As the level of complexity in enterprise networks and applications goes up, so does the need for both testing prior to production and monitoring to make sure that applications continue to function as they are intended. Vendors are moving beyond pre-deployment/pre-production testing of VoIP into monitoring voice, video, and unified communications (UC) applications.

“On voice, everything can be up and functioning, and you still might not be able to make a phone call,” says John McCaffrey, VP of Sales and Solutions for Clarus Systems (www.clarussystems.com). “That is what’s unique about voice; you have to dig deeper into the applications to make sure that the call can go through. That’s what our focus is.”

Clarus has a “Four Pillars” approach to VoIP operations, comprised of automated testing, monitoring, business intelligence, and reporting. Testing is integrated throughout the deployment process into production use, and monitoring comes up fairly early in the process of bringing up IP phones. Clarus conducts active testing during the night, utilizing the deployed IP telephony infrastructure to generate calls to test the network from end to end, and exercising feature functionality as well. “We take phones off hook,” says McCaffery. “You can’t do that during the day.” Tests generate an e-mail or other notification to certify the system is working well or if there is an issue that can be routed to a help desk before the next business day starts.

“The key for [Clarus] is we look across two days,” says McCaffrey. “Day one is deployment, and day two is operations…. The biggest point is day one and day two kind of merge. So long as you have 10 phones deployed [in service], you are in day two. You need to monitor them while you are deploying the other 9,990 phones.” During the day, Clarus’ Voice Monitor continuously monitors a variety of call data using policies defined by the IT or telecom manager, including call quality, service availability, and security. Different monitoring policies can be put in place during different times of the week to send alerts via e-mail or SNMP if problems arise with low MOS scores, incorrectly routed calls, dropped or rejected calls, or if a certain number of phones become unregistered with the system.

Currently, Clarus works with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and the company expects to support Cisco’s Unity Voice Messaging system in the future. The company has established a customer base in the Fortune 100, with a strong presence in the financial services. IP contact centers are a recent growth area, and IQ Services (www.iq-services.com) is reselling Clarus products to its contact center clients. Managed service providers (MSPs) and resellers also use Clarus to provide monitoring services via an outsourced model.

Testing No, Testing and Monitoring, Yes
For larger enterprises, simply providing a testing capability before deployment doesn’t cut it. “We were in conversations with a large insurance firm, [providing] live monitoring to over 30,000 endpoints,” says John Burnham, Vice President of Marketing, Brix Networks (www.brixnet works.com). “He wants both. If you don’t have it, he won’t talk to you.”

Brix has implemented testing of higher level network services, such as DHCP, DNS, and e-mail, but what’s “relatively new,” says Burnham, is the demand for live monitoring. Service assurance is the name of the game today. “You need both–the combination of active test and live monitoring. As unified communications becomes more important, availability, reliability, dependability–all the ‘abilities’–becomes paramount.” IT managers want one-screen monitoring and testing, with anomalies displayed along with single-click options to trigger preconfigured simulated or active tests to diagnose the problem.

Burnham sees some companies getting ahead of the curve when it comes to rolling out next-generation services and being able to make sure they reliably work on a day-to-day basis. “The reliability of that communications service is becoming paramount…. [Companies are] taking a bet on IP riding down the commoditization curve. You have to have the same level of reliability as you had with TDM. The best phone system is the one you already have. When we move to the next generation, what we call unified communications, you can’t take a hit there. Having visibility into that rollout is critical.”