Managing Voice over IP for Successful Convergence

White Paper
Managing Voice over
IP for Successful
Convergence
Optimizing IT Services to Drive Business Success
Susan Andersen, Director Product MarketingJanuary 2006The concern seems due to the pervasive opinion that IPExecutive Summary reliability and quality of service must improve before VoIPVoice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has much to offer in performance will equal that of current voice services.cost savings through the elimination of redundant Individuals and business customers are extremelynetworks, IT efficiencies and simplification of moves, adds satisfied with voice services today and are unwilling toand changes, as well as productivity enhancements give up the "five-nines" availability, excellent call quality,through voice-based, multi-media applications. One of the and guaranteed 911 or emergency service.concerns that customers have in deploying VoIP is callquality compared to the quality of traditional voice Are IP reliability and the technological maturity of QoSservices. really problems? CA doesn't think so. CA believes thatVoIP is highly viable today as long as it is managed as partVoice quality can be assured if the enterprise takes the of the network it shares with data traffic, under aright steps by: consolidated QoS umbrella.
. assessing the network for its ability to run converged IPservices "People were told that VoIP is going to be the. managing the network with an eye to: greatest thing, says William Stofega, VoIP. end-to-end monitoring research director at IDC. But in some cases,. quality of service people didn't do the necessary planning. Ninety-. performance of applications and services nine percent of all VoIP network implementationsthat fail do so because IT departments didn't doCA's eHealth ® Suite is uniquely suited to managing VoIP. their homework."It manages voice and data traffic end-to-end, under aunified quality of service (QoS )mechanism. Its extensive InfoWorldQoS services can manage large numbers of service levelagreements (SLAs), report on conformance and it easilyscales to the demands of service provider networks. The Successfully Deploying VoIPeHealth® Voice Quality Monitor continuously assesses Enterprises expect their VoIP installation will result in costvoice call quality, enabled by CA's service performance savings, IT efficiencies, better tracking of customer callstools. and incorporation of multi-media applications. Serviceproviders (SPs) expect to be able to scale their service,Using a combination of historical performance data and expand their customer base, leverage their networkreal-time monitoring and assessment, CA can manage the infrastructure and conform to SLAs. A successfulcomplexities of a converged network, bringing its benefits deployment meets these expectations, but above all, doesto enterprises and service providers. no harm to the existing services. Lower voice quality ordowngrades in the data network service will underminefaith in the technology and in the provider, so a successfulThe Decision to Converge deployment from the outset is important. A successful"The move to voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a VoIP deployment involves the following two steps:question of when not if," says Zeus Kerravala of theYankee Group, but enterprises and providers frequently . Assessment of the existing IP network to determine itshead down this path with some caution, implementing ability to transport high quality VoIPVoIP in only a small portion of their network. . Management of the converged network to maintainreliable voice quality while supporting other businessCertainly, the benefits of VoIP are known. critical applications, through ongoing measurementand reporting of usage and response. Converging voice and data onto a single network savesthrough reduced line costs and creates IT/telecommstaff efficiencies.. A single network saves time and money when doingmoves, adds, and changes.. A single network provides the basis for IP telephony-voice-based applications, such as multi-media callcenters and unified messaging, that enhanceproductivity and create customer satisfaction.
Why the concern?
2Assessment QoS, the Essential Element: The best way to manage aBefore deploying VoIP in any IP network, an end-to-end converged IP network is with QoS. An IP network is anetwork assessment should be performed. All major VoIP dynamic, shared resource with finite bandwidth. Data,and IP PBX vendors agree on the importa... [download for more]