Monitor, Access and Control CPE Telecom Equipment

Organizations today depend upon their networks to increase productivity and reduce network infrastructure and maintenance costs. Accordingly, these networks must be secure and perform reliably in order to accommodate geographically dispersed users.

This will not be accomplished through more devices, more complexity or more single capability solutions. The solution is found at the critical juncture where remote equipment sites link distributed networks and connect to the centralized network management system. This is where all the remote monitoring, access, control and security are required, and integrated within a cohesive platform.

With Asentria solutions, service providers can deliver reliable connectivity from any location. Customers can rely on network services that are delivered with maximum uptime, IT personnel gain a dramatic improvement in quickly resolving remote site equipment and environmental problems, and organizations reduce their overall remote site infrastructure and maintenance costs.

Managing Customer Premise Equipment
Customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment (CPE) refers to any equipment and inside wiring located at a customer’s premises and connected with a carrier’s telecommunication channel(s) at the demarcation point. The demarcation point is a point established in a building or business complex that separates customer equipment from communications company equipment. CPE generally refers to telephones, DSL modems, cable modems, and set-top boxes for use with a service providers’ service; also included are key phone systems and private branch exchanges (PBXs).

While the opportunity for managed CPE service growth has great promise, there are many challenges that service providers face. The new and varied technologies implemented at remote sites is usually more than just a traditional PBX voice system, and often exceeds the monitoring capabilities of traditional remote monitoring devices. Immediate and secure access has never been more of a concern, yet many older monitoring devices lack the required security, are too complicated to set up, or report alarm conditions using proprietary communication methods. Furthermore, the demands for high system availability require monitoring and response that go beyond the simple unintelligent monitoring that has traditionally been available.

Element Management Systems
An Element Management System (EMS) manages diverse network elements. Typically, the EMS monitors the functions and capabilities within each network element, but does not manage the traffic between different network elements in the network. To support management of the traffic between itself and other network elements, the EMS can communicate with higher-level Network Management Systems (NMS). A typical enterprise contains many different network elements. However, each device normally requires a vendor-specific element management system in order to effectively manage the network element.

Therefore, multiple management stations may be polling network elements for the same information, and data collected by the different systems is stored in separate databases, creating undue administration overhead.

Asentria’s Element Management System
The challenge that today’s service providers face is that there is more pressure than ever to keep their remote equipment up and running, as customers continue to demand higher levels of reliable service. Businesses are under increasing pressure to fix problems more quickly, and competitive cost pressures continue to mount. Thus, there is a growing need for remote site management solutions that can help service providers monitor, access and control all of the equipment that they have based in remote or understaffed locations, be it remote communication towers, on-site security systems, transmitters, power sources, etc.

Asentria’s EMS consists of two primary components - TeleBoss, a family of Controllers to securely access, monitor, control and collect data from PBXs, other telecommunications infrastructure, and environmental conditions located within remote customer premises; and SitePath, a secure administration portal that provides a centralized management platform for the network operations center (NOC) to monitor TeleBoss Controllers and the managed equipment behind them. Together, TeleBoss and SitePath work in combination to monitor and manage the health of vital telecommunications infrastructure.

TeleBoss™
Asentria’s TeleBoss is a series of Tele-Management Controllers that deliver a secure remote monitoring and management system, regardless of the type of equipment that is monitored. Such elements can include legacy PBXs, SNMP-enabled network devices, non-SNMP devices, contact closure devices such as fans, fire alarms, door sensors, etc. TeleBoss Controllers provide secure remote access, monitoring and control of telecommunications systems, network elements, and environmental conditions.