Active Network Monitoring
Active monitoring for next-generation carrier class networks
As a service provider striving to assure service quality for both basic and advanced services, you need to know how well your VoIP network handles traffic and be assured you can deliver service quality for both basic and advanced services. One way to attain this information is to "actively" monitor the voice service quality of simulated calls from IP and/or TDM endpoints.
Active monitoring involves sending a known test signal through a live network and comparing the output signal with the original signal. Analysis of the results of the comparison provides signaling and media metrics that can be used for pre-deployment testing, establishing baseline QoS measurements, measuring the relative health of the network, post-deployment troubleshooting, and Service Level Agreement (SLA) verification.
In today's competitive environment, a VoIP/IMS monitoring solution needs to go beyond measuring signaling and media connectivity; it must also measure the quality of advanced voice services. VoIP service providers offer advanced features such as three-way calling in their basic service bundles. This offering originated as a competitive differentiator; however over time advanced features became part of every service bundle. Thus, implementing a VoIP/IMS monitoring solution to emulate advanced services is critical to successful VoIP service acceptance.
Hammer XMS Active
An integrated complement to Hammer XMS™, Empirix’s passive monitoring solution; Hammer XMS Active™ provides active monitoring for basic voice, advanced voice, and fax services. With both active and passive monitoring, Empirix offers VoIP service providers multi-dimensional insight into the customer’s Quality of Experience. Hammer XMS Active consists of two components:- Active probes to emulate IP and TDM voice and fax endpoints;
- An Operations Server for applications, such as probe management, scheduling tests, diagnostics, reporting and system administration.
