Net managers struggle to manage VoIP effectively

Network managers running voice applications across their IP networks know a thing or two about juggling.

Daily they must track the performance of IP phones, voice gateways, call managers and IP PBXs against that of such data network components as routers, switches, hubs, servers and client machines. They must determine whether a staticky line is due to a physical problem such as a bad cable or overextended cord, or whether no phone service on a user’s desktop means two IP phones were assigned the same IP address. With VoIP adoption growing, network managers’ need for management tools has grown beyond monitoring device availability to fine-tuning voice application and service performance.

Ensuring top performance on a converged network typically requires a blended management approach, which couples voice-specific monitoring tools that detect jitter, packet loss, delay and call quality, with traditional network management products providing a picture of device health, port configurations and network availability. Bringing such tools together gives users a more complete picture of how voice applications impact the data network — and vice versa.

“The VoIP network is highly reliant on how well your data network is performing,” says Garrick Sobeski, manager of networks at The Institute for Transfusion Medicine in Pittsburgh. The organization has about 400 IP phones in its 6-month-old Cisco IP telephony system. “We had to make sure our routers and switches were running in tip-top shape — pre- and post-voice deployment. And we need to monitor the quality of calls in real time.”

Sobeski, who oversees a voice network that ultimately will support about 1,000 phones, including those at a second location in Chicago, says he uses Qovia IP Telephony Manager in concert with HP OpenView and CiscoWorks to get a complete picture of converged network performance.

Qovia uses management software and distributed remote appliances that act as sniffers for voice traffic, reporting back performance metrics and notifying when thresholds are missed. With virtual LANs in place to segment voice traffic, and QoS priorities set on his Cisco gear, Sobeski says he gets near real-time statistics on call quality and network performance.

“We can see a display of the CEO’s call quality, if we have too many poor [mean opinion score] readings, if call managers are running too high on memory — basically we get visibility into all pieces of the network in as close to real time as I’ve seen so far,” Sobeski says.

Scott Peterson, director or network services at Accenture in Dallas, tapped his InfoVista management products to track data and voice network performance. He says when the company — which is undergoing a large voice deployment across some 140 internal locations supporting 130,000 employees — chose a management software provider a few years ago, it went with InfoVista, which had proved its software could monitor both types of networks. The company also uses EMC Smarts for network management and correlation tools and BMC for its client/server management product.