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Provides data flow and VoIP management for small and mid-sized businesses deploying unified communications.

Packet Island, Inc., a provider of Voice-Data Network Management solutions, today announced the release of an enterprise-lite version of PacketSmart, a carrier-class VoIP-Data lifecycle management solution. The company states that with this new product release, it now offers small and mid-sized enterprise customers a solution that leverages real-time flow-based analysis to assess and manage branch office VoIP+Data networks.

The company avers that PacketSmart Enterprise-Lite Platform comes with software pre-installed on a Dell server and a set of five 4"x5" micro-appliances. The micro-appliances function as sniffers and double up as VoIP call generators for assessment purposes, it says.

It claims that this solution is targeted to IT administrators of small and mid-sized companies deploying VoIP for a handful of branch offices using mixed network topologies and multiple ISP WANs. IT administrators can use the solution to perform the following functions:

• Pre-assess data networks for VoIP readiness
• Verify LAN/WAN QoS design based on TOS or Diffserv
• Monitor live VoIP calls (SIP-based) on a 24x7 basis
• Troubleshoot VoIP signaling issues
• Remote packet capture with Ethereal/Wireshark compatibility
• Monitor Top-10 data flows on a 24x7 basis
• Generate a variety of on-demand reports to summarize SLAs

"Customers are increasingly realizing that real-time flow-based analysis is a must-have to effectively manage the multi-site converged media networks of today. Traditional SNMP-based solutions are great at monitoring servers and network devices, but fall short when managing converged media. As VoIP adoption hits the mainstream, what enterprises need is a comprehensive product that can help them manage the lifecycle of their converged media networks that go beyond SNMP monitoring. With PacketSmart-Lite, we are offering the combined functionalities of a VoIP assessment tool, VoIP monitoring tool, VoIP verification tool, Remote packet capture tool, Traffic flow monitor, and Top-N flow monitor, all in one package. Bought as separate vendor tools, these capabilities would cost tens of thousands of dollars. However, with our all-inclusive PacketSmart-Lite package, customers get a complete package for under $8K", said Praveen Kumar, CEO of Packet Island, Inc.