Sitting on the network is a standard server that acts like a storage device for voice mail. The software on the server provides voice mail and automated services without traditional port and storage limitations. Each server can support up to 254 simultaneous calls and storage is limited only by the size of the hard disk. Voice mail servers can be distributed across the network to reduce the bandwidth on the wide area network as well as providing survivable voice mail on a per-site basis. And even though there are multiple servers on the network, they still behave as a single system - reply, forward, broadcast and distribution list are seamless between servers simplifying communications.