There’s no question VoIP is making its mark in the business communications space, with cost savings still a key driver. However, new hardware and applications, particularly around unified communications, voice and video conferencing, and mobile connectivity, are providing an added push because they allow today’s increasingly mobile workforce to remain productive wherever they are. And, regardless of its actual success in the space to date, Microsoft’s (News - Alert) announcement about UC last year certainly brightened the spotlight on what VoIP and UC can do for business communications.

 

An increased awareness of the benefits of VoIP and a constantly growing vendor presence are certainly pushing a spectacular range of VoIP and UC applications and products, but the other piece of the puzzle is the network operator over whose infrastructures these applications are delivered to end users and devices.

 

In North America, the VoIP provider market has become quite fragmented, and with every Tom, Dick, and Harry trying their hand as a VoIP service provider, it’s hard to get a clear overall picture.

 

That said, we know cablecos and traditional telcos are increasing their VoIP subscribers, and other large service providers are also growing their businesses, helped along by they implementation of new next generation networks and IMS infrastructures designed for the deployment of all the new applications and services being introduced.

 

However, the increased network traffic created by added subscribers and new applications and services often strains networks — often brining to light network issues that were not apparent during initial deployment. Quite simply, subscriber numbers and traffic volumes are growing at a pace exceeding network capabilities, and, in order to alleviate these issues, network operators need to take the appropriate steps to adequately test their networks to ensure they can handle their increasing traffic.

 

Fortunately, as there are vendors developing solutions for businesses looking to deploy VoIP, there are also vendors addressing service provider concerns as well as they seek to ensure they are able to meet demands.

 

Empirix Product Marketing Manager Dan Teichman and Product Manager Darius Minay-Azari recently provided timely — and critical — information on the issues network operators face and how they can be effectively addressed during a Webinar called, “Ensuring Quality in Large-Scale VoIP Networks.”

 

Teichman and Minay-Azari discussed differences between the behaviors of small and large VoIP networks before settling in to focus on both anomalous and malicious events that can disrupt large networks, including mass calling, registrations floods, and DoS attacks.

 

Using these events as evidence, they then turned their attention to the importance of testing and monitoring as an effective means of ensuring such events to not impede network traffic, including specific examples of how to cope with the kinds of threats they previously considered.

 

Please listen to the archived Webinar for more information and to understand:

 

 

At the end of the session, you will understand that a lifecycle approach to testing and monitoring is required to fully protect your network environment, and to ensure you are able to provide reliable, high-quality service to your users.

 

To register for and listen to the Webinar, please click here.