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 Observers VoIP Analysis offers relevant actionable detail and diagnostics:
Observers
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

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

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

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

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.

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
Observers
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 bita 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 Observers VoIP enhancements are automatically available
across multiple topologies. For example, Observers VoIP Expert
has the capability to monitor VoIP traffic even over wireless networks.
Jitter
Observers
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 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
VoIP Station Summary Detail
VoIP Station Detail

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