The Importance of VoIP Monitoring Tools in Business
Voice over IP, or VoIP for short, revolutionized telephony. Phones based upon old PBX-style switching and old-fashioned telephone wires are rare. Networks, the Internet and the IP protocol changed everything.
Years, in fact, decades ago when Voice over IP started, the economics were astounding and the flexibility amazing. Sadly, the voice quality was often atrocious, which is a no can do for businesses of any sort. As network speed grew and voice technology improved, call quality improved. Today you often can't tell the difference between old style PBX-based phone systems and most of their voice over IP equivalents.
However, all is not rosy in VoIP land. That precious call quality depends on the quality of the network itself and its management. Voice monitoring is the starting point. You can't just rely upon end-user complaints that the phone sounds lousy to drive IT action. A voice monitoring solution can measure how voice services are operating across ALL segments of the network. And let’s face it, voice commonly runs across ALL segments of the network.
Benefits of Implementing VoIP Monitoring Tools
Like all internet services, VoIP carries conversations in the form of data packets. Bad connections mean packets are dropped (packet loss) or delivered out of order. Either way, the audio drops or out-of-order packets lead to VoIP jitter.
With monitoring, VoIP jitter is a snap to diagnose. Most often it comes down to not having enough bandwidth, solved by upgrading the subpar segments.
Progress WhatsUp Gold is one example of a VoIP monitoring product. WUG lets IT assess and monitor VoIP call quality, collects data, creates reports on network quality of service (QoS), and uses data from Cisco IP SLA-enabled devices to monitor jitter, latency, and packet loss. With a plug-in, WUG also displays MOS (Mean Opinion Score) and CPIF (Capacity Planning Impairment Factor). “Six performance monitors measure jitter, latency, and packet loss from both source to destination and from destination to source. Two additional performance monitors provide MOS and ICPIF scoring information,” the How to Monitor VoIP Performance with WhatsUp Gold blog explained.
The Importance of VoIP SLAs
Key network functions are often assured via service level agreements (SLA), and VoIP is clearly critical.
WhatsUp Gold provides specialized Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Service Level Agreement (SLA) monitoring necessary for tracking Quality of Service (QoS) and SLA metrics for your network of deployed VoIP devices (telephones, conference room devices and more). After you discover and configure devices for VoIP monitoring, you can view results and graphs on the WhatsUp Gold Custom Performance Monitors dashboard.
Learn more in our VoIP SLA blog.
Key VoIP Monitoring Features
Not all VoIP monitoring solutions are created equal. Here are some must-have features:
- Network traffic analysis
- Usage analysis
- Call quality monitoring and reporting
- Jitter tracking
- Performance tracking
- Latency monitoring
- Trouble shooting
VoIP Monitoring FAQ
Here are some VoIP basics to guide your voice over IP monitoring journey.
Can VoIP monitoring tools detect and troubleshoot network issues?
Yes. That is exactly how VoIP monitoring tools work. They are looking for general issues that impact the network's ability to support voice, as well as voice-specific issues like voice jitter. A VoIP monitoring solution part of an IT Infrastructure Monitoring (ITIM) or network monitoring solution is designed to troubleshoot the network.
Are there any open-source VoIP monitoring tools available?
Yes, but many of these are limited in function and lack full vendor support. Best used in very small shops, one off analysis, or as a VoIP proof of concept.
Can VoIP monitoring tools integrate with other systems?
The best VoIP monitoring tools do indeed integrate with other systems. In fact, VoIP monitoring rather than being seen as a discrete function, should be part of an IT Infrastructure Monitoring (ITIM) or network monitoring solution. ITIM tools themselves are largely designed to integrate with other IT solutions.
6 Top VoIP Monitoring Tools
Dotcom-monitor
Dotcom-monitor VoIP Monitoring tools track and troubleshoot VoIP services and provide phone number availability data. Its SIP Monitoring reports track historical VoIP data. SLA reports help IT achieve performance goals.
It includes:
- Inbound call routing
- Availability of voice mail
- Tracks success of outgoing calls
- Monitors the connectivity and availability of internal es
Pros: Strong alerting, root cause analysis, SIP reporting.
Cons: Not intuitive, premium pricing, documentation could use a boost.
ExtraHop
ExtraHop offers Reveal(x), which is both a network performance and a security monitoring product. The ExtraHop dashboard tracks VoIP/SIP calls, showing the success and failure rate.
It includes:
- Device discovery
- Tracks the status of live calls
- Offers metrics such as call volume, call session status and the quality of your call routing.
- Cloud-based
Pros: Well-regarded interface, VoIP monitoring built into a fuller monitoring tool.
Cons: Lacks integrations.
Site24x7
Site24x7 is a cloud service that performs application monitoring, and measures end users’ experiences, including the quality of their VoIP.
It includes:
- Alerts when performance falters
- QoS reporting
- Monitors line conditions
Pros: Troubleshooting, SLA and QoS statistics and metrics.
Cons: Complicated and takes time to master
Thousand Eyes
Thousand Eyes, part of Cisco Systems, is a network monitoring tool that can include VoIP monitoring.
It includes:
- VoIP traffic simulation to test calls across the network and beyond
- Jitter, packet loss and latency tracking
- Checks SIP connections
- Line checking
Pros: Call simulation, troubleshooting.
Cons: Short on customization and integrations.
VoIPmonitor
This free open-source Linux tool applies packet sniffing to VoIP calls. The web-based interface shows items such as packet loss and delay.
It includes:
- Packet sniffing and protocol analysis
- Mean Opinion Score (MOS) calculated based on jitter and latency.
- Alerting
Pros: Free, attractive to the open source and Linux crowd.
Cons: Limited support, sometimes difficult interface
VoIP Spear
Unlike other solutions where VoIP monitoring is part of a larger solution, VoIP Spear is focused on tracking voice services. The monitoring is handled over the cloud using servers in North and South America, Asia and Europe.
It includes:
- Mean Opinion Scores (MON for voice calls based on targeted end point
- Tracks quality of service offers by SIP providers and ISPs.
- SIP line connection testing
Pros: Web portal-based, no software to download
Cons: Limited reporting lacks granularity
WhatsUp Gold
WhatsUp Gold is network monitoring software providing deep visibility into network availability and network device performance. VoIP monitoring, as a plug-in, adds to this visibility, continuously monitoring and assessing VoIP to maintain acceptable call quality and performance.
It includes:
- Accesses data from Cisco IP SLA-enabled generated devices
- Monitors for jitter, packet loss and latency
- Using SNMP data, WhatsUp Gold develops reports on VoIP performance across the network
Pros: Configuration wizard makes setup fast and appropriate to your network and requirements.
Why You Should Choose WhatsUp Gold for VoIP Monitoring
VoIP sessions must transport telephony or "voice" data as a continuous or near-continuous stream to maintain clarity on each side of the voice conversation, not jittery and free from discernible drop-offs or echo. Where the QoS of Internet Protocol is 'best-effort' (first-come, first-serve), IP routers and IP call centers collect endpoint and round-trip statistics critical for tracking and indicating call quality. WhatsUp Gold VoIP monitor applies specialized monitors to gather and aggregate these IP SLA metrics.
WhatsUp Gold VoIP measurements include call jitter (one-way latency), predictive level of call impairment ICPIF (Impairment / Calculated Planning Impairment Factor), RTT (round trip times), and an active monitor that gathers a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) (a periodic measurement of the call quality that your network can sustain). The active monitor acts as a 'virtual' VoIP session to gather useful and realistic call quality data.
WhatsUp Gold VoIP monitoring provides:
- VoIP performance monitors. Used to track round trip and end point characteristics of call traffic. (Packet loss, ICPIF, Jitter, round-trip latency)
- Active monitoring. Simulates voice traffic and returns a quality score based on a trained model. (MOS)
- Custom Performance Monitor reports.
- Ability to alert on monitor status.
WhatsUp Gold leverages the data produced by IP SLA measurements, along with active SNMP monitors, giving you the ability to measure VoIP-specific network metrics on local networks and WAN links. Using the SNMP data, WhatsUp Gold generates graphs and reports jitter, latency, and packet loss that may be occurring in the network. By combining the information from the measurements with codec simulation data generated by IP SLA, WhatsUp Gold VoIP Monitor can also graph MOS and ICPIF voice quality scoring for VoIP in a live network.
A configuration wizard minimizes the setup and configuration time required to identify IP SLA sources and destinations. WhatsUp Gold provides network managers with additional VoIP specific data to supplement existing performance metrics for bandwidth and interface utilization.
Six performance monitors measure jitter, latency, and packet loss from both source to destination and from destination to source. Two additional performance monitors provide MOS and ICPIF scoring information.