When it comes to proactive monitoring, many of us who support larger organizations are all familiar with software suites that provide a "dashboard" view of their infrastructure. HP OpenView, CA Unicenter, Nagios, and Hyperic all come to mind. Most, if not all, of these platforms include SNMP support for handling traps as well as importing MIBs. They tie together monitoring and even management of directory services, database and application servers, and core network infrastructure.
It seems as though there is somewhat of a lack for PBX / media gateway / convergence server unified monitoring. Sure, we can ping the device and collect SNMP statistics on port traffic, etc, but what about the statistics that really matter? There is a void of such a proactive monitoring environment to analyze call traffic patterns, voice circuit functionality, busy ports, etc, in the voice realm.
So, my question is this: for those of you managing such an environment, what are YOU doing to anticipate problems before they actually occur? Or, are we still chasing after user reports of dropped calls or "all ports busy" messages?
Nickasch has been very involved in IT since he was just 13. His current and previous consulting experience includes systems architecture, virtualization, and converged networks for the financial, education, and healthcare industries. Matthew currently attends the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where he also works as a network management assistant. While his interests include directory services and routing protocols, Nickasch's focus is on converged networks and voice over IP.
The opinions expressed in this Weblog are those of the writer and may not represent the opinions of Network World.
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Vendors!
If there are any vendors (especially IP-PBX, channel bank, or SIP proxy vendors) out there who can iterate their product's method of handling large-environment monitoring, or tie-ins with any major network monitoring system platform, I'd love to hear from you.
Again, I'd like to focus on a deeper proactive and quality-based analysis, not simply whether a device is online, or counting packets as they pass through.
Location Based VoIP Monitoring
Matthew,
I would refer you to a physical layer monitoring system that "tracks" the exact location of a device (VoIP, whatever) within the enterprise.
URL: http://ampnetconnect.com/system_group_overview.asp?sys_id=45
If you like you can contact me directly at 253/862-7094
realtime analysis of VoIP calls
Matthew,
we, VoIPFuture (www.voipfuture.com), a German StartUp company, have developed a new technology to analyse and diagnose VoIP traffic. It can be either used as monitoring system and/or as a troubleshooting system. We have embedded solutions and stand alone products to monitor VoIP devices and the network.
Our solutions are employed in carrier/provider as well as in enterprise VoIP enviroments for quality assurance.
We focus on problem finding and solving and not on scores.
I would be happy to provide more information.
Best regards
Thorsten Deutrich
Sales Director
Asterisk Plugin
Hi there,
Last year someone contributed an Asterisk plugin for Hyperic, making use of its SNMP capability. I cannot vouch for its usefulness, but here it is:
http://support.hyperic.com/confluence/display/hypcomm/Asterisk
-John Mark
Hyperic Community Manager
GroundWork Monitoring
Ray G. contacted me off-blog and gathered some information about VoIP infrastructure monitoring through the GroundWork platform: http://www.groundworkopensource.com/
Here's what Ray found out...
I posed the question to GroundWork Open Source
(www.groundworkopensource.com) and got some hi-level and granular responses I thought might be of interest to you (pasted below).
Responses from GroundWork"ers"...
"Specific examples of existing plugins designed for PBXes that could hook into GroundWork -- for asterisk, there is check_asterisk, a nagios plugin. For VOIP, we can monitor Cisco SAA agents. For various Cisco controller cards interfacing between VOIP and non-VOIP, we have the OIDs."
"We are an open standards-supporting product. Any of the vendors who chose to expose relevant data over standard channels will be capable of being monitored by GroundWork. SNMP, SSH, RSH, email, RSS, SYSLOG, etc are all possible channels for sending information on the availability and performance of voice applications. GroundWork is listening..."
Thanks Ray!
It's nice to hear that monitoring suites, especially the open-source ones are actively seeking ways to monitor VoIP environments. I believe that this trend will continue, as more customers request these features.
Monitoring telephony as a service
Hi Matthew
Our software (PROGNOSIS) addresses the void you raise, particularly for large, distributed IP telephony environments. PROGNOSIS proactively monitors call traffic, alerts on call failures or voice quality issues, gives advance warning if you’re running out of voice channel or trunk resources and much, much more.
PROGNOSIS currently supports Cisco and Avaya enterprise solution sets (with more vendors planned).
Companies who use PROGNOSIS today include many of the largest enterprises in the world, as well as many of the biggest providers of managed services in both the SMB and enterprise markets.
For more details, check out our website (www.prognosis.com) or come see us at VoiceCon in Orlando later this month!
Regards
Mike Goodman
Product Marketing Manager
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