The VoIP management challenge

The slowly maturing VoIP platform has enterprises taking a long look at this technology, and not just for cost savings. Many of these potential users are opting for in-house rather than service-provider solutions because of the additional savings, future flexibility, and a simple lack of consistent vision by the large telco providers.

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Those adventurous souls who implement VoIP themselves face the daunting task of managing a voice-oriented data network. For network managers accustomed to data networks, this job requires a specialized toolkit.

To determine the best option for the enterprise market, we gathered four VoIP testing contenders and turned them loose on the VoIP installations at our Advanced Network Computing Laboratory (ANCL) testing facility at the University of Hawaii.

The reviews below aren't intended as direct comparisons. These testing tools are different enough in their approaches to the VoIP management problem that an apples-to-apples comparison is simply unworkable. For this reason, we instead examined each tool on its own merits and rated them from the perspective of a typical network manager.

Acterna DA-3400 Data Network Analyzer

We reviewed the network testing capabilities of Acterna's product line in our March roundup. This time around, Acterna brought a DA-3400 equipped with its latest VoIP testing software technology. Heavily aimed at service providers and carrier-style implementations, the Acterna solution is feature-rich but probably overkill for all but the largest enterprise VoIP implementations.

As before, the DA-3400 comprises an innocuous, 1U rack-mountable box, which we attached to our network via a Net Optics tap. That's important, because unlike the Brix product, the DA-3400 is an entirely passive device.

To access the DA-3400's PVA-1000 VoIP analyzing software, you log into the box using a Web browser. We plugged the DA-3400 into our lab network and decided to expand its testing scope to reflect its carrier orientation. We skipped managing local VoIP traffic and instead aimed the device at an Asterisk SIP server used by Priority Networks.

We initiated several conversations using Priority's network and the same people in each conversation to preserve audio frequency ranges. We measured call quality during a series of two-minute conversations and captured both sides of the conversation so that we could play it back later.

To measure QoS and Diffserv, the DA-3400 displays the appropriate priority bits that tell the receiver (or router) what priority the traffic has. The big differentiator in Diffserv is that the priority labels must be correctly configured in order for the switch to "differentiate" the data streams.

Although Diffserv is mostly standardized by now, the standards continue to be implemented differently enough across platforms that having the ability to dig down to the bit level with the DA-3400 can be critical to fast problem resolution.

When measuring call quality, the DA-3400 tracked the RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol), RTCP (RTP control protocol), and packet values along with call delay, codec identification, lost packets, and jitter. Additionally, it is capable of following the TIPHON (Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonization Over Networks) perceptual call quality assessment protocol for calls in progress.

Surprisingly, our call quality across the Las Vegas-based Asterisk server was just as good as a local POTS call, however we were running across Internet2 with a cross-connect onto Qwest's backbone for the commodity Internet.

Our perceived test scores were excellent, but the DA-3400 was unable to display the actual MOS (mean opinion score), because the user interface displays MOS results as a visual band and not an actual number. This is a recurring concern: Acterna occasionally oversimplifies the results of its rather powerful tool set. The visual-only display of the MOS scores is one example; another is the rather light implementation of SNMP traps.

Acterna says it will address many of these complaints in the next version of its software, due this month. In addition to detailed MOS scores and improved SNMP, you'll also be able to integrate the Acterna console into larger management packages, such as Hewlett-Packard OpenView and IBM Tivoli.

We were surprised by this, given Acterna's leanings toward the carrier side of VoIP implementations. Clearly, Acterna smells opportunity in the enterprise market. Larger enterprises can make good use of the DA-3400, although Brix's offering is more specifically geared for such an installation.

The Brix System

In case you're wondering,  Brix's etymology comes not from masonry slang, but from a term related to the proper processing of grapes into wine. After unearthing this data nugget, we dug into Brix Networks' offerings to find a pleasant surprise: This relatively new company has a well-thought-out, comprehensive suite of VoIP monitoring and testing products and services that's fully capable of competing with more established vendors' offerings.

The Brix product line is a software/hardware combination. The hardware appliances, called Verifiers, come in three flavors: Brix 100, Brix 1000, and Brix 2500. These boxes run agent software, essentially the long arm of the Brix monitoring system. Customers may install the agent software on workstations as long as they purchase the proper number of Brix Verifier Agent software licenses.

Command of the Brix system falls to either a BrixMon enterprise-class centralized management console or to a BrixWorx console, which is designed to run within a service provider's network monitoring system and control Brix Verifier Agents across multiple customer sites.