When considering the best tools to utilize for network performance management, you may not be aware of how effectively managing your network can also provide the benefits necessary to improve your enterprise VoIP services as well.
According to Pete Cruz, senior director of product management and marketing at SevOne, as many enterprises integrate Voice over IP (VoIP) into their business environments, it is essential for them to take their two separate networks including their PSTN voice line and data network and convert them to save costs while still providing voice services to their employees and providing connectivity to outside sources.
So how can your company assess your current network’s environment to see if it is actually capable of supporting VoIP and delivering the call quality that customers expect? In a SevOne Whiteboard Series Video, Cruz explains the main steps of how to leverage network performance management to evaluate and determine if your network is indeed ready to support a successful VoIP rollout.
The first step, according to Cruz, is determining whether your existing infrastructure can support VoIP and provide the same call quality of a traditional PSTN line. Using the technology in today’s devices, users can execute voice services from the switches and IPSLA tests. This allows companies to generate a call from one part of the network to another. Through each these test, users will find instances of jitter, latency and packet loss within the network. By leveraging network performance management, users will have the ability to look at each of these different points in the network to determine if it is in fact ready for enterprise VoIP. As you run each test, you will be able to determine where each issue occurs and how it correlates to your existing network’s performance.
With SevOne’s network performance management solutions, users are able to baseline these IPSLA tests, which allows them to determine when their environment has consistent increases in data use. Understanding your data usage allows companies to set up Quality of Service (QOS) perimeters in their infrastructure to allow the appropriate bandwidth for critical business applications.
SevOne’s solutions also allow users to leverage NetFlow for each key interface of their network to determine the actual usage and what applications are essentially consuming bandwidth at particular points in time. You may find specific applications that are running at the same time and are causing spikes in utilization that may be able to be spread out for consistent levels of usage that will ultimately enable better voice quality in the long run.
Cruz adds that the reality of utilizing network performance management for VoIP is understanding how your infrastructure is performing today and how to relate it to your voice calls by utilizing additional tools such as call managers and gateways.
For more information on how to utilize SevOne’s network performance management solutions for your company’s enterprise VoIP network, visit the company’s website today.
Stefanie Mosca is a Managing Editor for TMCnet, with a particular focus in wireless technologies as well as mobile and IP communications. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University and a bachelor's degree in communication from the University of New Haven. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page or follow her on Twitter (News - Alert) @stefaniemosca.
Edited by Rich Steeves