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We’ve been blogging with excerpts from our new VoIP Performance ebook here on Network Performance Daily. Today, Brad Reese gets into the game with his own advice on monitoring VoIP performance using Cisco NetFlow and IP SLA in a story on his Cisco Subnet blog called Are you Taking Advantage of NetFlow and IP SLA?
Brad quotes NetQoS CEO Joel Trammell on the subject. According to Joel, “the number one killer of voice traffic is network latency and jitter. Latency, jitter and packet loss cause poor audio quality and dropped calls. Latency caused by overloaded call managers or network congestion can be a major cause of poor VoIP performance."
Brad does a good job of showing how network managers can use Cisco IP SLA and NetFlow monitoring to address these VoIP performance issues. He advises:
“When it comes to voice over the network, three things related to performance must be taken into consideration:
1. The traffic volume on the existing network.
2. The latency when packets traverse the infrastructure.
3. The ability to keep the network up and available at all times.
And as Brad highlights, “Cisco has the solution and the price is right – FREE.” All you need is the right network monitoring products to analyze and present the data in a meaningful way. Enter NetQoS and our IP SLA and NetFlow monitoring products.
With that said, there are also other important considerations when it comes to VoIP. Primarily-- VoIP Quality of Experience. And, monitoring VoIP call quality requires a VoIP monitor that measures both underlying network conditions and the performance of your Cisco® Unified Communications Manager (CallManager) IP PBX. This is one of the reasons that NetQoS launched NetQoS VoIP monitor earlier this year. It’s a network-based call setup and call quality monitoring product that tracks the call quality users experience, provides alerts on call performance problems, and isolates performance issues to speed troubleshooting. It uses passive monitoring technology so you can monitor and control VoIP call performance without impairing the Call Manager performance and without having to deploy software agents or probes. It’s also integrated with the NetQoS Performance Center so users can also monitor network and application performance.
Want to learn more about setting up your VoIP infrastructure and monitoring performance? NetQoS has posted an expert webcast on VoIP performance and is making a free VoIP Performance ebook available.
