ADTRAN's VQM DeliversADTRAN's VQM Delivers
Are you using a network management tool to monitor and report on your VoIP traffic? If not, why not?
June 17, 2009
Are you using a network management tool to monitor and report on your VoIP traffic? If not, why not?
Our internal project of implementing and testing ADTRAN's VQM (Voice Quality Monitoring) had been on my list a long time. After replacing our hybrid IP-PBX, I purchased and implemented a new ADTRAN router equipped with VQM. VQM makes real-time quality measurements on all SIP-signaled RTP VoIP calls and captures MOS, jitter, delay and packet loss. Live and historical performance data is provided on a per-call basis.While I don't know of any TDM/IP-PBX solutions with SMDR/CDR applications that show the compression rate used in calls, VQM does report on this. In ADTRAN's IPT7100 and 7000 solutions, VQM also reports on extensions for all routed traffic. In our case we have no extension data because we are using another IP-PBX. It would be great to have the extension data but the reality is which IP manufacturer's extension data will show up? I'm alluding to that "proprietary" thing again. Customers who have multiple devices and want the convenience of looking at all their devices in a single view, the n-Command MSP offers this solution. Among its many different productivity enhancing widgets, n-Command MSP has one for summarizing the MOS scores from multiple devices on a single page. For a system administrator this is an excellent way to look over the performance of all the sites in a single pane.
Now, for calls that are switched, there will be no metrics. Only calls that are routed are the ones being captured. The tool allows you to watch, in real time, live calls while reporting the metrics. The plentiful statistics are exportable and the tool includes a very easy to use interface. There's also a traffic monitor and security dashboard included.
I want to share an extract from page 3 of ADTRAN's configuration guide for VQM and what I think really sums up why you need a monitoring solution in place even if you have hosted, managed or MPLS services:
Issues detected on the WAN are typically the service provider's responsibility, and issues detected on the LAN are typically the customer's responsibility. The VQM metrics and statistics can be obtained for the private and public areas of the network to determine the portion of the network responsible for the perceived voice quality issues.
I'm going to borrow a dialogue that is not found in techno journals, so here goes: Are you using a network management tool to monitor and report on your VoIP traffic? If not, why not, you see here is a great tool!
Regardless of which solution you've bought into, you need to cover the front and back doors. Finger pointing doesn't go away and the responsibility for call quality doesn't shift to the carrier with an SLA in hand and it doesn't fall on the vendor or provider of your telephony service under the warranty or maintenance contract. The reality is if you don't have tools and the right ones in the right places, then you're setting your company up for inferior service. Leaving it up to "the vendors" which is akin to a submarine leaving port without closing the screen doors--meaning close all the hatches before submerging or diving in an IPT solution. Sole dependence upon the vendors without the right tools is an act of blind faith and even still you need tools for accountability.
Calls routed between sites are reported along with metrics easily downloadable. There are no external probes, servers and software clients running to get the metrics. This is what I call convergence.
In summary, I have metrics backed up with statistics that should easily make a case to any carrier. VQM is an easy deployment and for the cost, it makes sense to deploy the router to get the built in tools. I snagged the video presentation from ADTRAN's website on VQM and the video demonstrates what you do get. For those without any monitoring in place because of costs or complexity; ADTRAN delivers in their classic way--easy to deploy convergence with built-in monitoring at a very reasonable cost in a very reasonable way that doesn't mean deployment of more stuff.Are you using a network management tool to monitor and report on your VoIP traffic? If not, why not?
