Frequently Asked Questions
- Who and what is Seymour?
- What services can Ask Seymour provide for me?
- Is Seymour accurate, can I depend on it?
- How secure is it?
- Does Seymour have a track record?
- OK, I'm interested. What systems are covered by Seymour?
- This looks like just the thing for me. How do I start using Ask Seymour?
- Once Ask Seymour has collected the information, how do I receive it?
- I have a lot of telephone systems. Is there a limit to how many can be examined?
1. Who and what is Seymour?
Seymour is a virtual telephone system engineer. Ask Seymour allows you very quickly to conduct very detailed examinations of one or more telephone systems with just a few clicks of your mouse, without having to tie down engineers in time consuming manual audits. It is a proprietary piece of software developed by our sister company MIT Duplex who are a well established and highly regarded software development house who have been providing software applications to the communications industry for the last 15 years. The software is based upon the industry standard Windows Server platform utilising Microsoft SQL Server and IIS.
2. What services can Ask Seymour provide for me?
Ask Seymour can provide a variety of important services. In a matter of minutes, it is able to carry out a comprehensive audit of a telephone system and all its cards, handsets and related devices - a task that could take an engineer very many hours, or even days. Such an audit provides a configuration blueprint of the system that is invaluable for disaster recovery. It also allows the administrator easily to identify any areas of concern (such as shortages of expansion capacity) and to calculate such things as the financial value of the entire system.
Additionally, by comparing multiple audits of the same telephone system taken at different times, Ask Seymour will identify any changes in the configuration. This capability provides a way not only to track the functionality and development of the communications system but also to spot any irregularities, for example illicit card exchanges, or the removal of expensive handsets etc.
Among the many other features Ask Seymour also provides an invaluable overview of multiple telephone systems simultaneously, identifying such things as system inconsistencies, incompatibilities, out-of-service devices etc., or providing crucial strategic planning information on the availability of card capacity and handsets across an entire corporate communications network.
Seymour is an invaluable prospecting tool for the support of maintenance sales activities, enabling fast and cost effective scans of target switches – you know exactly what you are dealing with.
3. Is Seymour accurate, can I depend on it?
Yes, it's completely accurate. What’s more, because it always follows the same methodology you can depend on repeatable results from scan to scan. Compare this to the time consuming and potentially error prone assembly of an audit compiled manually, or semi-manually, from the system forms printout.
4. How secure is it?
Ask Seymour is completely secure. Seymour requires read only access to the switch and can be established with a one use, read only password if required. Alternatively the software can be installed on your own LAN and remains completely under your control.
5. Does Seymour have a track record?
The software is well tried and tested and has been used extensively by a large number of users over the past 2 years. The software is currently being used by Mitel’s Managed Service department servicing many large corporate clients. A further 165 Corporate clients have the software installed and working on their respective networks including a number of County Councils, the Natural History Museum and the Atomic Weapons Establishment. The bureau service development of Ask Seymour provides a means to bring the software to a much wider audience and makes it an invaluable tool for PABX suppliers, maintainers and channel partners.
6. OK, I'm interested. What systems are covered by Seymour?
Ask Seymour is able to connect to your telephone system via a remote maintenance modem or, in the case of IP telephone systems, via an internet-visible IP address. The system currently covers the Mitel SX2000 and 3300 range, the Nortel Meridian range, Avaya INDeX, Avaya Definity, 3COM NBX, Siemens Realitis, Siemens HiPath and the Ericson MD110. Currently there are several new switches in the development pipeline and, typically, it only takes 2 to 3 weeks to bring a new switch on line, subject to access to an appropriate interface.
7. This looks like just the thing for me. How do I start using Ask Seymour?
Ask Seymour requires only basic information to be provided by the user. For each system that you wish to examine it is necessary to provide the remote access details, the date and time at which the asset scan should be carried out, and the username and password details of a login that Ask Seymour can use to interrogate the telephone system (if desired, this can be a read-only login). Having provided these details the user can choose any additional elements that they would like to be included in the asset scan, for example the firmware level of all cards and handsets. At the requested time, Ask Seymour initiates the remote connection, logs into the account provided and gathers the required configuration data.
8. Once Ask Seymour has collected the information, how do I receive it?
All the collected information and reports are available via an easy-to-use web interface. It is also possible to export the scanned data into spreadsheets (either Excel or CSV format) or directly e-mail the information to one or more addresses.
9. I have a lot of telephone systems. Is there a limit to how many can be examined?
No. Whilst there are limits to the number of different telephone systems that can be examined simultaneously, there is no limit to the number of audits that Ask Seymour can carry out, or to the volume of retained data from previous scans.