Monitoring VoIP IP SLA

WhatsUp Gold provides specialized Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) SLA monitoring necessary for tracking Quality of Service (QoS) and Service Level Agreement (SLA) metrics for your network of deployed VoIP devices (telephones, conference room devices, and more). After you discover and configure devices for VoIP monitoring, you can view results and graphs on the WhatsUp Gold Custom Performance Monitors dashboard.

Background

VoIP sessions must transport telephony or "voice" data as a continuous or near-continuous stream to ensure each side of the voice conversation sounds natural, not jittery, and free from discernible drop-offs or echo. Where the QoS of Internet Protocol is 'best-effort' (first-come, first-serve), IP routers and IP call centers collect end-point and round-trip statistics critical for tracking and indicating call quality. WhatsUp Gold VoIP applies specialized monitors to gather and aggregate these IP SLA metrics.

WhatsUp Gold VoIP measurements include call jitter (one-way latency), predictive level of call impairment ICPIF (Impairment / Calculated Planning Impairment Factor), round trip times, and an active monitor that gathers a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) (a periodic measurement of the call quality that your network can sustain). The active monitor acts as a 'virtual' VoIP session to gather useful and realistic call quality data.

WhatsUp Gold VoIP monitoring provides:

• VoIP performance monitors. Used to track round trip and end point characteristics of call traffic. (Packet loss, ICPIF, Jitter, round-trip latency)
• Active monitoring. Simulates voice traffic and returns a quality score based on a trained model. (MOS)
• Custom Performance Monitor reports.
• Ability to alert on monitor status.

Before You Begin

Before you run the VoIP Configuration Utility and begin VoIP monitoring, you will need:

• Username/password pair for the Windows host machine running WhatsUp Gold. (These are necessary to launch and run the WhatsUp Gold Admin Console.)
• WhatsUp Gold-discovered routers that support VoIP MIBs and/or devices running Cisco CallManager. (The VoIP configuration utility pulls candidates for VoIP monitoring from devices you have already promoted to MY NETWORK MAP).
• SNMP read credentials for routers and SNMP credentials for Cisco CallManager.
• Monitoring enabled in WhatsUp Gold for devices you want to add VoIP monitoring to.

Important: Before launching the VoIP Configuration Utility, select ANALYZE > Dashboards > Home Dashboard to ensure dashboard views are successfully created and you have access to them. Seeing the VoIP-specific view relies on your access to Home Dashboard.

Configuring VoIP Monitors

After network discovery of routers and Cisco call centers that support VoIP statistics, you can configure VoIP monitors on devices supporting VoIP metrics.

Step 1: Launch the VoIP Configuration Utility (from the WhatsUp Gold Admin Console)

1. Log into the Windows host where WhatsUp Gold is running.
2. Launch the WhatsUp Gold Admin Console (Windows start menu > All Programs > WhatsUp Gold > WhatsUp Gold Admin Console).
3. From the Admin Console, launch the VoIP Configuration Utility (Tools menu > VoIP Configuration Utility).
4. Follow the instructions described in Step 2: Finding and Configuring Devices that Support VoIP SLA Monitoring.

Step 2: Find and Configure Devices that Support VoIP SLA Monitoring

1. From the VoIP Monitor Configuration Utility welcome screen, click on Next.

   The utility returns a list of devices in WhatsUp Gold with monitoring enabled.

2. Select the device(s) in the list you want to monitor for VoIP statistics. If the device you want to monitor is not in the list, apply one of the following and then click Reload.
   • Find the device you want to add in the Discovered Network map, select it, and from the device card click on Start/Update Monitoring.
   • If the device you want to monitor is neither in the list, nor in the Discovered Network map, ensure you have the correct credentials, get the IP address for the device and perform a single IP scan to include it as part of the Discovered Network map.
   • Apply monitoring. Select it on the map. Then from the device card click Start/Update Monitoring.
3. Click Next.

   Performance Monitors Setup Screen displays with a summary of current statistics.

4. Select the Round Trip Time tables representing end-stations on your network that you want to capture VoIP statistics for and then click on Next.
5. Filter devices you want performance monitoring on and then click on Next.
6. Select the devices you want to measure Mean Opinion Score from and then click on Next.

   WhatsUp Gold VoIP Monitor Configuration Summary screen displays.

7. Ensure that the log messages in the summary screen indicate that monitors were added successfully. Click on Next and then Finish to exit the utility.

Step 3: Check the Monitor Setup on the Source Device and View Report Data

To ensure you are monitoring VoIP IP SLA data, you can:

• View enabled monitors. From the My Network Map or the table grid underneath it, select a device to display the Device Information Card, then click Device Properties ().

  Example: VoIP Monitor

• View report data. Open the ANALYZE menu > Performance > Custom Monitors Dashboard.

  

  Tip: Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is measured on a scale from 1 to 5 —where 5 is perfect call quality and 1 denotes poor call quality.

See Also Admin Console Local Access of Settings and Controls (WhatsUp Gold Console) Using Device Types About Device Properties - General About Device Properties - Menus Adding a Menu Item Operating WhatsUp Gold in FIPS 140-2 Mode Using WhatsUp Gold Database Utilities Configuring File Transfer Settings Importing Trap Definitions