Concord Communications Inc., following what officials say was a large uptick in voice-over-IP deployments earlier this year, will announce its first support for monitoring and reporting on VOIP.
The Marlboro, Mass., maker of performance reporting software will update its eHealth series of reporting tools next week to provide a version specific to VOIP traffic.
eHealth Version 5.6.5 provides the ability to receive VOIP data and cost data bundled into the tools console. It also includes a new agent for IP PBX servers that can simulate calls. The first such agent will work with Cisco Systems Inc.s Call Manager Server and is expected to be certified by Cisco by midmonth.
The new VOIP option combines reporting of VOIP and QOS (quality-of-service) and integrates the telecommunications industrys MOS (mean opinion score), which gives a quantitative value on the quality of a voice call. A typical toll call has a MOS value of 4. “You want to at least keep that quality level so that it doesnt sound like youre talking under water,” said Frank Kettenstock, vice president of product strategy for Concord Communications.
The software also allows synthetic test calls to be generated and measured to determine how quality is affected by differing bandwidth availability in the network.
“As the CPU of a core router for voice starts to become too hot and becomes overloaded, you see the effect on the MOS score. When you add bandwidth, you see MOS scores go back up,” Kettenstock said. “You have to look at all three [the data network, VOIP and QOS] together to really manage a complete VOIP end-to-end delivery system and ensure you will have a successful deployment and user adoption.”
For new customers looking to monitor and report on the data network, VOIP and QOS, typical installations will cost $150,000. The new VOIP option is available now.