One of the drivers encouraging companies to implement IP telephony throughout the organization is the ability to provide consistent communications features from any location.

Treating a network of branch locations as if they were one large office has its benefits: Think 4-digit dialing, easy call transfers, and paging between locations, as well as the ability to log on to a similar phone from any site to retrieve voicemail and contact lists.

From an IT perspective, though, challenges emerge regarding how to manage this infrastructure. Typically, organizations with fewer than five locations can monitor and manage their IP telephony system using the tools that come with their IP PBX.

But move beyond five locations, and those tools generally do not provide the detail, user interface, or sophistication most companies require for effective performance and troubleshooting. For the largest companies, then, it’s no surprise that they tend to look at third-party tools that offer new insight into the IP telephony application, events relating to IP telephony performance, or the network supporting it. These tools come from companies such as CA, Clarus, EMC (which OEMs Integrated Research’s Prognosis product), Fluke Networks, Integrated Research, NetIQ, Psytechnics, and others.

Drilling down into just SMBs, or those with fewer than 1,000 employees, the larger the rollout, the more you’ll need third-party, specialty tools. Among companies with fewer than 250 employees, 56.4% use IP PBX monitoring tools compared to only 16.7% using specialty tools. But in the 250-1,000-employee category, 34.4% use IP PBX tools and 48.5% use specialty tools.

Bottom line: As your VoIP project grows in number of employees and number of locations, complexity increases—particularly as you add new real-time applications to the mix. Take the time to evaluate third-party tools, and make sure they’re in the project budget.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.