Managing VOIP effectively. Without the right tools, fixing one problem can mean causing another.
<<<... As VOIP adoption grows, so does the number of vendor tools available that deliver details on IP telephony performance. Recent research from Infonetics shows the number of people subscribing to VOIP services will almost double in 2006, to 47.3 million. The consultancy also released results from a study of some 240 businesses that use VOIP now or will by 2007, as well as the results of 450 shorter interviews to determine VOIP adoption rates.
Among large businesses, 36 percent already are using VOIP equipment and VOIP services. Only 23 percent of midsize and 14 percent of small businesses have adopted VOIP gear and services, the study says, but VOIP adoption by small businesses will triple by 2010. Vendors such as Brix Networks, Clarus Systems, Netreo, Qovia and Viola provide voice-specific monitoring tools to help customers track performance. Voice equipment makers such as Alcatel, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel and Nortel provide management applications with their gear to help network managers collect data on voice devices, and management software and appliance makers such as Apparent Networks, InfoVista and NetQoS add voice performance metrics to their products that detect failures and degradations on data networks.
Probing for real-time samples Michael DeDecker, network administrator at Warner Pacific Insurance Services, uses Cisco's Unified Operations Manager product to keep tabs on the vendor's CallManager 5.0 product as well as to ensure that performance stays in line for about 500 devices and 125 users. Unified Operations Manager uses probes distributed on the network to collect real-time samples of voice quality, DeDecker says, which "beats troubleshooting by 100 times because you can see actual delay issues at a remote site." more >>>