Nortel Networks yesterday announced moves to integrate its Optivity network management software with voice equipment and service-provider management offerings.
The voice-network giant, which last year acquired enterprise vendor Bay Networks, said it will extend the Bay Optivity software to manage its Passport multiservice switches. Nortel also will introduce accounting software to compile usage information on multivendor networks.
Nortel's Open Management System for Passport 3.1 -- which will be an add-on to version 9.0 of Optivity -- will let managers of enterprise WANs (wide area networks) control the Nortel Passport switches in their networks. It will provide a drag-and-drop interface for provisioning WAN services on a Passport platform.
The Optivity Service Accounting (OSA) 1.0 software to be introduced next week will allow enterprises to aggregate data about network usage at OSA Flow Data Collectors located throughout the WAN. It can detect TCP port information to determine the application being used, and detect whether guaranteed quality-of-service parameters are being met. This data can be used with third-party accounting applications through mediation software.
According to Nortel officials, OSA later will be scaled up and positioned as part of Nortel's Integrated Network Management software for service providers.