Highlight & IPTel add Webex monitoring for meeting rooms

Highlight has partnered with IPTel to integrate Cisco Webex with its monitoring platform, allowing IPTel to offer managed monitoring for meeting rooms.

The integration extends Highlight's monitoring and service observability platform to Cisco Webex meeting rooms and supports IPTel's Meeting Rooms as a Service offering. IPTel will use the system to monitor meeting room equipment alongside the network infrastructure those rooms depend on, with automated alerts when faults appear.

Under the arrangement, IPTel can remotely track the health and availability of devices in Webex meeting rooms instead of waiting for staff to report faults or sending engineers to carry out routine checks. The platform can automatically discover Webex devices, including televisions, cameras, microphones, speakers and touch controllers, and show their status in the same dashboard as related network connections and infrastructure.

This gives service teams a single view of room equipment and the underlying network, removing the need to monitor Cisco's native management tools separately. The platform can also flag lower-level faults, such as a disconnected microphone, and can be configured so alerts operate only during business hours, which is useful because meeting room equipment is often switched off overnight or at weekends.

Another feature is lifecycle tracking. The system can identify devices nearing or past their support lifecycle, giving providers and customers a clearer basis for planning replacement programmes before older equipment causes service problems.

Historical reporting is also included, allowing users to review device availability and health over time. The data can support service reviews and help providers assess recurring faults or reliability trends across customer estates.

The new Webex integration is not limited to IPTel. It is also available to Highlight's managed service provider partners, their customers and direct customers.

IPTel, an Australian networking services company, works across wireless and enterprise networking projects and has experience with Cisco and Meraki environments. Highlight's platform has already been operating across IPTel's own infrastructure and customer environments through a multi-tenant setup that allows several organisations to be overseen from one platform.

Martin Saunders, Chief Executive Officer at Highlight, said: "The Highlight platform has been operational across IPTel's own infrastructure and its customer environments, leveraging Highlight's strong multi-tenancy capabilities to oversee multiple organisations from a single platform, with great feedback from IPTel's clients.

"We're delighted with this latest collaboration, which has resulted in a scalable way for IPTel to extend its managed service proposition beyond network infrastructure and into a full meeting room managed service.

"The new Webex integration into Highlight is also available to all our other managed service provider partners, their customers and our direct customers."

For IPTel, the main operational gain is the ability to monitor the meeting room estate from one interface and connect alerts into its support workflow. Integration with its ticketing system means service staff can respond to interruptions before customers realise there is a problem.

Mark McSherry, Director at IPTel Solutions, said: "With Highlight, we can now see how the meeting room environment is performing in one place without having to log into the Cisco Webex Control Hub. The integration with our ticketing system is particularly valuable because, if there is an interruption to the service, we can be alerted and respond before the customer is even aware of a problem.

"As a managed service provider, Highlight allows us to take customers on a journey, which is a genuine partnership. We can deliver best-in-class meeting room equipment with services and support that make a customer's life genuinely easier, while providing an upgraded meeting room experience.

"Once we have delivered their meeting rooms alongside their network infrastructure, we can continue to manage and support the complete environment. Most importantly, our customers can also access Highlight themselves. They really like the simple, easy-to-understand interface and the clean way it presents information. The fact that it connects through APIs with other network connections and devices makes it a very elegant solution.

"For our managed service customers, Highlight gives us the eyes and ears across their networks, while also giving customers the visibility they need into their own environments. The integration of Cisco Webex meeting rooms is a great addition that allows customers to use IPTel to support their meeting rooms, or more of their infrastructure as they prefer."

The partnership reflects a broader shift among managed service providers towards taking responsibility not only for core networks but also for workplace technology that has become central to day-to-day operations. In hybrid working environments, meeting rooms have become another monitored endpoint, and providers are looking for ways to fold audio-visual hardware, network links and support processes into a single managed service.

Highlight, which is based in the UK, sells its platform to managed service providers, carriers and enterprise IT teams that oversee network, cloud and workplace services. Customers using the service can also access the platform directly to view the status of their own environments.