Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring

Hi all, I was wondering what commercial product folks are using for an automated test suite pre deployment and before upgrade roll outs I'm also looking for constant monitoring of things like call setup delays, RTP issues, Jitter, MOS,PESQ Echo etc. other than service status checking, for us and to go on our public service status pages. Had a call about IxLoad already and interested in what others do. Cheers. -- Kind Regards, Gavin Henry. Managing Director. T +44 (0) 1224 279484 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 824887 E ghenry at suretec.co.uk Open Source. Open Solutions(tm). http://www.suretecsystems.com/ Suretec Systems is a limited company registered in Scotland. Registered number: SC258005. Registered office: 24 Cormack Park, Rothienorman, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, AB51 8GL. Subject to disclaimer at http://www.suretecgroup.com/disclaimer.html Do you know we have our own VoIP provider called SureVoIP? See http://www.surevoip.co.uk

We use Empirix and love it. On Jan 20, 2013, at 11:06, ghenry at suretec.co.uk wrote:
Hi all,
I was wondering what commercial product folks are using for an automated test suite pre deployment and before upgrade roll outs
I'm also looking for constant monitoring of things like call setup delays, RTP issues, Jitter, MOS,PESQ Echo etc. other than service status checking, for us and to go on our public service status pages.
Had a call about IxLoad already and interested in what others do.
Cheers.
-- Kind Regards,
Gavin Henry. Managing Director.
T +44 (0) 1224 279484 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 824887 E ghenry at suretec.co.uk
Open Source. Open Solutions(tm).
http://www.suretecsystems.com/
Suretec Systems is a limited company registered in Scotland. Registered number: SC258005. Registered office: 24 Cormack Park, Rothienorman, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, AB51 8GL.
Subject to disclaimer at http://www.suretecgroup.com/disclaimer.html
Do you know we have our own VoIP provider called SureVoIP? See http://www.surevoip.co.uk _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops

Thanks! Looks pretty good: http://www.empirix.com/solutions/products-services/testing-as-a-service.aspx

IxLoad is a great tool. However, I've never found it well suited for post deployment quality monitoring as it's primarily an engineering R&D test tool. Great for lab environment testing or for troubleshooting a specific load based problem in being experienced but it's not something you can move around much or deploy to a customer site easily. For post deployment quality monitoring I've used both Empirix XMS and the Acme Packet SBC QoS functionality in different ways with good success. Emprix is a great tool for overall network quality measurements and signaling data retention and allows a moderately skilled customer service team investigate call quality issues. On the Acme side, the CDR feed via radius or flat file with the end to end QoS statistics is very useful in building reports, validating SLA compliance, and tasks of this sort. In my case I used a custom FreeRadius perl module which did some data parsing and fed that into a database in real time for both Acme and Broadworks CDRs. This provided a good trap and trace tool as well as the database was near real time. My two cents at least... -- Jason Nesheim 702-885-0815 ----- Original Message ----- From: ghenry at suretec.co.uk To: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:06:35 PM Subject: [VoiceOps] Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring Hi all, I was wondering what commercial product folks are using for an automated test suite pre deployment and before upgrade roll outs I'm also looking for constant monitoring of things like call setup delays, RTP issues, Jitter, MOS,PESQ Echo etc. other than service status checking, for us and to go on our public service status pages. Had a call about IxLoad already and interested in what others do. Cheers. -- Kind Regards, Gavin Henry. Managing Director. T +44 (0) 1224 279484 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 824887 E ghenry at suretec.co.uk Open Source. Open Solutions(tm). http://www.suretecsystems.com/ Suretec Systems is a limited company registered in Scotland. Registered number: SC258005. Registered office: 24 Cormack Park, Rothienorman, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, AB51 8GL. Subject to disclaimer at http://www.suretecgroup.com/disclaimer.html Do you know we have our own VoIP provider called SureVoIP? See http://www.surevoip.co.uk _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops

Ill second the AcmePacket QOS solution. We store QOS stats historically in our CDR database per call. It makes reporting for network management purposes easy, as well as being able to push this data down to CSR's on the front lines to help customers troubleshoot. It does create a bit of overhead from a CDR storage perspective but the trade-off is well worth it. The only thing I have not yet come up with a good solution for is measuring audio quality where the far end TDM connection (not on my network) is the problem, since packet stats will look clean but the audio quality will still be poor due to problems not occurring on the packet network. On 01/20/2013 10:59 AM, Jason L. Nesheim wrote:
IxLoad is a great tool. However, I've never found it well suited for post deployment quality monitoring as it's primarily an engineering R&D test tool. Great for lab environment testing or for troubleshooting a specific load based problem in being experienced but it's not something you can move around much or deploy to a customer site easily.
For post deployment quality monitoring I've used both Empirix XMS and the Acme Packet SBC QoS functionality in different ways with good success. Emprix is a great tool for overall network quality measurements and signaling data retention and allows a moderately skilled customer service team investigate call quality issues. On the Acme side, the CDR feed via radius or flat file with the end to end QoS statistics is very useful in building reports, validating SLA compliance, and tasks of this sort. In my case I used a custom FreeRadius perl module which did some data parsing and fed that into a database in real time for both Acme and Broadworks CDRs. This provided a good trap and trace tool as well as the database was near real time.
My two cents at least...
-- Jason Nesheim 702-885-0815
----- Original Message ----- From: ghenry at suretec.co.uk To: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:06:35 PM Subject: [VoiceOps] Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring
Hi all,
I was wondering what commercial product folks are using for an automated test suite pre deployment and before upgrade roll outs
I'm also looking for constant monitoring of things like call setup delays, RTP issues, Jitter, MOS,PESQ Echo etc. other than service status checking, for us and to go on our public service status pages.
Had a call about IxLoad already and interested in what others do.
Cheers.
-- Kind Regards,
Gavin Henry. Managing Director.
T +44 (0) 1224 279484 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 824887 E ghenry at suretec.co.uk
Open Source. Open Solutions(tm).
http://www.suretecsystems.com/
Suretec Systems is a limited company registered in Scotland. Registered number: SC258005. Registered office: 24 Cormack Park, Rothienorman, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, AB51 8GL.
Subject to disclaimer at http://www.suretecgroup.com/disclaimer.html
Do you know we have our own VoIP provider called SureVoIP? See http://www.surevoip.co.uk _______________________________________________ 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

One caveat... Packet stats are great, as far as they go. Some of our worst audio quality problems have occurred on networks that had perfect packet stats. David -----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Delgrosso Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 11:45 To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring Ill second the AcmePacket QOS solution. We store QOS stats historically in our CDR database per call. It makes reporting for network management purposes easy, as well as being able to push this data down to CSR's on the front lines to help customers troubleshoot. It does create a bit of overhead from a CDR storage perspective but the trade-off is well worth it. The only thing I have not yet come up with a good solution for is measuring audio quality where the far end TDM connection (not on my network) is the problem, since packet stats will look clean but the audio quality will still be poor due to problems not occurring on the packet network. On 01/20/2013 10:59 AM, Jason L. Nesheim wrote:
IxLoad is a great tool. However, I've never found it well suited for post deployment quality monitoring as it's primarily an engineering R&D test tool. Great for lab environment testing or for troubleshooting a specific load based problem in being experienced but it's not something you can move around much or deploy to a customer site easily.
For post deployment quality monitoring I've used both Empirix XMS and the Acme Packet SBC QoS functionality in different ways with good success. Emprix is a great tool for overall network quality measurements and signaling data retention and allows a moderately skilled customer service team investigate call quality issues. On the Acme side, the CDR feed via radius or flat file with the end to end QoS statistics is very useful in building reports, validating SLA compliance, and tasks of this sort. In my case I used a custom FreeRadius perl module which did some data parsing and fed that into a database in real time for both Acme and Broadworks CDRs. This provided a good trap and trace tool as well as the database was near real time.
My two cents at least...
-- Jason Nesheim 702-885-0815
----- Original Message ----- From: ghenry at suretec.co.uk To: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:06:35 PM Subject: [VoiceOps] Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring
Hi all,
I was wondering what commercial product folks are using for an automated test suite pre deployment and before upgrade roll outs
I'm also looking for constant monitoring of things like call setup delays, RTP issues, Jitter, MOS,PESQ Echo etc. other than service status checking, for us and to go on our public service status pages.
Had a call about IxLoad already and interested in what others do.
Cheers.
-- Kind Regards,
Gavin Henry. Managing Director.
T +44 (0) 1224 279484 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 824887 E ghenry at suretec.co.uk
Open Source. Open Solutions(tm).
http://www.suretecsystems.com/
Suretec Systems is a limited company registered in Scotland. Registered number: SC258005. Registered office: 24 Cormack Park, Rothienorman, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, AB51 8GL.
Subject to disclaimer at http://www.suretecgroup.com/disclaimer.html
Do you know we have our own VoIP provider called SureVoIP? See http://www.surevoip.co.uk _______________________________________________ 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
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system.

+1 On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 11:36 AM, Hiers, David <David.Hiers at adp.com> wrote:
One caveat...
Packet stats are great, as far as they go. Some of our worst audio quality problems have occurred on networks that had perfect packet stats.
David
-----Original Message----- From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Delgrosso Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 11:45 To: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring
Ill second the AcmePacket QOS solution. We store QOS stats historically in our CDR database per call. It makes reporting for network management purposes easy, as well as being able to push this data down to CSR's on the front lines to help customers troubleshoot. It does create a bit of overhead from a CDR storage perspective but the trade-off is well worth it.
The only thing I have not yet come up with a good solution for is measuring audio quality where the far end TDM connection (not on my network) is the problem, since packet stats will look clean but the audio quality will still be poor due to problems not occurring on the packet network.
On 01/20/2013 10:59 AM, Jason L. Nesheim wrote:
IxLoad is a great tool. However, I've never found it well suited for post deployment quality monitoring as it's primarily an engineering R&D test tool. Great for lab environment testing or for troubleshooting a specific load based problem in being experienced but it's not something you can move around much or deploy to a customer site easily.
For post deployment quality monitoring I've used both Empirix XMS and the Acme Packet SBC QoS functionality in different ways with good success. Emprix is a great tool for overall network quality measurements and signaling data retention and allows a moderately skilled customer service team investigate call quality issues. On the Acme side, the CDR feed via radius or flat file with the end to end QoS statistics is very useful in building reports, validating SLA compliance, and tasks of this sort. In my case I used a custom FreeRadius perl module which did some data parsing and fed that into a database in real time for both Acme and Broadworks CDRs. This provided a good trap and trace tool as well as the database was near real time.
My two cents at least...
-- Jason Nesheim 702-885-0815
----- Original Message ----- From: ghenry at suretec.co.uk To: voiceops at voiceops.org Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 12:06:35 PM Subject: [VoiceOps] Pre-deployment/upgrade and Constant Quality Monitoring
Hi all,
I was wondering what commercial product folks are using for an automated test suite pre deployment and before upgrade roll outs
I'm also looking for constant monitoring of things like call setup delays, RTP issues, Jitter, MOS,PESQ Echo etc. other than service status checking, for us and to go on our public service status pages.
Had a call about IxLoad already and interested in what others do.
Cheers.
-- Kind Regards,
Gavin Henry. Managing Director.
T +44 (0) 1224 279484 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 824887 E ghenry at suretec.co.uk
Open Source. Open Solutions(tm).
http://www.suretecsystems.com/
Suretec Systems is a limited company registered in Scotland. Registered number: SC258005. Registered office: 24 Cormack Park, Rothienorman, Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, AB51 8GL.
Subject to disclaimer at http://www.suretecgroup.com/disclaimer.html
Do you know we have our own VoIP provider called SureVoIP? See http://www.surevoip.co.uk _______________________________________________ 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
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system.
_______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003
participants (6)
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avorlando@yahoo.com
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carlos@televolve.com
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David.Hiers@adp.com
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ghenry@suretec.co.uk
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jnesheim@cytek.biz
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ryandelgrosso@gmail.com