Unified communications have become an integral part of many
companies' voice networks. But more data converged onto one network
can create a more complicated monitoring environment.This week, Network General released an update to its
VoIP Forensics solution, VoIP Intelligence, adding in a new level
of
VoIP and
unified communications visibility.
Essentially, VoIP Intelligence displays individual call
performance and overall VoIP metrics, adding visuals of per-call
VoIP performance and correlations of voice and video communications
with other data traffic patterns.
"There is nothing more human than communicating with someone
through voice and video," said James Messer, Network General's
technology marketing manager.
As
VoIP deployments evolve and incorporate more unified
communications solutions, such as integrated messaging,
conferencing and video services over IP, IT departments are
encountering a new level of complexity. Typically, each new
solution requires its own management tool. And with VoIP and
unified communications relying heavily on real-time availability,
IT faces the further challenge of avoiding disruption to these
systems, which have become critical communications tools.
Messer said VoIP Intelligence, which is under the Business
Intelligence Suite umbrella, rolls VoIP and unified communications
management into one suite that includes detailed VoIP and unified
communications performance information with dashboard-level IT
service views.
VoIP Forensics, Messer said, links voice and video performance
with IT service delivery. Network General's new VoIP Intelligence
application now offers greater insight into the details of voice
and video communications.
VoIP performance is examined to determine throughput and response
time, Messer said, while individual call statistics are viewed,
filtered and examined at the packet level. Comprehensive Business
Container service views drill down into both network-level VoIP
conversation metrics and health information relating to the VoIP
components themselves.
In addition, individual conversations are graphed to a
millisecond level, illustrating jitter, delay, out-of-sequence
frames and dropped packets of voice information, all of which can
cause degradation of audio and video quality. Network and voice
managers can essentially see VoIP conversations without examining
pages of statistics, and communications that are usually lost when
a call is completed can be retrieved and problems identified within
a single set of VoIP performance management views.
VoIP and video performance can be measured by:
- Detecting audio and video performance impairments caused by
network-related factors like jitter, loss and transmission delay
variations.
- Isolating the relationship between VoIP impairments and
performance of other applications at specific points in time,
assuring the ongoing performance and availability of critical
business services.
- Viewing the entire unified communications environment as a
single business service, ensuring that the performance and
availability of the diverse technologies can be managed from a
single dashboard.
"Organizations are challenged to find effective management
systems to maintain the performance and availability of their Voice
over IP and unified communications services, especially as usage
increases," said Ken Boyd, Network General's CIO and executive vice
president for product delivery.
Gartner Inc. analyst Jeff Snyder agreed.
"Users are extremely sensitive to any kind of performance or
quality variation in their voice service," Snyder said. "IT needs
solutions that actively monitor converged communications in real
time and provide a clear indication of how to correct any problems
before they impact users."