Cisco Systems Inc. today debuted a set of new features for its popular Webex Suite bundle of cloud communications services, including management tools that will make information technology teams’ work easier. 

The company also shared an update about Webex’s market traction on the occasion. According to Cisco, the platform now hosts 8 billion calls a month and has more than 39 million users.

The first of the new features included in today’s update is rolling out for Webex Control Hub, a tool that IT teams use to manage their companies’ Webex Suite deployments.

One of the most time-consuming tasks involved in maintaining a large organization’s cloud communications infrastructure is managing phone numbers. If a company has offices in 10 different regions, it may have to negotiate with 10 different carriers to obtain numbers for each corporate branch. Further complicating procurement is that prices often vary across regions.

Cisco is building a new feature called Cloud Connected PSTN into Control Hub that will allow administrators to provision phone numbers in a few clicks through a self-service interface. The enhancement, Cisco envisions, will in some cases save days of work for IT teams.

Also in the interest of easing day-to-day Webex Suite administration, Control Hub provides a capability called Cisco Calling Plans. It allows companies to buy calling plans from Cisco instead of a carrier to simplify procurement. The networking giant today announced that it’s expanding the availability of the feature beyond the U.S. and Canada to the U.K. and shared plans to roll it out in additional markets down the line. 

Control Hub is not the only software tool that companies use to manage their Webex deployments. Cisco also provides a second tool called Unified Communications Manager to support administrators’ work. As part of today’s update, Cisco is rolling out a feature called Dedicated Instance that allows enterprises to run Unified Communications Manager in the cloud. 

The broader Webex Suite is receiving updates as well. Cisco is enhancing the public sector edition of the suite with features that will allow customers to create custom welcome and registration pages for digital events. Meanwhile, a capability called Webex Expert on Demand integrates the suite with the RealWear HMT-1 augmented reality headset. Cisco says that the integration will allow field technicians equipped with a RealWear HMT-1 headset to consult a remote expert when performing tasks such as repairing complex equipment.

The Webex Suite is an important part of Cisco’s ongoing effort to shift to a business model that more heavily emphasizes software and subscription-based offerings. The company made two acquisitions in the past 12 months to bolster the suite. Both the firms Cisco acquired, Socio Labs Inc. and Slido s.r.o., developed features that help enterprises organize online events.

As part of the effort to expand its software business, Cisco has recently also doubled down on the IT monitoring market. The company last month bought a startup called Epsagon Ltd. with a distributed tracing platform for troubleshooting applications. Distributed tracing is a troubleshooting technique that helps administrators determine exactly which of an application’s subcomponents is causing a malfunction and find the best way to fix it.

Photo: Cisco