VoIP Performance Management and Optimization (Networking Technology: IP Communications) [Hardcover]

Adeel Ahmed (Author), Habib Madani (Author), Talal Siddiqui (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1587055287 | ISBN-13: 978-1587055287 | Publication Date: August 8, 2010 | Edition: 1

VoIP Performance Management and Optimization

A KPI-based approach to managing and optimizing VoIP networks

 

IP Communications

 

Adeel Ahmed, CCIE® No. 4574

Habib Madani

Talal Siddiqui, CCIE No. 4280

 

VoIP Performance Management and Optimization is the first comprehensive, expert guide to managing, monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimizing large VoIP networks. Three leading Cisco VoIP experts bring together state-of-the-art techniques for ensuring that customer service level agreements (SLA) are consistently met or exceeded.

 

The authors begin by reviewing how VoIP is deployed in enterprise and service provider networks and the performance tradeoffs and challenges associated with each leading VoIP deployment model. Next, they present a comprehensive approach to diagnosing problems in VoIP networks using key performance indicators (KPI) and proactively addressing issues before they impact service.

 

In this book, you will find a proven tools-based strategy for gauging VoIP network health and maximizing performance and voice quality. You also will learn how to perform trend analysis and use the results for capacity planning and traffic engineering—thereby optimizing your networks for both the short- and long-term.

 

The authors all work in the Cisco Advanced Services Group.

 

• Deploy, manage, monitor, and scale multivendor VoIP networks more effectively
• Integrate performance data from multiple VoIP network segments and service flows to effectively manage SLAs
• Use performance counters, call detail records, and call agent trace logs to gauge network health in real time
• Utilize dashboards to analyze and correlate VoIP metrics, analyze trends, and plan capacity
• Implement a layered approach to quickly isolate and troubleshoot both localized and systemic problems in VoIP networks
• Optimize performance in networks where the service provider owns the “last mile” connection
• Improve performance when VoIP is deployed over publicly shared infrastructure
• Manage performance in enterprise networks using both centralized and distributed call processing
• Plan media deployment for the best possible network performance
• Monitor trends, establish baselines, optimize existing resources, and identify emerging problems
• Understand and address common voice quality issues

 

This IP communications book is part of the Cisco Press® Networking Technology Series. IP communications titles from Cisco Press help networking professionals understand voice and IP telephony technologies, plan and design converged networks, and implement network solutions for increased productivity.

 

Category: Networking: Unified Communications

Covers: Voice over IP Network Management

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Adeel Ahmed, CCIE No. 4574, is a senior manager in the Cisco Advanced Services group. He has been with Cisco for more than 11 years. His areas of expertise include Access/Dial, Broadband Cable, SP Voice, and IPv6. He has worked with major cable MSOs in North America, EMEA, and ASIAPAC in designing and troubleshooting cable networks. He has written several white papers and design guides used by customers, sales teams, and Cisco engineers in deploying multiservices over cable networks. He has represented Cisco at industry technical forums such as IETF, APRICOT, SCTE, CableLabs, NCTA, NAv6TF, Networkers, and Global IPv6 Summit. He is the coauthor of Deploying IPv6 in Broadband Access Networks. Adeel holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering.

 

Habib Madani works as a network consulting engineer in the Cisco Advanced Services group. He has been with Cisco for the past five years; before that, he worked for more than ten years as a lead engineer at Yahoo!, CenterPoint Broadband Technology, and Motorola. His background is SP VoIP, Data Center, Network Management, and OSS solutions. He has worked with major enterprise customers and MSOs in the United States and abroad across these segments. He has represented Cisco at industry technical forums such APRICOT and Networkers. Habib holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Arizona and a master’s in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Illinois.

 

Talal Siddiqui,CCIE No. 4280, is a senior manager in the Cisco Advanced Services group. He has been with Cisco for 13 years. He has been involved with beachhead customers who were deploying these solutions for the past 12 years. As a consulting engineer, he has worked with MSOs, CLECs, and ILECs who have deployed Cisco SS7 Interconnect Solutions through planning, designing, deploying, network expansion, and operational troubleshooting phases. As a technical leader in Unified Communications Practice, he worked with Cisco partners in planning, designing, and deploying IP telephony solutions for large enterprise customers. Currently he is working on developing service offerings for Communication/Collaboration Enabled Business Process (CEBP) solutions and service delivery tools. Talal holds BSEE and MBA degrees and is a CCIE.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Cisco Press; 1 edition (August 8, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587055287
• ISBN-13: 978-1587055287
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > Computers & Technology > Networking > Telephony

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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars solving real time problems, August 29, 2010

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: VoIP Performance Management and Optimization (Networking Technology: IP Communications) (Hardcover)

If you know anything about the Internet Protocol, then meeting VoIP for the first time can be a surprise. While laypersons might complain about low VoIP sound quality, the very fact that you can often still carry on a conversation in real time using it is quite impressive, given the unreliable underlying IP.

But as VoIP has become popular, expectations have rise and thus the need for comprehensive metrics of performance. Leading to KPI, which the book explains in detail. It is a set of metrics for which software exists that measure it in real time (or as close to it as possible) and then to display results in some visually clear manner for the sysop. The visuals let the sysop's wetware (ie. brain) see if outages exist, or if some quality metric is decreasing. To some extent these can be subjective performance issues if there is no outright network failure.

A key idea is for proactive monitoring, where the sysop in a Network Operations Centre can use a fault management system for diagnosis. The text discusses how to do fault isolation, especially in the common case where your network has several switches, gateways and subnets. For a sysop, the examples in chapters 7 and 8 may be the most valuable portions of the text, as they deal with those sometime difficult scenarios. You can use the examples to guide how you might reduce down your network problems to a given piece of equipment or subnet.

In some respects, the diagnosis for VoIP problems is harder than for generic IP traffic, or indeed for streaming video. Bottleneck problems in the latter are less jarring than having a VoIP conversation repeatedly "time out" and the different KPI metrics explore various dimensions of possible problems.

You can also see that Cisco offers a sophisticated VoIP dashboard and associated debugging facilities, as evidenced by Appendices C and D.