* Vendors help customers manage VoIP
Nowadays it’s not enough to just test an application in pre-production or monitor an application for performance. Vendors need to provide customers with an all-in-one product to manage the lifecycle, meaning they help customers design better application code, test more scenarios prior to production and then finally manage the application under real-world conditions.
Most recently VoIP applications have become subject to this three-for-one deal from vendors.
Because voice can challenge data networks, vendors such as Apparent Networks, Empirix and Integrated Research earlier this year unveiled products to test the readiness of networks for voice applications as well as the quality of VoIP calls. Vendors such as Micromuse, EMC/Smarts, Brix Networks and Qovia have also worked to deliver products to manage voice once it is deployed on data networks.
Now vendors are rolling multiple capabilities into one product or a suite of software to address the various stages of a VoIP deployment. Apparent Networks, for one, will announce the general availability of software to help IT managers assess, troubleshoot and perform ongoing monitoring on their voice apps.
Fluke Networks recently joined vendors promising VoIP lifecycle management. The company showcased its NetTool VoIP handheld network analyzer at Interop in May, but now is adding VoIP management capabilities to its OptiView Integrated Network Analyzer, which is expected to ship in October for between about $13,500 and $25,000 depending on whether customers want Ethernet Standard or Pro Gigabit versions.
The OptiView Integrated Network Analyzer is a portable analyzer that helps IT managers capture and analyze. The device uses algorithms to determine the quality of voice traffic and generates QoS assessments for each call, “without the need to perform detailed decoding,” Fluke Networks says.
Company representatives say the integrated analyzer augments currently available products such as NetTool VoIP, OptiView Protocol Expert and OptiView Link Analyzer to enable Fluke Networks to provide customers with VoIP lifecycle management.
