April 19, 2005 Merrimack, NH -- Metrobility Optical Systems announced that its NetBeacon ESP element management system has completed an extensive beta test with a major South American service provider and is now shipping. An integral part of its carrier Ethernet product line, the company says the system provides extensible, secure element management for its Radiance line of optical networking products.

Metrobility says the NetBeacon ESP system was designed to meet service providers' needs to scale for very large networks, to identify severity of alarms quickly, to route such alarms to appropriate technicians, and to enable strict, system-wide, port-level access control policies. The company says the system's real-time monitoring of line quality, laser power, and equipment temperature and power enables proactive maintenance that can decrease network outages and increase customer uptime.

The company says the system incorporates an easy-to-use interface to support secure, centralized provisioning and management of large, geographically dispersed networks. According to the company, to meet the stringent demands of network administrators, the system supports the FCAPS (fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security) attributes for network management; authorized users can manage each Metrobility device from any designated NetBeacon ESP management station to provision services, monitor performance, and respond to alarms.

Metrobility says the NetBeacon ESP system's "headless server architecture" creates an "always on" management system to ensure that element information is constantly being monitored. A sophisticated hierarchy of alarm notifications can be customized by the administrator based on severity; alarm notifications include audible alarms, visual color-coded alarms, and alarm notification via email, phone, or pager.