managing voip ccrd

8/8/2019 Managing VoIP Ccrd

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Copyright 2003 Concord Communications, Inc.

ci Optimizing applicationperformance andavailabiity across

networks and systems.

Managing

Voice over IPfor SuccessfulConvergence

Product MarketingConcord Communications, Inc.600 Nickerson RoadMarlboro, MA 01752800.851.8725concord.com


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The Network as an End-to-End Service:Real-time, end-to-end, proactive monitoring and performance reportingfor voice quality is needed through the entire network toguarantee a reliable voice service. All applications andservices can benefit from end-to-end monitoring, but for VoIP it is a must. Without it, there is no basis for measuringcall quality. The alternative approach of monitoring andcalculating the transit time of many, short hops plus thelatency through intervening devices is complex andinefficient and reduces call quality to an educated guess.QoS, the Essential Element:The best way to manage aconverged IP network is with QoS. An IP network is adynamic, shared resource with finite bandwidth. Data,voice, and other services contend for the limited resources,

requiring some over-arching means of allocation. Managingthe voice and data services separately is a commonpitfalla bit like monitoring a single lane of traffic on asuperhighway. It becomes apparent when traffic has brokendown in other lanes, but only after the fact, and with nomeans to manage the interaction.Using QoS, the various traffic types can be treated accordingto volume and quality needs, in the context of a singlenetwork. The QoS mechanism becomes the arbiter, makingtrade-offs according to rules defining classes of service for thevarious traffic types. The classes of service are establishedby the customer, are associated with QoS metrics, and aregoverned by SLAs for each class.

The Network as Provider of High Performance Applicationand Services:Todays complex networks service customersand suppliers, as well as employees, requiring greaterreliability and performance. Simply adding VoIP increasesreliability and performance demands dramatically sinceeveryone expects high quality voice services. The networkhas become part of the business and the services offeredover it reflect the quality of the business.Traditional management tools report performance of individual elements to a central console where they can beanalyzed by IT staff. This method is adequate for smaller,simpler networks that typically serve only employees, but iis inadequate for customer-facing networks providingkey business services. For quality services you need live

reporting on voice quality, service availability, andapplication response times end-to-end. For VoIP service,this capability enables you to directly assess call quality.

Managing VoIP for Successful Convergence

4 2003 Concord Communications, Inc.


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Concords eHealth Suite is uniquely suited to managingconverged networks because it: Manages VoIP calls and reports end-to-end Offers integrated voice, data, and QoS management

Provides proof of conformance to service levelagreements via the QoS Health reporting

Improves the businesss service by managing thenetwork for application response and service availability

Provides continuous assessments of VoIP call quality Partners with major network and VoIP vendors, providing

integrated solutions to manage their voice and dataequipment and devices in real-time

The Importance of End-to-End MonitoringEnd-to-end monitoring of the VoIP call path is essentialbecause disruption anywhere in the path will impact thecall quality. Problems in the call path can manifest in avariety of ways. In the worst of cases, the connection will belost and the call terminated. In other cases, the quality willdegrade, ranging anywhere from poor to simply annoying.Finding the trouble spot can be tricky, since the call traversesmultiple providers, devices and links. The following diagramshows the key devices in a VoIP call path (between sites of anenterprise.) At a minimum, the call will travel through a

voice gateway or router on the enterprise LAN, through theSPs router at the LAN edge, over the SPs wide area network,and through the SPs edge router and voice gateway or routerat the destination LAN. In reality, there may be many moredevices in the call path, including additional switches withinthe enterprise LAN and intermediate routers within the SPswide area network.The diagram below also shows that end-to-end is a subjectiveconcept. The service provider views end-to-end as the widearea network, terminating in their router demarcationpoints. The IT staff views end-to-end from the source phoneto the destination phone. Both the IT staff and the SP areresponsible for a positive call experience, so that any and allparts of this connection must be able to be scrutinized.

While service restoration is of primary importance, serviceproviders have additional motivation for keeping the serviceon parthey are often levied a penalty for not meeting theirservice contract with their customer.

The bottom line is that effective end-to-end monitoring andmanagement are more complicated than simply measuringcall quality as a single data point. Pinpointing where thedisruption occurred is all-important so that it can be fixed.Proving service quality relative to the service contract isalso important.


2003 Concord Communications, Inc. 5

Managing a Converged Network withConcordseHealth Suite

PSTNPBX PBX

GatewayIP PhonesIP Phones

Router

SP NetworkIP

NetworkIP

Network

Router

e HealthPlatform

VoIPSource

TraditionalPhones

WAN End-to-End

LAN Edge End-to-End

VoIP Call Path End-to-End

TraditionalPhones

VoIPDestination

e HealthPlatform

Gateway


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Concords eHealth Suite provides true end-to-endmanagement for VoIP by measuring from the user side

of the voice gateway, over the entire point-to-pointconnection. Concords ability to drill down to any devicewithin the path makes identifying the trouble spot astraightforward process. Measurements of traffic in andout of each device show the IT staff whether traffic is beingdisrupted within their enterprise network or beyond theservice providers demarcation point. Service providersuse the eHealth Suite in a similar manner, tracking theirnetwork response time, drilling down to find trouble spots,and proving adherence to service contracts through theeHealth Suites reporting functions.End-to-end infrastructure management is a key differentiatorfor the eHealth Suite and is highly valued by customers. Alater look at the Integrated VoIP Report will show theeHealth Suites strengths in viewing the network from ahigh level, on an end-to-end basis. Used with the proactivemonitoring features of eHealth Live Health, Concordsreal-time fault and performance monitoring product, itcreates a winning combination, alerting the IT staff of serv-ice degradation anywhere in the call path and allowing forcorrective action before problems occur.

Integrated Data, Voice, and QoS Managementfor Converged Networks

A well thought out QoS implementation is the make orbreak factor in successful network convergence. Aconverged network must allocate resources among differenttraffic typesclassifying, shaping, policing, and schedulingtraffic to satisfy metrics such as bandwidth, jitter, delay, andpacket loss. These trade-offs are based upon the classes of service established by the customer. Service classes ofteninclude gold, silver, and bronze tiers, representing high

priority, medium priority, and best effort services and canbe formalized with an SLA. The diagram below shows

the relationship between traffic types, classes of service,and QoS parameters.Qualitative differences in voice and data traffic:The diagramshows that voice traffic is associated with the gold level servicguaranteeing both latency and bandwidth and providingcommitments on several QoS parameters. Important datatraffic is associated with a guaranteed bandwidth level andless important data traffic is served on a best-effort basis.These differences in class of service reflect the nature of thetraffic itself.Most data traffic is not especially time dependent, butcannot tolerate packet loss. As long as all the packetsbelonging to a particular file or transaction eventually arrivat the destination intact, the transmission is successful. Dueto the connectionless nature of IP networks, and underbest-effort delivery, the packets may travel different paths,be queued up for varying lengths of time, and arrive at thedestination out of order. Since most data traffic can toleratethis handling, best-effort delivery is adequate. Voice traffic,on the other hand, can tolerate some dropped packets butdoes place requirements on jitter, sequence, and delay.Imagine out-of-sequence packets being delivered to a VoIPphone, or a long delay while packets are re-sequenced

before delivery. The call quality would be choppy at bestand perhaps, incomprehensible. Voice service requiresenough bandwidth so the call can be continuous, withcontrol over intervals between packet arrival and departuretimes (jitter), and over the end-to-end delay of the call pathIf the delay between source and destination exceeds 250milliseconds it makes conversation difficult, since it exceedthe comfortable delay between speakers and encourages thlistener to begin talking, creating cross-talk.



Applications:

E-mail,Web Browsing

CorporateData

Voice

Guaranteed Latency

and Bandwidth

Guaranteed MinimumBandwidth

Best-EffortDelivery

Commitments

on:Response TimeUtilizationAvailabilityPacket DropsPacket Delaysetc.

Classes of SeviceTraffic Types QoS metrics for SLA

TrafficClassification

Gold

Silver

Bronze


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Managing voice, data and QoS together for quality:Providingthe qualitatively different service classes just discussed,

requires control over the components affecting that service.For example, the delay encountered over a voice call pathhas many components, delay due to queuing at each networkdevice, delay due to propagation through the device and overthe links, and delay due to converting the voice traffic intopackets for delivery. Every device and link in the pathcontributes to this single quality metric! Add contention bydata traffic for the same device, queuing, and link resourcesand you realize the complexity of arbitrating for service.Managing the services separately is not the answer. Separatemanagement tools treat the traffic type as the only user,oblivious to resource contention, and with no means of sharing the resources between users. Like the earlierexample of managing just one lane of a superhighway,separate network managers have no view of the entirenetwork, cannot see what is coming, and consequently,cannot take preventative measures. The only solution isan integrated management tool offering quality of servicemanagement and reporting.SLAs:SLAs define the delivery parameters of a serviceand are of benefit to both the provider and recipient of any service, such as VoIP, where quality is paramount.SLAs imply a contract, thereby requiring measurement,

enforcement, and proof of conformance. While serviceproviders pay costly penalties for not conforming to

the service level agreement, enterprises pay the price of degraded performance on key services. Reporting on SLAs

provides the proof that the SLA is met and provides amechanism for troubleshooting the network and forcapacity planning. Measuring, enforcing, and proving SLAsrequire integrated management of all network elements.The eHealth Suites QoS capabilities manage and reporton all the network elementsservices, components, andtechnologiesunder a unified QoS mechanism, so thatthe IT staff can track SLAs, troubleshoot the network,and perform capacity planning.Consider the enterprise running voice and data from itsheadquarters site to its branch offices, using wide areaservice covered by an SLA from the service provider. Theenterprise also has defined a class of service that extendsacross the entire call path. Part of the network path belongsto the service provider and the source and destination endsbelong to the enterprise. The eHealth Suite pulls statisticsfrom QoS-enabled routers along the path, isolating data inand out at each point, making it possible to identify troublespots and to measure traffic relative to the bounds of theservice agreement.



PBX PBX

GatewayIP PhonesIP Phones

Router

SP Network

PSTN

LAN LAN

Router

e HealthPlatform

VoIPSource

TraditionalPhones

SP SLA Range

Class of Service RangeMOS Measurement Range

TraditionalPhones

VoIPDestination

e HealthPlatform

Gateway


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The following sample reports fromeHealth are just a few of many views of performance by class of service.

This panel shows thevolume by a class of service relative to therecent baseline for thatclass. It can assist incapacity planning byalerting the IT staff toareas that require aservice upgrade. It alsoshows areas under thebaseline, letting the

enterprise cut costs bydecreasing service levelswhere appropriate.

Viewing by volumeleaders indicates whichsites send the highestvolume of traffic in aparticular traffic class. Itshows the IT staff whichlocations require a servicupgrade, helps validatetraffic prioritizationschemes, and allows for accounting charge-backs.

Volume Leaders

G i g a b y t e s

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Volume Leaders in Bytes

Prior Volume Bandwidth Health Index

Rank Rank Element Name Speed Bytes vs Baseline Avg Peak Avg Peak1 1 Corp-Cisco7500-QoS-QOS-CAR-Ethernet8/1/0-OUT- 1.544 Mbs 10.7 40.9% 64.4% 93.7% 5.7 16.0

2 2 PE-1-7500-G5/0/0-QOS-1125-OUT-AF4 1.544 Mbs 7.5 64.4% 44.8% 83.2% 3.3 10.03 4 PE-1-7500-G5/0/0-QOS-1131-OUT-AF2 1.544 Mbs 7.0 24.1% 42.1% 84.5% 2.5 16.0

4 3 Corp-Cisco7500-QoS-G5/0/0-QOS-OUT-class-default 1.544 Mbs 5.4 -6.5% 32.5% 89.6% 1.7 8.05 7 Corp-Cisco7500-QoS-QOS-CAR-Ethernet8/1/0-OUT- 1.544 Mbs 4.7 37.2% 27.9% 93.3% 2.4 16.0

6 5 PE-1-7500-G5/0/0-QOS-1123-OUT-EF 1.544 Mbs 4.5 6.7% 26.7% 84.7% 0.9 8.07 6 Corp-Cisco7500-QoS-QOS-CAR-Ethernet8/1/0-IN-1 1.2 Mbs 3.7 -0.6% 28.8% 49.6% 0.1 2.0

8 8 Corp-Cisco7500-QoS-QOS-CAR-Ethernet8/1/1-IN-1 1.544 Mbs 3.3 3.8% 19.8% 81.3% 0.4 8.09 12 PE-1-7500-G5/0/0-QOS-1127-OUT-AF3 1.544 Mbs 3.3 50.8% 19.5% 74.7% 1.1 8.0

10 10 Corp-Cisco7500-QoS-G5/0/0-QOS-1135-OUT-AF1 1.544 Mbs 2.3 11.9% 14.1% 42.3% 0.1 8.0

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Element Volume vs Baseline by Day

Baseline HighBaseline AverageBaseline LowVolume

e s

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Concords integrated management tools dont stop at thehigh level view of service classes. It is easy to drill down

from any chart to an in-depth look at any network element.Concords customers include service providers who offerclass of service offerings over their IP networks, managinglarge numbers of classes of service, each associated with aparticular customers virtual network. TheeHealth Suitesreporting capabilities have stood up to this challenge, help-ing the service provider view their overall network forcapacity, while reporting to each customer on conformanceto their individual service contract. Enterprise customershave also discovered the value of Concords QoS features,for example in engineering environments where large datatransfers are common. The eHealth Suite helps these enter-

prise customers manage their bandwidth for least cost andmaximum benefit. As VoIP is added, bandwidth manage-ment only becomes more important.

High Performance Applications and ServicesManaging the BusinessHaving an established network management process simpli-fies the convergence effort, but having the right networkmanagement tool is the key. Requirements for networkmanagement systems have become far more rigorous as cor-porate networks have become the basis for service delivery.Corporate networks transport diverse traffic types, interface

directly to employees, customers, and suppliers, and can bea key component in delivery of the companys service. The VoIP service itself is a prime example of this change. Adding VoIP to an existing data network creates new man-agement challenges to create an IP-based voice service thatis equal to traditional voice services in reliability and per-formance. The cost of service outages to a business can behuge, to both their reputation and bottom line.The Yankee Group reports, The new view of networkmanagement starts from the top, from the business objectsthat are critical to business performance, and works itsway down to IT infrastructure elements. This top-downapproach is counter to the traditional management approachthat collects data from many infrastructure elements andpresents it to the IT staff for analysis. The traditionalapproach highlights faults in devices, but a particular faultmay not be impacting any critical applications while anothermay have stalled a critical application and requires immediatecorrection. The top-down approach provides a view intoapplication and service performance so that elementsimpacting the business the most are dealt with first.

Active and passive service measurement: eHealth offers bothactive and passive measurements of service and application

performance. Service Availability is provided by an agentthat can reside on any device in the network and generatetest transactions to measure service performance. This tool isthe basis of Concords VoIP call quality testing. Combinedwith eHealth Application Response, a passive tool thatmeasures response time of actual application use, a trueview of performance can be obtained.

Assessing call quality, a high-performance service:Managingthe network end-to-end provides a comfort level that the

VoIP call quality will be good, but directly assessing callquality provides additional assurance. The Mean OpinionScore (MOS) rating was developed precisely for thispurpose.MOS is a standard method of measuring call quality andwas originally calculated by eliciting the opinions of alarge number of actual listeners on a variety of parameters.

Analytical techniques are now commonly used to estimateMOS, making it possible to include MOS estimation in anetwork management tool. One popular method uses theE-model, designed to calculate a rating factor from 18 systemparameters and now standardized in the InternationalTelecommunications Union ITU-T RecommendationG.107.

Concords eHealth Suite uses the E-model to estimateMOS by emulating voice calls over a call path. Calculationsbased on system parameters and performance data aretranslated to a MOS rating in the standard manner,providing an opportunity to assess VoIP quality in thelive network.The eHealth Voice Quality Monitor:The MOS estimatorcapabilities are provided in the eHealth Voice QualityMonitor. The Voice Quality Monitor resides on a standard

Windows platform and is monitored by the eHealth Suite.This tool can be used in three important ways to ensurevoice quality: Ongoing monitoring:Estimating MOS on a regular

basis to check call quality Troubleshooting:Estimating MOS over a problematic

call path to identify the problem line or device Capacity planning: Estimating MOS as traffic volume is

increased over a call path




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The eHealth Suite provides both historical information andreal-time information. The historical information showstrends, giving the network planning and design group allthey need for capacity planning, increasing services to avoidcongestion and decreasing services when cost savings arepossible.

The real-time information is available througheHealth

Live Health, an invaluable tool in troubleshooting thenetwork. Live Health reduces manual analysis andpre-empts network failure, essential when voice services andother critical applications are at stake. Customers of LiveHealth depend on the real-time operations display, runningit all day long and digging down into network elements asnecessary to circumvent any issues that may challenge theirservice delivery. Live Health will be the focus of our firstexample.Using our enterprise example once more, we can demonstratehow the eHealth Suite uses its end-to-end service features, VoIP service call quality measurement, and extensive QoScapabilities to prevent a developing problem.

Troubleshooting with the e Health SuiteThe operations staff is running Live Health, monitoringreal-time status by watching the Live Status Diagram.The Live Status Diagram leverages historical data to watchfor deviations from normal and it uses rules established bythe customer to watch for exceptions. Exception profiles arcreated with the Live Health Exception Profile tool, or thecustomer can choose to use default rules supplied with theproduct. This customer has developed a profile for MOSthat lets them know when things go too wrong for toolong, by exceeding a time over threshold rule. The rulestates: Exhibit a warning when average MOS falls below4.0 for 5 minutes within a one-hour period. This rulewill prevent VoIP call quality from degrading below anacceptable level.

When deviations from normal occur or when exceptionprofiles are compromised, the Live Status Diagram showsthis clearly with the appropriate criticality level color-coded

Live Status Diagram:The Live Status Diagram shows all levels of alertson the network. The IT staff notices that several newarnings have been issued on network elements injust the last few minutesa MOS element, a routea voice gateway, and a QoS Gold Service element.They suspect that something is causing degradationto VoIP and want to understand more about the

problem so they move to the Live Exceptions Browscreen.



Troubleshooting and Capacity Plann with theeHealth Suite


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The AAG report shows that the interface experiencedexcessive packet drops. Excessive packet drops are one of several parameters that contribute to a poor MOS rating.

The CoS Discard/Sec panel shows that most discards areQoS-based, in other words, more VoIP traffic was presentedon this interface than allowed by the Gold level CoSthetraffic has exceeded the SLA for the class of service associatedwith the VoIP. Since the report also shows a small level of congestion, the IT staff will probably coordinate increasedcapacity with the increase in service level.

CoS Discards/Sec

100%

800K

600K

400K

200K

0%

QoS Congestion

At-a-Glance ReportQos CoS RED Element PE-1-7500-G5/0/0-QOS-1137-OUT-RED-AF1BW: 10.0 Mbs

CoS Bytes/Sec

100%

800K

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0%

CoS Packets/Sec

P re Po li cy P os tP ol ic y

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0

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CoS Discards/Sec

100%

800K

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0%

QoS Congestion

CoS Discard Rate %

16%

14%

8%

6%

4%

2%

10%

12%

0

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Time Time



In the eHealth Suite there arealways many paths to drill downto pinpoint problem areas. The

MOS rule within the live excep-tion profile is just one of manyrules that are set up to describeappropriate behavior for VoIP.Many of the QoS rules alsoapply to the class of serviceassigned to VoIP and will showviolations on the Live StatusDiagram and the Live Excep-tions Browser. In addition, thevoice gateways and routers thatprovide QoS support, reflect anyproblems with the VoIP service.

Viewing these exceptions incombination provides a greatdeal of information by simplyshowing concurrent conditions.

Viewing these exceptions inreal-time provides a tremendousadvantage by giving advancewarning, enabling the enterpriseto prevent an outage.

Live Exceptions Browser: The time over threshold violation for MOS is shown in orange,telling them that VoIP quality is at risk. The router alert and the QoS alert are both shownto be the result of excessive packet drops. A right mouse click on the router will let themdrill down to view an At-A-Glance (AAG) report for the router as a whole, while a rightmouse click on the QoS element will let them drill down to view an AAG report for theactual interface on the router where the problem occurred. They opt for the AAG report for the interface.


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The problem has been solved for the enterprise very quickly.Many other paths could have been taken to bring the IT

staff to the same resolution. A service provider would gothrough a similar process to troubleshoot their network.Upon finding that the customer had exceeded the trafficlevel contracted in their SLA, they would take the opportunityto contact the customer and increase their business.

Capacity Planning with the e Health SuiteThe eHealth Suite is just as valuable as a capacity planningtool. The network capacity planners have to look ahead toensure the network is scaling with increased use and newapplications. With VoIP as a new service on the network, thenetwork planning staff will check the status of the VoIPservice frequently. This is easy to do witheHealths integrated VoIP report that can be scheduled on a daily, weekly,monthly, or quarterly basis. The integrated VoIP report is amulti-page report with several panels per page. Lining uppanels to a single time frame can very quickly show importantrelationships and trends. Looking at just a few of thesepanels shows the value of the integrated VoIP report tothe network planning staff. The Service Availability panel,below, is a good starting point.

Despite full service availability, network capacity plannerswill want to see more detail to ensure that the network is

not approaching capacity in any key areas. There arenumerous panels to help with the required information.The next two panels shown use data from the Call Managerapplication.

The Call Volume view shows call volume in aggregate minutes along with a trend line, helping the planner understandusage volume and trends.

Service Availability, is of interest to planners and toexecutives alike. It showsVoIP service availabilitybased on ongoing, 24x7,active testing from site tosite. The data is derived frommultiple MOS paths andcould only be achieved withthe combination of Concords end-to-endnetwork management and

its service availabilityperformance features.

Network Call Volume by Day

Tr end Call Volume

180K

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T h u - 0

5 / 2 9

F r i - 0 5

/ 3 0

S a t - 0

5 / 3 1

S u n - 0

6 / 0 1

M o n - 0

6 / 0 2

T u e - 0

6 / 0 3

W e d - 0

6 / 0 4

T h u - 0

6 / 0 5

F r i - 0 6

/ 0 6

S a t - 0

6 / 0 7

S u n - 0

6 / 0 8

M o n - 0

6 / 0 9

T u e - 0

6 / 1 0

W e d - 0

6 / 1 1

T h u - 0

6 / 1 2

F r i - 0 6

/ 1 3

S a t - 0

6 / 1 4

S u n - 0

6 / 1 5

M o n - 0

6 / 1 6

T u e - 0

6 / 1 7



A v a

i l a b i l i t y ( % )

90

100

95

C o r p

- C i s

c o 7 5

0 0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

3 5 - O U T

- A F 1

C o r p

- C i s c

o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q O

S - O U T

- c l a

s s - d e f a u l t

C o r p - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S -

C A R - E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 0

- I N - 1

C o r p

- C i s c

o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S - C A R

- E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 0

- O U T -

C o r p

- C i s c

o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S - C A R

- E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 0

- O U T -

C o r p - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S -

C A R - E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 1

- I N - 1

C o r p

- C i s c

o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S - C A R

- E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 1

- O U T -

C o r p

- C i s c

o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S - C A R

- E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 1

- O U T -

C o r p

- C i s

c o 7 5

0 0 - Q

o S - Q O S -

C A R -

F a s t E t h e

r n e t 1 0

/ 0 / 0

- I

C o r p

- C i s c

o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - Q O S - C A

R - F a s t E t h

e r n e

t 1 0 / 0 / 0 -

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - G 5 / 0 / 0 -

Q O S - 1 1

2 3 - O U T

- E F

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

2 5 - O U T

- A F 4

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

2 7 - O U T

- A F 3

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

3 1 - O U T -

A F 2

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

3 5 - O U T

- A F 1

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q O

S - O U T -

c l a s s - d e f a u l t

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - Q O S - C A R

- E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 0

- I N - 1

P E - 1 - 7 5 0

0 - Q O S - C A

R - E t h

e r n e

t 8 / 1 / 0

- O U T

- 1

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - F 9 / 0 / 1 - Q

O S - C A

R - F a

s t E t h e

r

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - F 9 / 0 / 1 - Q

O S - C A

R - F a

s t E t h e

r

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 -

Q O S - 1 1

2 3 - O U T

- E F

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

2 5 - O U T

- A F 4

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

2 7 - O U T

- A F 3

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

3 1 - O U T

- A F 2

R e m

o t e - C i

s c o 7 5 0

0 - Q

o S - G 5 / 0 / 0 - Q

O S - 1 1

3 5 - O U T

- A F 1

Upper Margin of ErrorObservedLower Margin of ErrorAvailabilityPlanned Downtime


14/17

The Number of Calls by Day view shows call volume bythe number of calls per day that can be compared to theaggregate call minutes in the previous panel. This view also gives visibility into attempted but not completed callsoftendue to a busy signal, but also due to fast (trunk) busy or

caller hang-ups. Attempted calls use device and networkresources, so they are important input for the planner.

An interesting panel is the Network Volume & Voice CoS Volume by Day with a trend line for the total networkvolume. It helps planners understand the overall utilization(data and voice) of the links carrying VoIP traffic as wellas the voice portion of the traffic. This information isimportant to the planning process, particularly when theenterprise is adding a new data application or opening anew facility with VoIP phone service.

Data is captured from a group of WAN links that carry VoIPtraffic and shows overall utilization, in bytes, by data and

voice traffic.

Keeping track of the MOS rating is important for the net-work planner. A MOS of 4.0 or above is desired to maintainquality service. With the following two panels, the plannercan view quality in a simple visual form, then go one stepfurther to find the quality problems.

The MOS Distribution by Day panel provides an easy-to-read view of the MOS quality break-down, without losingany granularity. The planner can see not only the percent

of good call quality, but the quality levels that fall belowthe line.

The Voice Quality Impairments distribution panel is veryuseful in identifying the reason for low voice quality. TheR Value is the transmission rating, based on a calculation of several variables and goes directly to the MOS. When theR Value is low, something is causing the voice qualityimpairment.

This panel shows whether voice quality problems are due tolatency, jitter, dropped packets, echo, or noise. In this case,the panel shows a lot of dropped packets, so drilling down to

the VoIP CoS reports would show exactly what is causing theproblem. As in our earlier example, the problem could simplyresult from an inadequate service level and be easily solved byupgrading the service.

Voice Quality Impairments by Day

100

80

60

40

20

0

P e r c e n t

T u e - 0

5 / 0 6

W e d - 0

5 / 0 7

T h u - 0

5 / 0 8

F r i - 0 5

/ 0 9

S a t - 0

5 / 1 0

S u n - 0

5 / 1 1

M o n - 0

5 / 1 2

T u e - 0

5 / 1 3

W e d - 0

5 / 1 4

T h u - 0

5 / 1 5

F r i - 0 5

/ 1 6

S a t - 0

5 / 1 7

S u n - 0

5 / 1 8

M o n - 0

5 / 1 9

T u e - 0

5 / 2 0

W e d - 0

5 / 2 1

T h u - 0

5 / 2 2

F r i - 0 5

/ 2 3

S a t - 0

5 / 2 4

S u n - 0

5 / 2 5

M o n - 0

5 / 2 6

T u e - 0

5 / 2 7

W e d - 0

5 / 2 8

T h u - 0

5 / 2 9

F r i - 0 5

/ 3 0

S a t - 0

5 / 3 1

S u n - 0

6 / 0 1

M o n - 0

6 / 0 2

T u e - 0

6 / 0 3

W e d - 0

6 / 0 4

T h u - 0

6 / 0 5

F r i - 0 6

/ 0 6

S a t - 0

6 / 0 7

S u n - 0

6 / 0 8

M o n - 0

6 / 0 9

T u e - 0

6 / 1 0

W e d - 0

6 / 1 1

T h u - 0

6 / 1 2

F r i - 0 6

/ 1 3

S a t - 0

6 / 1 4

S u n - 0

6 / 1 5

M o n - 0

6 / 1 6

T u e - 0

6 / 1 7

Noise Echo and Distortion Delay Dropped packet rate R Value

MOS Distribution by Day

100

80

60

40

20

0

P e r c e n t

T u e - 0 5 / 0

6

W e d - 0

5 / 0 7

T h u - 0

5 / 0 8

F r i - 0 5

/ 0 9

S a t - 0

5 / 1 0

S u n - 0

5 / 1 1

M o n - 0

5 / 1 2

T u e - 0

5 / 1 3

W e d - 0

5 / 1 4

T h u - 0

5 / 1 5

F r i - 0 5

/ 1 6

S a t - 0

5 / 1 7

S u n - 0

5 / 1 8

M o n - 0

5 / 1 9

T u e - 0

5 / 2 0

W e d - 0

5 / 2 1

T h u - 0

5 / 2 2

F r i - 0 5

/ 2 3

S a t - 0

5 / 2 4

S u n - 0

5 / 2 5

M o n - 0

5 / 2 6

T u e - 0

5 / 2 7

W e d - 0

5 / 2 8

T h u - 0

5 / 2 9

F r i - 0 5

/ 3 0

S a t - 0

5 / 3 1

S u n - 0

6 / 0 1

M o n - 0

6 / 0 2

T u e - 0

6 / 0 3

W e d - 0

6 / 0 4

T h u - 0

6 / 0 5

F r i - 0 6

/ 0 6

S a t - 0

6 / 0 7

S u n - 0

6 / 0 8

M o n - 0

6 / 0 9

T u e - 0

6 / 1 0

W e d - 0

6 / 1 1

T h u - 0

6 / 1 2

F r i - 0 6

/ 1 3

S a t - 0

6 / 1 4

S u n - 0

6 / 1 5

M o n - 0

6 / 1 6

T u e - 0

6 / 1 7

MOS


15/17

Concord Communications is committed to excellencein end-to-end service and infrastructure management byunderstanding and accommodating leading vendorsnetwork devices and applications. In fact, over 100 vendorsand 600 specific devices are certified with theeHealth Suitefor SNMP-based network management. The eHealth

Voice Quality Monitor is vendor neutral, enabling it to beused with any VoIP hardware vendor. As the market leader in automating technology management,Concord partners with Cisco, a world leader in Internettechnologies, to provide world-class fault, performance,availability, and service level management to enterpriseand service provider networks powered by Cisco devices.Formalized in 1999, the relationship offers solutions forCiscos VPN Solution Center, Cisco WAN Manager,Cisco CNS NetFlow Collection Engine, Cisco Service Assurance Agent, and Cisco Info Center.

VoIP has been added to these integrated solutions. Concordsupports Ciscos CallManager, enabling the eHealth Suite tomanage VoIP circuits across Cisco networks in real-time.Cisco has certified eHealth SystemEDGE and ApplicationInsight Modules (AIMs) for installation on their CallManager,allowing granular monitoring and management for theCallManager box and the major services on which it relies,including: IIS, SQL, WINS, DHCP, and others.Concord is continually expanding its partner relationshipsand will pursue integrated solutions with other key VoIPproviders.



Partnering for Excellence


16/17

VoIP is ready for deployment if it is managed as an integratedsolution with data traffic and QoS capabilities. Assessing andupdating the IP network is the first requirement to successfuldeployment. Managing the network as the purveyor of critical services, VoIP being one, is the ongoing requirement.Critical services need end-to-end management, the ability tomeasure QoS metrics and SLAs, and real-time reporting onthe performance of applications and services. ConcordseHealth Suite is uniquely suited to managing the complexitiesof a converged network and with it in place you canrealize the promise of VoIPcost savings and productivityenhancements.

References:VoIP Performance Management: A Look at Vendors and Solutions, IDC,Paul Bugala, Paul Strauss, Thomas S. Valovic, #28189, Vendors Needs andStrategies, October 2002.Network Management Shifts from Bits and Bytes to Business Metrics, TheYankee Group, Zeus Kerravala and Sandra Palumbo, 2003.Managing IP Telephony, META group. Glenn ODonnell, ElizabethUssher, June 2003.



Conclusion


17/17

concord.com

Concord Communications, Inc.Worldwide Headquarters600 Nickerson RoadMarlboro, M assachusetts 01752800-851-8725P 508-460-4646F 508-481-9772

Latin America Brazil +55 11 3048 4133 Mexico +52 5322 3241

Concord Communications EuropeRegus Teleport TowersKingsfordweg 1511043 GR AmsterdamThe NetherlandsP +31 (0) 20 491 9610F +31 (0) 20 491 7350

UK +44 (0) 1784 898 298 Central Europe +49 (0) 8106 30510 Southern Europe +33 (0) 1 4692 2420

Concord Communications Asia PacificLevel 7,53 Walker StreetNorth Sydney NSW 2060AustraliaP +61-2-9965-0600F +61-2-9929-0411

Japan +81 3 5778 7629 Singapore +65 333 1377 Hong Kong (852) 282 48978

TrademarksConcord Communications, Inc., e Health, the Concord Logo, Automating Technology Management, SystemEDGE, and/or other Concord marks or productsreferenced herein are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Concord Communications, Inc. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may bethe trademarks of their respective owners.

Copyright 2003 Concord Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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