Monitor Network and VoIP Performance

Integrated Management for Converged Voice and Data Applications

Despite all indications for widespread adoption, voice over IP (VoIP) is still an emerging technology that creates challenges for converged networks. Gartner estimates 90% of existing data networks need additional build-out to support VoIP, and 100% require some configuration changes.

Why does VoIP performance management present such a challenge? VoIP performance is sensitive to latency, jitter, and packet loss; the network infrastructure is not. The any-to-any nature of voice traffic, coupled with the need for robust QoS policies, often leads organizations that are deploying VoIP to deploy MPLS as well—creating additional VoIP performance management challenges. VoIP will invariably have an impact on your other business-critical applications and on your network infrastructure. So, it is also vital that you monitor and document the volume of voice traffic flowing across the network, who is generating it, and when, to determine its impact on your network’s performance.

Once VoIP is deployed you will also need to measure and monitor key performance metrics including MOS (Mean Opinion Score), call setup performance (for example, time-to-dial-tone) jitter, latency and packet loss for every call to help you to better understand VoIP performance on your network.

To manage network and VoIP performance, you need an integrated network performance management solution that will help you make the connection between VoIP quality of experience and network quality of service.

Using the NetQoS^® Performance Center and NetQoS Unified Communications Monitor to monitor VoIP performance before, during and after deployment enables you to:

Measure VoIP performance or the quality of VoIP calls by monitoring MOS, packet loss, latency and jitter for all calls
Monitor the quality of call legs using gateways to the PSTN as well as the IP call legs
Gauge the performance of the network by measuring latency, jitter, packet loss, and MOS, via Cisco IP SLA
Determine the volume of VoIP traffic across the WAN to make sure VoIP traffic is not starving out other business-critical applications
Measure response times and collect detailed data on any changes to business-critical application behavior due to VoIP bandwidth consumption

Phase 1: Pre-deployment VoIP assessment

Baseline the performance of business-critical applications
Determine bandwidth consumption and changes over time
Identify ALL applications consuming the bandwidth, who is using them, and when
Implement QoS policies to prioritize business-critical applications, and rate-limit or eliminate non-business critical applications

Phase 2: VoIP Performance and impact validation

Assess the impact of VoIP on business-critical applications
Determine the root cause of any performance degradations
Ensure acceptable VoIP performance by taking jitter, latency, and packet loss measurements for every call
Quantify call server or VoIP performance by monitoring call setup for both IP calls and calls through gateways to the PSTN.
Verify QoS policies are having the desired effect

Phase 3: Ongoing VoIP performance management and problem resolution

Monitor and resolve all alerts created when performance deviates from normal baselines–before users complain
Quantify the volume of VoIP traffic on the network and understand where and when it flows, who is creating/generating it, and when
Monitor the growth of VoIP traffic across the network over time
Set alerts for increases in VoIP traffic above specified thresholds

The NetQoS Performance Center

With the NetQoS Performance Center, you can make more informed decisions based on precise usage data from your network infrastructure. You can improve staff efficiency and collaboration by using a single tool to resolve performance issues rapidly. And you can mitigate risks and validate the impact of planned changes such as MPLS migrations, VoIP deployments, QoS policy implementations, and application rollouts.

The NetQoS Performance Center product suite provides global visibility, via a single web-based management console, into the key metrics necessary to quantify network performance across an organization: end-to-end performance of TCP/IP applications (NetQoS SuperAgent^®), traffic analysis (NetQoS ReporterAnalyzer™), device performance (NetQoS NetVoyant^®), and VoIP performance (NetQoS Unified Communications Monitor). The NetQoS Performance Center provides a top-down view of all applications—data, video, and voice—for the entire network infrastructure.

The NetQoS Performance Center scales to the largest networks and provides the real-time and historical data you need to improve the performance of applications delivered over wide area networks.

Request an evaluation of the NetQoS Performance Center today.

Learn more about ensuring VoIP performance. Download a VoIP performance white paper or listen to an on-demand webcast today.