Network Analysis for VOIP

[BIS]

Hallo All,
Thinking of trying out a VOIP solution here. First step I guess is to see if my network is up to it. Do any of you know any network analysis tools I could use to test the network? Obviously freeware I might add....

Any other hints on how to go about testing a network for VOIP readiness?

 

[bwilch]

I'm not sure of the tools, but one of the major things I've heard over and over again is to ensure you don't have any hubs sitting on your network and to ensure that everything is switched.

Additionally, I believe Business Partners can have Avaya come out and do a network analysis, though it had a bit of a price tag to go with it.

 

[Toni269]

I had an analysis done with something called a network "sniffer" we got it for free through our Avaya maintenance because we were having some trouble, but we eventually bought our own sniffer for I think 5K, it's a laptop like device with software that checks for things like errors and delays on your networks and gives real time/graphical reports (hopefully someone will know how to read those reports...)

 

[dundeenous]

You're probably best paying the money to get it done right from the start otherwise you're looking for a world of hurt. You can get a rough idea of what bandwidth is needed by using the number of lines needed to the bandwidth usage of the codec. Codec 7.29 is probably the best all rounder. With that, you'd probably want to make room for about 36kbs of bandwidth per line. But that's an estimate.

But then again you've got to look at delay and jitter so you're better off getting someone in who does it all the time.

 

[BIS]

Thanks guys,
I think you are probably right about having some experienced people doing this. I did find free software, for example:

http://www.empirix.com/Empirix/Network+IP+Storage+Test/hammer+call+analyzer.html

but thinking about it would I be able to decode the results? Probably not. Thanks for your input.

 

[KoenT]

Hey BIS,

Long time no Speak

We used a tool called "Solarwinds"

http://solarwinds.net/Download-Tools.htm

(eval. 30 days)
(this tool resembles the tool that Avaya uses for the CIRS (Customer Infrastructure Readiness Survey) .

But in general you need a switched network with no congestion on the network (if this is a problem check if your switches support some form of QOS and implement this)

BHAP!

 

[BIS]

Hey KoenT !

How's life? Its been a been hectic at this end...

BHAP! indeed !

 

[KoenT]

Life has been hectic here as well.

maybe we should do the thing with the calling of each other and selecting an appropriate time and pace for the drinking of the yellow liquid with frothy stuff on top

I'd say überBHAP!!!

 

[voipguy4321]

As others have posted in this thread the switched HUB is bascially all you should need for all your local IP endpoints. The part that is usually overlooked when deploying voip is what WAN links are already in place? Are there any remote locations that you wish to run off the same IP PBX?

Running IP phones to remote locations has huge benefits to the customer;however it is where ip networks fall down.

For example if location A is the main office and location B is the remote site and there is a T1 data link between the 2 now your customer may want to run IP phones over this link. The variableness of data will pop in and degrade phone calls if you do not do something.

Art Reisman

http://www.apconnections.net

 

[telcoguy]

Avaya seems to offer one for download at:ftp://ftp.avaya.com/incoming/Up1cku9/tsoweb/ELAT/ExpertNetLiteAT-2.2.release-build-6.exe (not tried it yet)
For serious and continued monitoring, use NTop (

http://www.ntop.org/ntop.html)this

is a opensource and free product.
Add Ethereal(

http://www.ethereal.com/)

and you have a complete set of tools that helped me with most issues I eperienced.