IR Prognosis for UC Review: Performance Management at its Best

Vendor-agnostic and rich with features, IR Prognosis is the solution you need to maintain top-notch communication performance.

We review a lot of products, but very few targets a market as specific as IR (or Integrated Research). The company started as a one-person operation in 1988, enabling fault-resilience for mission-critical computing systems. In the last half-decade, it has grown steadily to become an award-winning monitoring solutions provider. IR is now listed on the Australian Exchange, with offices in five countries. Its portfolio of solutions includes contact centres, stress tests, and call recording tests, apart from Prognosis for Unified Communications, which we are reviewing today.

As Unified Communications become integral to business operations across the globe, you cannot afford to have any gaps in performance. It is not enough to take a reactive approach to problem-solving – IR Prognosis for UC lets you take a proactive stance, powered by predictive analytics. You can gain intelligence on how well your systems are performing, pre-empt adverse events, and avoid outages. In this review, we explore exactly how this works.

Inside IR Prognosis for UC

IR is informed by data collected across 25 years of real-world customer incidents. This streamlines performance monitoring, whether you’re hosted on-premises or in the cloud. The following features enable easy monitoring, troubleshooting and optimisation of any communication interface.

• Deep troubleshooting – You can gather real-time and historical data to diagnose issues at every level. Data storage periods can be configured as per your needs, stored on either a prognosis database or an open ODBC system. This covers every interface from the network to your endpoints
• Dashboards and data visualisation – IR leverages HTML 5 technology – this means that you can view performance monitoring dashboards on virtually any device. Metrics like call server and asset status, service availability, resource utilisation, and performance are all available in different viewing formats. You can drill down further for deeper analysis as well
• Automated alerts – Even if you’re not ready with best-case-scenario KPIs, IR Prognosis for UC offers pre-built thresholds for automated alerts from day one. Needless to say, you can customise these thresholds and integrate with any manager and ticketing system
• Voice Quality 360 – This is a useful feature for businesses frequently conducting meetings outside their own ecosystem. If, for example, a call originates from an Avaya phone and travels to a Skype for Business endpoint, it can be difficult to monitor call quality. IR Prognosis for UC solves this through seamless vendor ecosystem monitoring
• Reporting – Reports vary from vendor to vendor, but there is a core reporting module available as part of the default product package. You can export performance reports in Microsoft Excel format to enable wider sharability. Interestingly, there are specific reports on contact centre agents and performance (if you’re using a compatible solution)

Why IR Prognosis for UC Makes a Difference

Performance management is already a niche area, with just a handful of providers offering pan-vendor support. IR Prognosis for UC can be linked to Microsoft, Cisco, Polycom, Avaya, AudioCodes, and Ribbon ecosystems, among others. Not only can you effortlessly switch between devices at your own business, but you can also enjoy integrated monitoring for partners/clients who are on a different device family. This is probably the biggest USP of IR Prognosis for UC.

Apart from this, a number of other factors recommend this solution:

• It is entirely software-based with minimal installation hassles – a robust pre-built configuration library cuts down implementation times even further
• IR Prognosis for UC collects over 50,000 metrics giving you a full picture of configurations and performance
• The solution is highly customisable, making it a great fit for any business category
• Prognosis is a certified partner to all major Unified Communication companies, providing the widest possible support
• IR also offers user training to UC personnel, making adoption a breeze
• There are multiples reporting levels available, including service and capacity reporting; this can be scaled as per your data storage requirements

What We Think

When it comes to performance monitoring and optimisation in the UC segment, IR Prognosis for UC is right up there with the industry leaders. IR works with several Fortune 500 clients and has won innumerable recognitions over the years. What we liked best about IR Prognosis for UC was the sheer simplicity of usage. No matter how vast or intricate your Unified Communication landscape, IR’s plug-and-play software solution ensures that you hit the ground running.

UC Today Score:

IR Prognosis for UC Review: Performance Management at its Best 4.5 out of 5.

This post was first published on uctoday.com.