Lucent PortAuthority and TRU RADIUS Accountant deliver comprehensive network management solution

Lucent Technologies PortAuthorityTM Connection Management System (PortAuthority-CMS) includes a single user license of TRU RADIUS Accountant -- from Telco Research Corporation to perform usage and access analysis reporting. TRU RADIUS Accountant combines fail-safe data collection, session rating, performance reporting, and session monitoring into a single set of management tools.

Customer Support. TRU RADIUS Accountant enables you to monitor and report abnormal activity on your network. By avoiding excessive use and/or unexpected demands for additional ports, service providers can control costs better and maintain high service quality. And, by informing customers of abnormal use, service providers can more efficiently manage long-term customer relationships.

Enhanced Revenue. TRU RADIUS Accountant's performance reporting helps identify peak and off-peak usage periods, active and inactive users, traffic origination points, service types (analog vs. digital), network access server (NAS) port utilization, and performance of the NAS. By understanding and negotiating service offerings based on peak and off-peak loads, service providers can maximize their network revenues.

Network Performance. The accurate accounting of user activity is critical for any services-based network. The data collection capabilities of TRU RADIUS Accountant help in network capacity planning to prevent congestion during peak traffic periods. TRU RADIUS Accountant also supports a highly scalable distributed architecture. Deployment of multiple data collectors ensures adequate protection and the integrity of session data during network outages. Distributed data collection points also help to optimize bandwidth requirements for retrieving accounting data.

Detailed Account Analysis and Tracking. Clearly, service providers want to know how their networks are being used, when they are being used, and by whom. The ability to capture this level of detail and to charge for specific services and usage has become increasingly important. TRU RADIUS Accountant meets that need by allowing you to:

  • Charge end users on a usage-sensitive basis
  • Generate a wide variety of traffic reports for planning bandwidth growth
  • Identify symptoms of potential fraud, such as simultaneous log-ins
  • Identify high-bandwidth consumers
  • Identify IP addresses that are logged on to the network but inactive
  • Set up exception alarms that can be delivered to an alarm log file, an SNMP management system, or (via email) for automatic notification of problems or exception events

Features of the TRU RADIUS Accountant include:

  • Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)-compliant.
  • Built-in Object Linking and Embedding (OLE ) allow seamless integration with Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and Access.
  • Compatible with Microsoft Exchange and SMTP e-mail.
  • Icon-driven design, which lets you quickly and easily get the results you need.
  • Relational database architecture eliminates redundant data entry-a change in one application automatically updates all related applications.
  • Continuity across all modules. The look and feel is the same whether you are querying the directory or running an exception report.
  • Queries. Queries make it possible to access data from viewpoints that are meaningful to the user. Queries can be saved for subsequent use, always retrieving the current records from the table being queried.
  • 39 predefined reports that are easily tailored to obtain needed information. Report parameters can be saved and reused whenever needed.
  • 3 cumulative and 7 detailed exception alarms that can be delivered to an alarm log file, an SNMP management system, or via e-mail.
  • Extensive on-line help, available at the touch of a key.
  • A built-in scheduler application which enables you to set specific times to automatically run certain events. For instance, you can print reports when system activity is low, such as at night or during the weekend; schedule the system to cost new call records or remove duplicate calls; and schedule to run alarm criteria against call data. Alarms are logged and can be sent to an e-mail address.