Telstra to offer outsourced network management service

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 03 February 2011 15:05

Business IT - Networking

Telstra has followed its New Zealand subsidiary, TelstraClear, in launching a service that will manage the internal data networks of  its enterprise customers.

According to Telstra, the service, Managed Data Networks, provides organisations with "advanced alarm systems and an experienced network management workforce to monitor organisations' private network equipment and data carriage."

John Paitaridis, executive director, Telstra Enterprise and Government, said: "The launch of Telstra's Managed Data Networks service means organisations can shift to Telstra the expensive and resource-intensive tasks of keeping their ICT networks running and achieve peace of mind knowing Telstra's expert technicians and engineers will be monitoring and managing their network every day of the year."

TelstraClear's head of networks and services, Andrew Crabb, told ExchangeDaily last November that TelstraClear was building up a valued added services business providing help desk services for a wide range of IT equipment and services used by its enterprise customers and based on BMC Software's Remedy IT service management (ITSM) suite and that the company had about 40 customers of this service. "It is a growing market because customers increasingly want a one-stop shop and the tools have evolved so you can now get a single picture of the state of play." He said.

A spokesman for Telstra told ExchangeDaily that Telstra's offering was not based on the BMC software.

In addition to network management, Telstra is offering customised network design, installation and service restoration across both the equipment and the data network connectivity. The service can also integrate with an organisation's current ICT services.

Enterprise and government customers can choose from a range of options that, Telstra says, aim to provide reduced fault restoration times by 50 percent or 80 percent relative to standard repair times. Telstra's Next G network can be used as a backup to fixed line services to help achieve business continuity.

The core offering is a Managed Router service but Telstra will also support LAN switches, data centre switches and load balancers, wireless WANs, wireless LANs and WAN optimisation.

Telstra is offering "pre-packaged solutions with a simple monthly fee, customer premise equipment, installation and commissioning."

There is a choice of two. The Proactive Managed MDN Bundle for mission-critical sites offering "comprehensive proactive management including monitoring and alarming, plus response, diagnosis, repair and integrated reporting," and a Reactive Managed MDN bundle for less critical sites.

Under the latter offering, Telstra does not proactively poll equipment. Customers contact the Telstra help desk when faults are detected. In addition, a customised MDN solution can be tailored to suit an organisation's requirements and each service offers options to cater for mission-critical and less critical business needs.