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October 31, 2008
• Vol.30 Issue 44
Page(s) 9 in print issue
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Tackling VoIP & UC Trouble
Solve Difficulties With These Technologies To Keep Your Communications Infrastructure Humming Along
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 Despite the popularity of email, messaging, and other data-based technologies, voice remains the communication lifeblood for many small and midsized enterprises. As such, implementation and use of VoIP and UC (unified communications) must remain trouble-free to ensure that employees, clients, customers, and others can stay in touch. These technologies are far from flawless, however, so here’s a look at common problems and how to solve them.
 Converged Network Woes
According to Scott Kinka, senior vice president of network services for Evolve IP (www.evolveip.net), convergence brings an entirely new responsibility of adding and moving voice to an existing network. However, voice streams are more sensitive to network congestion than data—whereas a millisecond delay in a loading Web page may not be noticeable, the same delay in a delivered voice packet can result in a moment of silence or a stutter.
Kinka explains that the most common factors affecting a converged deployment are latency (the time it takes the voice stream to travel from endpoint to endpoint), packet loss (high amounts of data congestion can cause routers and switches to overflow, and they will occasionally discard packets to keep traffic moving), and jitter (the difference in time between the expected transmission rate of data and the time it actually arrives).
“To avoid the problems of jitter, packet loss, and delay, a thorough network assessment should be performed to ensure there is sufficient bandwidth [on] LAN and WAN and control for the introduction of IP voice,” Kinka says. “Pay particular attention to links where traffic transitions from LAN to WAN. Conduct a complete network inventory and understand the current bandwidth consumption of existing applications, as well as future calling traffic patterns. Always give precedence to voice packets on the network for timely delivery.”
Aging Networks Won’t Fly
Melding VoIP or UC with an existing network architecture can be akin to setting free a bull in a china shop. After all, traditional networks generally aren’t built to handle these new technologies, and Greg Zweig, solutions product manager for Sonus Networks (www.sonusnet.com), recommends inspecting the network for problems to avoid latency and other issues.
“From a LAN perspective, managers should look for typical network issues like old Ethernet switches or even shared hubs that are not designed for real-time traffic,” Zweig says. “If Ethernet switches are being upgraded, adding Power over Ethernet is an obvious choice. This eliminates the need for local phone power and simplifies providing emergency backup power to the phones. The 802.3af standard is nearly universal, making it easy to buy IP phones and PoE switches that work together out of the box.”
Business Issues Bog Down Process
All of the business issues surrounding VoIP and UC—including budget constraints, lack of internal expertise, lack of well-defined metrics on returns, and others—are amplified when SMEs confront them. Michael Voellinger, vice president of enterprise mobile solutions for Telwares (www.telwares.com), says that most medium-sized and large enterprises have some deployment happening as a small percentage of their overall landscape. But because smaller enterprises are constrained by tighter margins and fewer chances to “get it right,” planning becomes key.
“There is a woeful gap in best practices due to the disparity in market definitions for UC and VoIP,” Voellinger says. “This creates a fragmented landscape, so the best advice is strong planning and due diligence. Understand the application within your business. What problem are you solving? Where’s the opportunity to drive revenue or customer satisfaction? Where’s the return? Let real-time business value be the driving force and then take that demand set to market. It will help speed the effort and give a greater chance at success.”
Beware The UC Promise
The promise of UC creates visions of communication methods that are seamlessly attached and can allow users to elegantly connect over separate technologies. However, the reality of UC doesn’t always deliver on that promise, says LiveVox (www.livevox.com) CEO Louis Summe.
“A common definition of UC is the combination of multichannel communication tools like voice, chat, and email. Multichannel communication is mature—I use SMS and email all the time. They are important business tools, but true unified communications is really a lot of hype at this point because these systems lack common platforms and common standards. Companies may pitch multichannel communication models, but the applications themselves tend to be siloed,” Summe says.
For companies that are pursuing unified communications, Summe recommends pressing UC providers to fully explain their solutions. This discovery process will help to determine if solutions are delivering different applications that are truly unified or if the solutions are simply separate multichannel communications tools with no unified characteristics or benefits.
Network Threats Plague Voice Systems
Unlike IP-based networks, traditional voice architectures aren’t breeding grounds for security threats. Because VoIP resides on the IP network and uses IP standards, it can suffer the same intrusions as other technologies on the network. According to Evolve IP’s Kinka, this can lead to invasion of privacy through eavesdropping on conversations; hijacking of VoIP service for unauthorized use; malicious attacks; and Denial of Service, which can disrupt voice services.
“There are no significant VoIP-specific protections that need to be put in place other than an effective organizational security policy that includes VoIP-centric systems and services along with legacy IP-based systems. There are no substitutes for a fully encompassing approach to security policy implementation and enforcement,” Kinka says.
Sonus’ Zweig adds that data center managers should ensure they have firewall and VPN products in place that support VoIP traffic and call control for voice and UC applications. Further, he says that making firewalls and VPNs “SIP-aware” may require policy changes or hardware upgrades. 
by Christian Perry
Top Problem: Implementing On A Substandard Network
As the worldwide uptake of VoIP and UC (unified communications) technologies continues to rise dramatically, there’s a tendency to believe that integration of these products won’t require any major changes. However, that’s not necessarily the case. Darrell Epps, director of network solutions for Forsythe (www.forsythe.com), says that the major challenges with these technologies center around making certain the environment can handle the implementation and questions need to be asked beforehand.
“Is my network infrastructure ready to support the addition of UC applications? [For example], do I have VLAN architecture, physical and logical redundancy, Quality of Service and traffic prioritization mechanisms, available ports and bandwidth, etc. in place? Am I prepared to support the addition of UC applications? Do I have suitably trained and skilled support personnel or third-party partners, proper policies, and SLAs defined for acceptable service levels for the UC as well as other business applications?” Epps says.
If network deficiencies are found during this process, Epps says that they must be addressed before the rollout of the UC applications begins and that this is not an area to cut corners or try to save money. If issues aren’t addressed, the quality of voice services will suffer, and end users—and potentially cutomers—will be unhappy. |
Key Points
• Voice data is far more sensitive than other network data, in turn requiring specific planning and troubleshooting to avoid latency, jitter, and other quality-related problems inherent in VoIP and UC technologies.
• Because IP-based voice systems reside on the same architecture that can suffer traditional network-based attacks, it’s imperative to ensure that these systems are included in the overall enterprise security policy.
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