Voice Management

The converged voice network is a complex environment as it combines unified communications, VoIP and SIP trunking technologies from multiple vendors. To make matters worse, the mix in place today is likely to change in the near future. IT teams must make sure all moving parts within the system work together without breaking the budget, demanding a clear focus on voice management.

According to this Network World (News - Alert) report, it is possible to reduce the complexity of these business-critical communications environments, while also cost effectively managing their operation with focused voice management. If degradation in voice quality or service levels occurs within the voice network, it is critical to identify the “where” and the “why” with the right visibility tools and metrics.

The traditional lines of voice and data have been blurred in converged communications. Both have traditionally been supported by different groups within the organization. This approach today no longer works as VoIP and UC are both highly dependent on the underlying network. Quality and service issues can often be caused by a variety of network-related conditions. The challenge for IT is in gathering data from multiple sources and locations, something voice management could help to alleviate.

The unified visibility enabled through voice management allows support teams to determine the effects different components can have on each other. At the same time, this approach helps to isolate where quality and service issues originate. Voice management tools allow the IT team to see into the entire converged ecosystem, understanding the relationships between the components and applications to reduce the overall complexity of the environment.

At the same time, these IT teams can also reduce the operational costs associated with delivering communications services levels that support the goals of the business. Because voice traffic is subject to common network anomalies, conversations can be disrupted and users can get frustrated. Such conditions can quickly drag down costs and increase overhead costs.

Network opinion scores (MOS) and quality of service (QoS) metrics averaged over time can provide insight into the performance of the network and the effectiveness of voice management. Such aggregated averages can actually hide quality problems, however, causing the support team to waste time searching for the true cause of the problem.

Voice management enables support teams to capture deep VoIP-specific metrics, including length, burst, density on a per-call basis and more, to determine the type of voice issues occurring. Once an issue is determined, the team must identify the network conditions or endpoints that may have contributed to the problem. At that point, the team can definitely know the why and what to change to ensure quality for each user experience.

Unified visibility of the entire environment enabled through voice management eliminates the complexity involved with identifying the where and why regarding communications issues. IT teams can locate the complete and correct information needed to pinpoint and resolve the real issues quickly and more cost effectively.