Defining unified communications is more complicated than it seems, but a thorough understanding of UC technology is required before informed buying decisions can be made. Not only is the UC value proposition difficult to articulate, but it involves multiple decisions that impact both the IT group and end users. In brief, UC is a platform that seamlessly integrates communications applications across multiple modes -- such as voice, data and video -- and delivers a consistent end-user experience a...

It’s one of the most dreaded calls to get for an IT staff member – the one where a user complains about the quality of their VoIP call or video conference. The terms used to describe the problem are reminiscent of a person who brings their car in for service because of a strange sound “ I hear a crackle”, or “it sounds like the other person is in a tunnel” or “I could only hear every other word – and then the call dropped”. None of these are good, and unfortunately, they are all very hard to dia...

Your looking at doing an upgrade to your VoIP system, as it approaching end of life.   But your network has changed substantially since your first deployment, making this an ideal time to investigate new VoIP systems and ensure your existing monitoring solution can keep pace with the upgrade. Here are 4 critical areas for consideration to determine whether your monitoring tools can keep pace with the new demands of a VoIP upgrade. 1. SUPPORTING MORE THAN ONE IT TEAM: If you have a voic...

Network Instruments study shows that network engineers are spending more of their day responding to breaches and deploying security controls. This should come as no big surprise to most network teams. As security breaches and threats proliferate, they're spending a lot of time dealing with security issues, according to a study released Monday. Network Instruments' eighth annual state of the network report shows that network engineers are increasingly consumed with security chores, including inve...

End user experience & QoS are consistently ranked at the top of priorities for Network Management teams today. According to research over 60% of companies today say that VoIP is present in a significant amount of their networks, this is the same case with streaming media within the organization. As you can see having effective end user experience testing is vital to any business. If you have a service model, whether you’re an actual service provider like a 3rd party or you’re a corporation w...

Industry Analysts say that approximately 85% of today’s networks will require voip quality testing upgrades to their data networks to properly support high-quality VoIP and video traffic. Organizations are always looking for a way to reduce costs, and that’s why they often try to deploy VoIP by switching voice traffic over to a LAN or WAN links. In a lot of cases the data networks which the business has chosen handle VoIP traffic accordingly, generally speaking voice traffic is uniquely time sen...

Managing VoIP quality is a constant headache for engineers. Here are some ways to avoid some common problems. While VoIP has been considered mainstream in the enterprise for the past couple of years, network engineers still face a challenge to ensure consistent VoIP quality. Unplanned or surprise changes to the network can leave end users unhappy and administrators scratching their heads. Even the smallest configuration and setting changes have the potential to immediately and adversely impact a...

Network configuration management is the process of organizing and maintaining information about all the components of a computer network. When a network needs repair, alteration, development or advancements, the administrator refers to the network configuration management database to determine the best course of action. This database contains the locations and network addresses of all hardware devices, as well as information about the programs, versions and updates installed in network computers...

Industry Analysts say that approximately 85% of today’s networks will require upgrades to their data networks to properly support high-quality VoIP and video traffic. Organizations are always looking for a way to reduce costs, and that’s why they often try to deploy VoIP by switching voice traffic over to a LAN or WAN links. In a lot of cases the data networks which the business has chosen cannot handle VoIP traffic accordingly, generally speaking voice traffic is uniquely time sensitive, it can...

The Biggest Videoconferencing Challenge? Real-Time Performance Management Did you know that according to Enterprise Management Associates EMA™ analysts, 95 percent of organizations have VoIP on their network – and more than half have deployed videoconferencing? IP videoconferencing has strong appeal to businesses through its promise of significant cost and time savings. But how simple is the transition to video? For end users, video communications are expected to be smooth, seamless, and simple....

VoIP Management Overview There are any number of VoIP management solutions available in today’s market place. However, when you start to drill-­down into the capabilities of these tools they tend to focus on the performance elements of your network infrastructure and associated VoIP metrics (e.g. RTT, RTD\Latency, Packet Loss, Jitter, Moss, R-­‐Factor etc.) , assumptions are made on infrastructure and fault management being in place, so it is vitally important to assess the complete picture of y...