When tracking user experience in Unified Communications (UC) applications, like VoIP and videoconferencing, the accuracy of analysis hinges upon your ability to capture, integrate, and analyze multiple data streams that make up a call session including: Control management setup of the conversation Audio and video streams traversing between the callers Protocols used for managing the transfer of audio and video The primary challenge is that network teams lack visibility into call traffic as it tr...

Today's networks are growing in both size and complexity, presenting new challenges for IT and network administrators. More mobile devices are now connecting to more data from more sources—and much of that is due to virtualization. IT challenges are further complicated by increasingly high customer expectations for always onaccess and immediate application response. This complexity creates network “blind spots” where latent errors germinate, and pre-attack activity lurks. Blind spots are commonl...

The principles of managing VoIP performance The use of VoIP in the corporate world is growing rapidly, driven by a combination of increasingly mature technology and a desire to reduce costs. A single network infrastructure should enable organizations to reduce capital expenditure and create a more homogeneous environment that is easier to maintain, monitor and manage. However, using the network to transport voice as well as data naturally reduces the amount of traffic it can support. Moving to V...

A premium insurance financing company based in the United States decided to upgrade their interactive voice response (IVR) platforms in call centers located in Philadelphia, PA, and Irvine, CA. Their project team leader was given responsibility for ensuring all new and existing contact center components worked together at go-live. The team leader knew the only way to accomplish this was to test each system’s ability to handle real telephone calls that “behaved” just like real callers. The compan...

What is a Tap? Test Access Ports or Taps are primarily used to optimize ITs ability to easily and passively monitor a network link. They are normally placed between any two network devices, including switches, routers, and firewalls to provide network and security personnel a connection for monitoring devices. Protocol analyzers, RMON probes and intrusion detection and prevention systems can now be easily connected to and removed from the network when needed. By using a Tap, you also eliminate t...

According to the IDC, nearly 5 million 10 Gb ports were shipped in the third quarter of 2013, surpassing the number of Gigabit switches for the first time since the technology was introduced in 2001. That's a lot of upgrades, but with Big Data analysis, VoIP, video, and other bandwidth-intensive applications gobbling up more and more network resources, it's no surprise. The real challenge for many network teams today is managing performance monitoring expectations in the new 10 Gb environment, a...

Multi-tiered applications are no longer the exception but the rule. In the past, assessing application performance meant monitoring response time and health on a single server hosting one application. Now, with the applications increasingly becoming virtualized, utilizing multiple protocols, and operating over multiple servers, the approach to tracking overall application performance needs a reboot. So how do you effectively track the health and conversations involved in a service comprised of m...

Anyone who uses a phone has experienced IVR by now. It's the "Interactive Voice Response" system that many companies have implemented to handle incoming customer calls. I've found it's been helpful and efficient most of the time, but IVR seems to be the subject of jokes and scorn by many. Why all the animosity? IVR gets a bad rap and I know why: bad design and implementation. Let's look at some common problems and solutions. Having to press 1 for this and press 2 for that seems to really irritat...

When it comes to points of network visibility, common knowledge dictates that more is always better. And, when we’re talking about troubleshooting and identifying the point of delay, increased visibility is important. But multiple points of visibility can also lead to duplicate packets. There are times when duplicate packets help in troubleshooting, but they can also lead to incorrect analysis and forecasting. It’s critical for successful network management to understand when duplicate packets c...

Unified communications is on the move. The unified communications (UC) segment is forecast to grow from $22.8 billion in 2011 to $61.9 billion by 2018, according to Transparency Market Research. UC is viewed by businesses of all sizes as a way to cut costs and improve both productivity and collaboration. It cuts costs by using the latest Internet technologies instead of more costly solutions such as traditional corporate video conferencing solutions, and it boosts productivity by reducing the nu...

Between data centres, clouds and physical servers, enterprises are seeing rapidly growing complex networks. With this ever-expanding infrastructure comes the issue of visibility as data slips into blind spots when the network grows, which can be a stumbling point for businesses. Roark Pollock, Ixia VP of Marketing, Network Visibility Solutions, spoke to CBR about how Ixia is battling the blind spots with its new Visibility Architecture solution. Visibility Architecture is being launched to 'help...

My new report is live for Forrester clients - Predictions For 2014: Technology Monitoring. Normally I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to predictions, especially in regards to technology, because while they are interesting to read they can cause confusion and unnecessary deliberation for a buyer/strategist if they are not in context. So my aim for this report was to provide some concrete advice for I&O professionals in 2014 in regards to their technology monitoring (user experience, appli...

Contact center and communications solutions offer companies a significant opportunity to control costs and improve customer satisfaction if implemented and maintained appropriately. If the solutions are not implemented and maintained properly, the opportunities become risks and eventually customers are negatively impacted. With StressTest™ performance and load testing, you can validate the performance of your end-to-end contact center and communications solutions to assure the best possible expe...

The Internet of Things is upon us. How can enterprise network administrators brace for impact? Discussion of the Internet of Things – a world of connected objects, where your refrigerator sends you a text message when you’re low on milk and your basketball generates a quasi-scouting report when you’re done shooting hoops – has so far resonated most in the service provider space. What services can I sell to enable this? What infrastructure will I need to keep everything connected? But a similar c...

Today, network traffic between Virtual Machines (VMs) is skyrocketing past predictions, while network administrators continue to lag in terms of visibility and control of that inter-VM communication. As this traffic soars to more than 50 percent of all traffic on the network, the security and compliance challenges raised by lack of visibility into the virtualized environment have become acute. The financial and legal consequences of this visibility deficit are severe and of long duration, with a...

Network Analyzers are designed to watch the network, identify issues and alert administrators of problem scenarios. These features make the analyzer an excellent tool to locate network security breaches, and to help identify and isolate virus-infected systems. This article shows how using a network analyzer can enhance network security, which analyzer features are essential for this task and how an analyzer should be a part of any IT professional’s security incident response plan. Because firewa...

Spectracom's NetClock 9483 offers a versatile modular design that's fully NENA compliant and tailored especially for Emergency Communication Center applications. And now it has a new Web User Interface that's easier to use and provides intuitive status monitoring with simple set-up. A key feature of the 9483 is its capability of time-synchronizing multiple separate networks. The modular design provides expansion card slots, one of which is the 3-network port GigE option card providing synchroniz...

Change is coming to networks faster than ever before. While growth is a new constant in most networks, it is being compounded by new regulations, virtualization of workloads and services, changing security needs, and migration of applications between data centers and the cloud. Network and IT organizations are caught in a constant cycle of deploying new services, supporting new use cases, and managing growth – which results in networks that are always trying to get back to a reliable state befor...

According to EMA Research vice president Jim Frey, “Packet-based monitoring is a critical aspect of responsible management and governance, and establishing a visibility architecture is the best path to success.” Read the white paper, "Best Practices for Building Scalable Visibility Architectures." Learn more Watch this two minute video   Thanks to Ixia for the article.

Not so long ago, Sci-Fi movies liked to depict calls completed through a computer connection. Whether upon a spaceship light years away or from a government-protected entity to help save the world, this futuristic way of staying connected had us all intrigued. While we haven’t yet reached the Jetsons’ level of flying cars and automatic meals (I’m still hoping for the development on this one) we are making calls over the Internet, with a computer, mobile or standard phone. Business phone systems ...