S3 Technology Group

Fault Monitoring

S3 will perform 24x7x365 up/down fault monitoring of the main SNMP-enabled elements in the IPT network.  When a fault is detected, S3’s NOC personnel will isolate and diagnose the fault, notify the appropriate personnel, manage the problem through resolution (including working with third-parties on behalf of the customer as an agent), perform tests to validate resolution, and document the problem.  

The elements monitored under this service include the router, switch, voice gateway, and the convergence servers within the IPT network.  

Remote Telephone Support

Customers will receive 24x7x365 remote telephone support from S3’s Customer Support Center (CSC) located in Tampa, Florida.  The CSC will answer technical questions and perform remote diagnostic and trouble-shooting activities across all contracted devices and circuits in the customer’s network to isolate the specific cause of the problem.

Remote Critical Patch Upgrades

Together with remote telephone support, S3 will also provide remote critical patch upgrades as part of the Basic IPT Service. Remote critical patch upgrades are defined as Cisco or Microsoft IOS/software/firmware patches or bug fixes intended to fix a known hardware or software issue that can be applied remotely. This service ensures the customer does not experience degraded or interrupted IPT performance or is open to security vulnerabilities. S3 will maintain an inventory of the customer’s components, software and IOS information. Additionally, S3 will track defect lists, release notes and bug fixes on behalf of the customer. When critical software, firmware or IOS patch/upgrades become available, S3 alerts the customer. S3 will discuss the critical updates and any problems, concerns or other requirements with the customer. If it is determined the upgrade is appropriate for the customer’s environment and the upgrade can be performed remotely, S3 will perform the remote upgrade installation via remote access in accordance with the customer change management processes. 

Configuration Management

S3 will provide configuration management for the Cisco routers, switches and voice gateways in the network.  S3’s Configuration Management service provides a single network configuration management solution to adhere to change management best practices, retrieve, authenticate and archive device configurations, ensure common errors do not occur while the Customer is manually editing and deploying configuration or IOS changes, assist in regulatory compliance requirements, decrease time for large network changes, and ensure business continuity through disaster recovery planning.  S3 offers this service on most major equipment vendor products.  The service also offers analysis and simulation of a configuration change prior to making it, non-disruptively test the configuration before deployment and notification to the customer of any issues or errors.  S3 will also check each device configuration on a daily basis.  Each time the configuration file changes per device, the configuration will be archived, for faster configuration restore in the event of a device failure. S3 will archive all configuration changes for one calendar year.  In the event of a device failure, S3 will send the configuration to the Customer designated contact. 

Performance Management

S3 will provide S3 will perform 24x7x365 network, IPT application, and call quality performance monitoring of the IPT network as part of the Enhanced IPT service offering.  When a performance event is detected, S3’s NOC personnel will isolate and diagnose the event, notify the appropriate personnel, manage the problem through resolution (including working with third-parties on behalf of the customer as an agent), perform tests to validate resolution, and document the problem.  

The elements monitored under this service include the routers, switches, voice gateways, IP telephones, and the convergence servers (Call Manager, Unity, etc…) within the IPT network.  The Enhanced IPT performance management service monitors, measures, and reports on these important statistics which drive IPT performance:

IP Telephony

§         Real-time and historic call quality via MOSS scoring

§         Call volume statistics

§         Call quality by network path

Network Performance Statistics

§         Bandwidth utilization

§         Network Latency

§         Packet Loss

§         Interface Errors

§         Availability

Device Performance Statistics

§         CPU and memory utilization – Network Devices

§         Buffer and queue performance – Network Devices

§         Gateway utilization – IPT to PSTN gateways

§         CPU, Disk, and memory Utilization – AVVID servers

§         Application Performance – AVVID servers

§         Uninterruptible Power Supply – Status Monitoring

Remote MACDs

S3 will perform remote MACDs for the customer’s IPT environment under support.  S3 defines a remote MACD as any remote, IP Telephony-related administration work, including move, add, change, and delete related to the IP Telephony environment.  Under the basic IPT service, the customer is entitled to remote MACDs each month up to 5% of the customer’s IPT telephones installed. 

Onsite Field Support

S3 can provide an onsite field technician to provide onsite support for the contracted equipment (i.e. routers, switches, voice gateways, con-vergence servers, IP telephones, soft IP phones) when an incident cannot be resolved remotely.  In the event onsite support is required, S3 will dispatch an onsite engineer to perform further onsite diagnostics or perform hardware replacement tasks to resolve the issue.  The onsite field engineer will arrive at the site within the designated contractual time frames to perform additional trouble-shooting or parts replacement activities.  A customer may choose from 7x24x4, 8x5x4 or 8x5xNBD onsite response time.  Typically, contractual response times are tied to the response times set forth in the Customer’s Cisco SMARTnet™ hardware replacement contract.