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Expert VoIP Features PDF
Your Guide to Troubleshooting VoIP
Implementing Unified Communications
  • Overview
  • Expert Analysis Features
  • VoIP Trending Features

VoIP and other unified communications applications add new strain to already complex networks. Observer’s VoIP monitoring and analysis tools ensure you’ll have the knowledge necessary to handle your VoIP network from pre-deployment through daily maintenance.

VoIP Expert is designed to help manage, troubleshoot, and maintain VoIP traffic across your network. Regardless of whether you are interested in the big picture or in a specific conversation. Observer offers VoIP Trending statistics, Expert analysis, and reports for all levels of VoIP traffic.

Expert Observer’s VoIP Analysis offers relevant actionable detail and diagnostics:

Observer’s VoIP Advantages:

  • Designed from the ground up, not a 3rd party product
  • Focuses on real, live traffic issues
  • Offers quick summaries for overall VoIP status
  • Drills-down to specific conversation detail for troubleshooting
  • Over 50 Expert events for immediate identification on quality issues
  • Call quality is measured in aggregate and individually
  • Predict VoIP’s impact on your network
  • Obtain in-depth call metrics
  • Run QoS reports

Industry-leading VoIP Troubleshooting

Let Observer’s 50+ event- and threshold-based VoIP Experts immediately flag problems and offer solutions, for faster identification and resolution.

Observer provides aggregate call quality metrics to identify problems at a high level. When a call detail record indicates a problem, drill down to troubleshoot at the packet level.

Other solutions don’t present packets, making it difficult to troubleshoot. Our Connection Dynamics feature lets you analyze individual call components graphically to quickly spot problematic transactions. Reconstruct and playback calls through data stream reconstruction to verify user complaints and diagnose issues or verify that they have been resolved.

Over 70 VoIP metrics, including:

  • Quality of Service (QoS)
  • MOS, R-factor
  • Jitter •Bursts, Gaps
  • Packet Loss
  • Delay Observer offers complete VoIP and video decodes including H.323, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), MGCP, and SCCP (Cisco "skinny"). We also support Avaya CCMS, Nortel UNIStim (licensed separately), and Mitel® systems.

Feature Details Below - Click to expand

Observer’s VoIP Analysis Features

Convenient and comprehensive at-a-glance summaries:

  • VoIP Traffic Summary
  • Call Summary
  • Voice Quality Scoring
  • Precedence (QoS)
  • Summary Graphs

VoIP Traffic Summary

VoIP Summary

 

Call Detail

Detailed views with in-depth Call Detail Records:

  • Addresses Status (Open, closed, fail)
  • Number of packets, packet bytes, packet loss
  • Start time, initial setup duration, duration
  • Current jitter, maximum jitter
  • MOS, R-factor QoS for each call
  • Number of packets that arrive out of order
  • Detailed analysis for packet loss and delay
  • Gap density, average gap duration

Call Detail Records

Call Detail

 

VoIP Expert

VoIP Expert Events with over 50 Expert items

Observer offers over 50 event-based and threshold-based VoIP Experts to immediately flag problems for faster problem resolution. Examples include:

  • Alarms for above or below active jitter rates
  • Lost packets
  • Alterations in the QoS stream

VoIP Expert

 

Connection Dynamics

Connection Dynamics

Drill down further with Observer’s Connection Dynamics to view call bounce showing packet-by-packet commands and delays.

 

Compare VoIP to Network Performance

Compare VoIP to Network Performance

Could total network bandwidth affect jitter and delay? Observer’s VoIP Expert charts jitter in each direction of a VoIP call and compares it to total bandwidth utilization. Use this information to determine if network load is affecting VoIP call quality.

 

Replay Voice and Video

Observer offers complete VoIP and video decodes, including H.323, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), MGCP, and SCCP (Cisco "skinny"). Reconstruct streams into a .WAV or .AVI file for replay.

Replay VoIP

 

Other Features

Other VoIP Expert Features:

VoIP Quality Scoring

Observer displays the individual Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and R-factor for every call and as an average for all calls. Quality scoring is conducted using the ITU E-Model. During VoIP Setup, you may customize the impairment factors of the E-model depending on your VoIP equipment and network characteristics. For example, VoIP quality on calls made from the factory floor over multiple hops may be scored differently to calls made within a small office setting.

VoIP Quality of Service

Observer’s VoIP Expert reports QoS levels by call, packet, and protocol. VoIP Expert also shows percentage of VoIP utilization as compared to the rest of network traffic allowing you to plan network upgrades. Sort TCP sub-protocols by the TCP Precedence bit—a mechanism for prioritizing traffic for applications like VoIP.

Observer supports QoS standards such as:

  • Default: RFC 1349, 1195, 1123, 791
  • OSPF V2: RFC 1248, 1247
  • DSCP: RFC 2474

 

 

VoWLAN

With the Network Instruments Distributed Network Analysis (NI-DNA) architecture, all of Observer’s VoIP enhancements are automatically available across multiple topologies. For example, Observer’s VoIP Expert has the capability to monitor VoIP traffic even over wireless networks.

Jitter

Observer’s VoIP Expert displays the statistical variance of packet arrival times, also known as jitter, measured in timestamp units or RTP time units.

VoIP Decodes

Observer offers complete decode of voice and video protocols, including H.323, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), MGCP, and SCCP (Cisco "skinny").

VoIP Conversation Graphs

The VoIP Expert displays H.323/SIP conversational data in three separate graphs. Each display is designed to help identify why a connection may be experiencing problems, or at what level of network load are H.323 conversations exhibiting acceptable quality behavior. Displays include jitter and lost packets (%) for each direction of the conversation, total RTP/RTCP bandwidth utilization, total utilization and each conversation's percentage of total utilization.

 

 

Obtain current and historical data and usage trends based on specific stations for VoIP. Understand over VoIP performance and call quality scoring, across the company and by individual device. Obtain current and historical data and usage trends based on specific stations.

Observer Suite makes it easy to share reports and provides flexibility to view data and generate reports for non-Observer users via the web.

With Observer Reporting Server you can manage network performance with enterprise-wide views, macro- and micro-level reporting, and deep drill-down.

Feature Details Below - Click to expand

VoIP Station Summary Graphs

VoIP Station Summary Graphs

 

VoIP Summary Detail
Date Time Duration General Statistics
Start End Bytes Packets Calls Started Calls Closed Call Setup Duration
7/15/2009 10:00 11:00 0:50:21 325e6 1.64e6 617 609 00.387s
11:00 12:00 1:00:00 270e6 1.36e6 505 513 00.430s
Date Time Duration Quality Statistics
Start End R-Factor MOS Jitter Packets Out Of Order Lost Packets Burst Percent
7/15/2009 10:00 11:00 0:50:21 82.151 4.101 1.264 0 0.494 0.007
11:00 12:00 1:00:00 81.985 4.098 1.441 0 0.496 0.007
Date Time Closed Call MOS Closed Call R-Factor
Start End Min Max Min Max
7/15/2009 10:00 11:00 3.830 4.160 75.228 83.929
11:00 12:00 3.820 4.160 75.065 83.728

 

VoIP Station Summary Graphs

Call Station Graphs

 

VoIP Station Summary Detail

Call Station Statistics

 

VoIP Station Detail

Station Call Details

  • Call ID
  • Bytes
  • Packets
  • Stations
  • Call Setup
  • Duration
  • R-Factor
  • MOS
  • Jitter Max
  • Jitter
  • Packets
  • Out Of Order
  • Lost Packets
  • Burst Percent
  • VoIP Codecs