utilization and performance monitoring information,” Norberg said. “Our customers are also seeing their customers launch voice over IP, streaming and file sharing, and they want to understand how the wide-area network bandwidth is being used.”
