Colton - as I cannot quite discern who you work for - nor can I find you on LinkedIn. if you could provide some additional details about the size/scope/nature of your network - I'll be in a much better position to advise you as to the optimal route forward. In parallel - some additional data points for you here: 1. SQmediator is a modular application - available in both single server (all in one) and multi-server variants. The entry level package is extremely economically priced at <$10k and scales from there according to the amount/type of traffic that is pumped through the system. 2. SQmediator and any associated active/passive probes are available under both CapEx and OpEx models to help defray up front costs and right size your fiscal exposure. While I am not an expert in VoIP Monitor functionality - while I do believe they support the ingestion of rfc3611 (RTCP-XR) data - I just scoured the 'Net as well as their website (and all of their product documentation) looking for 6035 or SIP Publish report support. didn't find any mention of this functionality being supported in their kit, let alone all of the call leg correlation/display, proactive real-time alerting, and security measures that are provided in SQmediator. I'm sure you know that you'll much more readily find support for 6035 in endpoint and midstream devices - rather than XR which requires probes be installed along the media path to consume the data generated by endpoints. In addition - YES - providers very typically monitor WAN CPE using rfc6035 messaging to shuttle performance information up to SQmediator. It's an excellent way to effectively bisect the solution space and isolate customer LAN performance via a 2nd demarcation point @ the WAN / LAN interconnect and then use something like SQmediator to correlate those data sources and show all this information on a single pane of glass. They also typically install a single copy of SQprobe next to their call signaling platform to extract SIP signaling info which is then correlated inside SQmediator and presented in that same pane of glass to provide insight into the associated call setup and teardown. If you'd like - we can schedule a half hour product demonstration so you can see this all first hand and get a better appreciation for how all of the underlying components come together to form a total solution. -anthony _____ From: Colton Conor [mailto:colton.conor at gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 9:57 AM To: Anthony Caiozzo Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] CPE side Passive Monitoring Anthony, That you for the information. Sounds like you have a solid product to say the least. We do buy the VQMon license from Polycom on the VVX line, however I don't beleive we have any server to collect/report on these metrics at this time. I will look into SQmediator, but I assume it is too expensive for our small shop. My question is can you use a Polycom with the VQM license installed to report back to something like voipmonitor.org software? Accoring to Polycom's website: With Polycom Productivity Suite Application: Voice Quality Monitoring, IT Managers can monitor and troubleshoot voice quality issues more quickly. * Transmit metrics in real time, or near real time, directly from the phone in the standard RTCP-XR (IETF RFC 3611) format * Publish metrics using the SIP PUBLISH method So if VoipMonitor.org supports RTCP-XR or SIP PUBLISH they should be able to supports stats collected on the Polycom right? I guess to make this even more complicated, do providers monitor the WAN CPE router (like an Adtran 908e) in addition to the phones themselves (Polycom VVX for instance)? On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 9:22 PM, Anthony Caiozzo <anthony.caiozzo at telchemy.com> wrote: Colton - yes - that's exactly what I'm saying. :-) See www.telchemy.com/partners.php for a full listing of companies that have released product that incorporate our VQmon <http://www.telchemy.com/vqmon.php> engine for MOS scoring/stats generation. VQmon is the only industry solution that complies with or fully supports ITU-T P.564, G.107, ETSI TS101329-5 Annex E, RFC 3611 (RTCP-XR), RFC 6035 (SIP PUBLISH/NOTIFY). Most other competing products in industry leverage a straight ITU-T G.107 E-model implementation which a) doesn't correlate well to true subjective opinion b) doesn't support the 150+ codecs and their variants that VQmon does c) doesn't typically provide intra-call reports d) doesn't handle wideband and super-wideband codec measurements e) doesn't support the analysis of video (e.g. conferencing or IPTV) like VQmon can/does. It is extremely well regarded and enthusiastically trusted by carriers (and large enterprise) worldwide, is the de facto industry standard and has almost 200M units deployed to date. While I can imagine there are open source based providers using VoIP Monitor. most commercial carriers that leverage COTS product leverage Telchemy technology in some way, shape or form via the 200+ technology licensees in our partner portfolio - or work with us directly to deploy additional complementary system elements (e.g. SQmediator w/Polycom). In addition, please note that our products are not built and supported through an open source community but rather conventionally developed (entirely in-house), sold both direct as well as through a network of distributors/resellers, are deployed in just about every single major carrier environment and are both built and supported by a first rate development team. This is due to the immense amount of technical knowledge and expertise required to develop and support the underlying measurement technologies, as well as the active test and passive analysis systems products that make extensive use of VQmon. As you've noted, Polycom (as well as many other soft and hard handset vendors) include VQmon with their products. Some include this functionality as a default option with the device, others charge a nominal fee to access the power contained within. Polycom actually has a dual pronged approach, whereby they separately license the functionality on the lower end 300/400 VVX platforms, while on the more fully featured 500/600 VQmon is included by default. In all cases, VQmon needs to be active / operational on the platform in order to enable statistics generation and subsequent collection / SIP publishing to platforms like SQmediator. Lots of technology / terminology contained above - let me know if it sparks any additional questions. -anthony _____ From: Colton Conor [mailto:colton.conor at gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2014 12:08 PM To: Anthony Caiozzo Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] CPE side Passive Monitoring Anthony, So are you saying Adtran's VQM or Edgewaters and everyone elses is really your embedded engine? I know alot of opensource providers are using VoIPMonitor as a solution. I believe this software collects stats form devices like Polycom Phones that use your software. I have notices that Polycom sells each phone with Voice QM enabled for a dollar or two more. I assume you need this license to enable stats collection? On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 9:57 PM, Anthony Caiozzo <anthony.caiozzo at telchemy.com> wrote: Chiming in from the vendor perspective here... Telchemy manufactures a variety of embedded and non-embedded applications that are focused on measuring voice, video and other real-time service application performance. Our VQmon software is the de facto industry standard, is P.564 Class 1 compliant and serves as the cornerstone for many industry products that feature MOS scoring and associated diagnostics, such as Adtran (mentioned by Jay below) as well as Edgewater, Polycom, Cisco and a wealth of network measurement / management tools and applications. A full list of vendors with products currently shipping can be found on our website - http://www.telchemy.com/partners.php. There are typically three methods employed to measure/report on call/session quality: 1. Measure live call quality @ the endpoint - typically achieved with an embedded performance analysis model (VQmon) baked into the device. Here's pointer to a joint solutions guide (http://community.polycom.com/polycom/attachments/polycom/technology-partner <http://community.polycom.com/polycom/attachments/polycom/technology-partner %0d%0as/12/1/Telchemy-SQmediatorSolution%20Guide_01082013.pdf> s/12/1/Telchemy-SQmediatorSolution%20Guide_01082013.pdf) that covers how we measure and report on EOL performance with Polycom, though there are a number of other IP endpoint vendors that support the rfc6035 distributed reporting model. The benefit of this approach is being able to account for all impairments that affect your customer experience - but the downside is that sometimes you're measuring things (e.g. LAN performance) that you're not directly responsible for or have no control over. However - at the end of the day - being able to understand what the net effect is of the total IP connection can certainly be of immense value. 2. Measure call quality @ the WAN demarcation point - typically achieved with: a) a hardware probe (http://www.telchemy.com/appliances.php) passively analyzing live customer traffic - providing full call setup, teardown and media quality metrics b) a software probe running on customer provided hardware (http://www.telchemy.com/sqprobe.php) passively analyzing live customer traffic - providing full call setup, teardown and media quality metrics c) an active test agent (http://www.telchemy.com/dvqattest.php) generating synthetic voice, video and data transactions to create a profile of application performance and serve as a test head that can both probe the carrier network as well as the local LAN for real-time, proactive diagnostic purposes. Recalling that Kris was looking for a tool that enabled him to isolate WAN performance - it sounds as if our hardware/software probe line would make most sense for his application though collecting performance information from EOL devices certainly provides useful diagnostic information when one needs to provide empirical data as to which side of the WAN connection is causing the issue. Questions? Happy to help however I can. -anthony Anthony Caiozzo Telchemy - www.telchemy.com m: 617-312-5189 f: 678-387-3008 e: anthony.caiozzo at telchemy.com support: 1-866-TELCHEMY Skype: acaiozzo -----Original Message----- From: VoiceOps [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Jay Hennigan Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 12:36 PM To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] CPE side Passive Monitoring On 10/29/14, 3:45 AM, Kris Alberts wrote:
Hi
Looking for a cost effective, easily deployed, useful passive monitoring probe to be deployed at the customer prem for voip traffic monitoring. My main objective is to reduce MTTR and provide a clear demarcation service for customers that supplies their own LAN. We use a variety of CPE device (primarily Cisco though) so I will need to find an external hardware probe that caters for all use cases.
There seems to be a variety of solutions available so was hoping you could share you experience on some of the solutions that you are using. I really need to understand the extent to which the added visibility optimised your product in terms of better support, fewer truck rolls etc. All of these listed products claims to do just that.
We use the Adtran TA900 series as a demarcation point, they are a very versatile SIP toolbox with huge feature set. They also do voice quality monitoring, can do packet capture, and can (but aren't required to) interface with Adtran's N-Command central server that can store historical data, back up configurations, etc. This isn't passive, but it provides very good monitoring in addition to PRI conversion, analog drops, SIP proxy, etc. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay at impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 <tel:805%20884-6323> - WB6RDV _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops