The Hammer Call Analyzer is best used as a traffic capture and diagnostic tool, not a real-time monitoring one. Its excels at detailing captured data for further investigation.
The Hammer Call Analyzer (HCA) is best used as a traffic-capture and diagnostic tool, not a real-time monitoring one. Its excels at detailing captured data for further investigation. The HCA’s mode of operation is passive – listening to traffic rather than generating packets for transmission and comparison itself.
The Call Analyzer has the ability to display the actual sound waveform for both sides of the call, allowing visual analysis of problems between the various devices.
The HCA provides the most customizable, detailed level for setting up triggers. A trigger is a set of predetermined conditions that will start the capture of session data automatically. Triggers can be set for pre- and postevent actions on a given threshold or level of session activity. The fine degree of control for setting up triggers gives the tool a pseudomonitoring capability, such as continuous real-time.
The HCA offers a display of VoIP sessions, which serves up an effective capture view. The user can correlate and visualize call flows among any combination of the following protocols: SIP, Megaco, MGCP, ISDN, Signaling System 7 (TCAP and SCCP), H.323, T.38 and Simple Traversal of User Datagram Protocol. The Call Merge capability allows you to follow the flow from end to end.
Empirix also offers an optional ISDN card, which gives you a good look at your ISDN traffic, including such details as call setup and teardown. Additionally, the ISDN card allows the use of the Call Merge Map, which gives managers the ability to associate calls that change in protocol, such as a call that starts as ISDN, is converted to H323 and then back to ISDN. This is useful in a hybrid environment.
Empirix was a bit off in our reporting category, because it does not create preformatted reports of system activity, as do the other tools tested. What it does export are in .csv and .txt files, which are more like formatted data files than a report.
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