BICC Data Networks Ltd has extended its network management system, Isoview, launching version 3 last week as a completely revised and new product. Marketing director Chris Unsworth says network management systems are being propelled by the increasing size, complexity and importance of networks, as well as developments such as high speed and distributed networking. Unsworth reckons that the challenge for network management systems is to balance the performance of the system with its cost – anyone can solve a problem by throwing money at it, he says: You have to ensure that the cost of network management is commensurate with the investment in the network to start with. Pricing apart, BICC is emphasising the flexibility of its system. Isoview 3 supports ISO, CMIP and SNMP management protocols and is supplied as a range of options, enabling users to upgrade when necessary. It comes with a component inventory, with a location field and so that when a part of the network needs replacing, the manufacturer can be traced without difficulty. Network managers can even decide what colours they want their icons to be and the intervals at which they want information to be collected from the network. Isoview is centralised and OS/2 based, running on a 80486 machine with Windows. Unsworth says OS/2 was chosen because of its high performance as a multitasking operating system, compared to MS-DOS. Isoview 3 begins at UKP4,000 for basic configurations, rising to UKP10,000.
