How to analyze Voice and Video over IP with OmniPeek
Voice and Video over IP (VoIP) present major challenges for traditional data networks. The size of VoIP and video network packets is markedly different from those of standard network applications. In addition, media traffic time sensitivity (or latency) is critical, whereas this isn’t the case for normal data.
Although the network requirements for voice and video over IP are different both are based on the same network medium and use the same equipment and network settings. Learn more about our solutions for VoIP monitoring and analysis!
OmniPeek Enterprise allows comprehensive, detailed troubleshooting and analysis both on the network and on the overlying voice channel so it isn’t necessary to use other troubleshooting and analysis tools. Network technicians can easily see the quality of individually transmitted voice and video streams and are informed immediately if performance falls below a certain value.
Causes of poor performance can easily be seen and detailed information is displayed, so causes can be determined immediately and problems rapidly resolved.
VoIP Quality Analysis
OmniPeek covers performance problems in the quality of VoIP calls, including jitter. OmniPeek troubleshoots VoIP by calculating jitter directly from the packet stream and this provides a detailed analysis of latency, throughput and a variety of network problems using a flow-based analysis mask. Live calls can be analysed without the need for costly voice and video processing hardware.
This is a unique and unrivalled feature for troubleshooting VoIP applications. Additionally, OmniPeek decodes and analyses voice and video call setup for each live call in real-time and displays the results. Both live and completed calls are shown on a sophisticated summary screen and clicking provides a straightforward drill down feature for detailed troubleshooting.
OmniPeek collates all signals (including TCP status reports) and voice and video streams (RTP) for each call and provides continuous signal information including call endpoints (Note: endpoints refers to individual call endpoints). This includes measuring call duration and providing a call detail record (CDR) for each call.
The call view shows all calls in order of their live recording and has information about the caller, recipient and information about why the call terminated. Using Liveaction’s voice and video over IP analysis, detailed call records (known as the call data record, or CDR) can be otained. OmniPeek also provides real-time statistics and reports for quality of service baselining with 100% call and video stream transparency. An intuitive user interface allows reports to be scheduled and configured and these can be exported to Excel or similar reporting tools.
Comprehensive signal analysis is available for:
- SIP
- H.323
- Cisco SCCP
- Avaya CCMS
- MGCP
- RTSP
- AMR
- u.v.m.
OmniPeek Enterprise is the only network analyser that provides real-time monitoring and analysis over Ethernet, wireless, 10GbE, Gigabit, and WAN VoIP.
Due to the launch of next generation networks and because more and more companies are implementing VoIP applications, network technicians must be able to analyse all network traffic, especially VoIP calls. OmniPeek Enterprise allows technicians to determine when different traffic types are affecting one another.
VoIP presents new network challenges
- VoIP has drastically increased the pressure on network engineers when quick solutions to problems are needed.
Why is this? The answer is because end users, who were previously willing to tolerate slow business applications, quickly lose patience when calls become garbled or are interrupted.
Phone calls are an indispensable part of business life. VoIP dropouts can completely paralyse business discussions, if not the whole company. An interruption during sales, support, media and investor VoIP calls can harm the business and the professional image of the company, causing irrevocable damage. - VoIP requires network administrators to become telephone and voice technology experts in a very short space of time.
VoIP services can be affected by problems with VoIP applications, protocol problems, basic network problems, or a combination of these. Until recently, most network engineers had to choose between a network analyser and a VoIP analyser.
No single tool was able to combine both types of analysis in an affordable and viable way. Consequently, no engineer had adequate monitoring and analysis technology to detect VoIP network errors in to order to resolve these. - Products for VoIP monitoring and troubleshooting are mostly hardware-based, proprietary, expensive and too bulky to be portable.
Cumbersome, heavy hardware solutions can send VoIP spending sky high and make it hard to diagnose problems locally.
If tools for monitoring and troubleshooting are too expensive, they can be removed from a budget without implementation, so that network engineers ultimately have no solution when it comes to finding and fixing VoIP errors.
Our solution for VoIP monitoring and error analysis
Liveaction provides network analysis solutions for organisations using VoIP, with a combination of functions for monitoring and analysing network traffic, including specific VoIP call analysis. This shows ithose occasions when different traffic types adversely affect one another. OmniPeek Enterprise is the only network analyser with diagnostics for real-time voice and video over IP on Ethernet, Wireless, 10GbE, Gigabit and WAN settings. OmniPeek Enterprise ist der einzige Network-Analyzer, der in Echtzeit Voice und Video over IP Diagnosemöglichkeiten für Ethernet, Wireless, 10GbE, Gigabit, und WAN bietet.
OmniPeek Enterprise monitors and analyses live calls without expensive voice-processing hardware and provides hereto unrivalled VoIP troubleshooting. It provides a clear, detailed analysis on latency, throughput and a variety of network problems and delivers these on a flow-based display! All calls are displayed in order of their live recording – with information on callers recipients and why calls ended. There’s also a comprehensive signal analysis for SIP, Cisco Skinny, MEGACO etc. OmniPeek Enterprise also assesses the call setup mechanism and displays this along with real-time information on call duration. Each live call has a call detail record (CDR).
Case study: VoIP over Wifi
A large trading company set up VoIP in its salesrooms. The retailer’s aim was to answer customer queries in store, as well as over the telephone. After carrying out an extensive and expensive premises assessment, the access points were deemed to be suitable placed. They used secure, non-overlapping channels with strong encryption and dedicated switches for the APs.
The initial call quality was like that on Ethernet VoIP phones but it wasn’t long until the call quality became increasingly poor and eventually calls were interrupted and customers became dissatisfied. When they started using OmniPeek Enterprise as a console for advanced data monitoring, they soon identified a critical weakness in the WiFi router.
Quality of Service (QoS) had not been implemented in the 802.11 layer so voice packets had to compete with data packets for network priority. Our customer corrected this mistake and from then on equipped all his stores with OmniPeek Enterprise, so all wireless networks could be analysed in real-time and problems could be corrected before they became critical.
The advantages are plain to see:
- Monitoring and analysis of all wireless traffic on the network to resolve poor performance due to network bandwidth competition.
- Checking call quality using R-Factor and MOS scores using the same analysis tool to monitor the network.
- Ongoing compliance with existing network policies to avoid critical interruptions that could trigger VoIP problems.