# Introduction

NP Net is an optional networking feature for NuPoint Unified Messaging servers. It allows you to connect NuPoint UM systems together to form a digital network. With NP Net, mailbox owners can make voice messages for mailboxes on remote servers in the same manner as they make messages to local mailboxes. For example, a user can log into a NuPoint UM Voice mailbox, make a message for several recipients, some local and some remote, and send that message. Users can also answer messages and forward (give) messages to users on remote nodes. The figure below shows a simple NP Net network.

NP Net transmits messages in digital form, as opposed to actually playing messages over the phone lines to remote systems. Digital transmission increases throughput.

NP Net provides the user with NP Net TCP/IP networking. NP Net TCP/IP supports TCP/IP over Ethernet.

The building blocks of an NP Net network are the servers. Each server functions as a node on the network. NP Net is scalable so that it can work on all NuPoint UM server models, providing lower-cost, lower throughput networking on smaller servers and higher throughput messaging on larger servers.