babber

Hi,

I'm no IP expert here, so thought I'd throw this question to some people on here that may be in a position to help.

I'm trying to design a VoIP telephone system for a small company with many offices, and during my initial review have noted they don't currently monitor the IP network for availability, latency, utilisation and so on.

Can anyone recommend a simple solution that will help me to ensure I don't kill the IP platform, or at least can help me to work out, if any data links (between buildings) will need upgrading prior to this work commencing. Also, latency is another concern of mine

Thanks in advance, Phill

stevencotton

You'll need to monitor the devices with SNMP. The kit you'll be using will, if it's Cisco or some other large vendor, be enabled for SNMP polling and trapping. You'll need a centralised monitoring system to do this, create graphs, send out alerts, trap the traps, etc. There is free software that will do it all perfectly without you shelling out, but that will depend on how large a system you'll be creating. I use SNIPS to monitor somewhere between 25-30,000 devices, as often as every 5 minutes in cases, although part of that efficiency is my coding

babber

I thought there would be an free SNMP solution out there I wasn't sure that I was looking for an SNMP solution, but if it's already on the hardware then may as well use it

At the moment they have four main offices which have upto fifteen remote office off the main four offices. Currently they're using BT Net Equip for the 2 Mb data links between the main offices, with a mixture of 512 Kb and 256 Kb VPN links for the sub offices. As I said, I working on a VoIP telephony solution for them, and whilst talking to them realised they don't have ANY network monitoring equipment / software. I need to understand bandwidth utilisation, so requested there IS department to run some stats. The helpful chap looked at me rather strange.

Having a quite look around the comms / server room, there seems to be a few cisco switches and routers, and I know cisco have software available, so thought we could at least patch something in there, so I can understand the volume of transactions, etc, etc on the network.

Is there any free SNMP software that you'd recommend using? I need it to auto-discover the network, if that's at all possible, so adding this benefit, is outside the scope of my project, but very worthwhile them doing.

For the all singing all dancing SNMP S/W how much do you think I need to budget for? And are there any additional hardware devices, they might need?

Thanks for the advise, Phill

stevencotton

I think Cricket may discover SNMP enabled devices, but SNMP works over udp so will depend a lot on ACLs on the existing network as to whether that will work. If the kit isn't that numerous then just do it manually. You will need to set community strings (think of that like a password) on each device anyway.

Software-wise I only know about the UNIX side. NOCOL/SNIPS, Cricket, Nagios are the main ones I'm aware of. I prefer SNIPS.

You can literally spend in the millions on that kind of software, HP OpenView is the main one, but since you're not looking to monitor an enterprise class global network, something like SNIPS will work perfectly.

ChrisB

Are any of those branch links ADSL based?

What ability do they have to start using some form of QoS on the main site links?

babber

Yes, all the branch links or sub offices are ADSL BT Net Equip data pipes.

Not sure I understand enough to answer that question to be honest, I'm more into my RF than IP.... How do you use QoS?

Thanks Phill

ozzy

QoS is Quality of Service. Means you can limit the bandwidth used by other protocols or at least guarantee some level of bandwidth for critical apps.

How intelligent it is will depend on cost as some work at different levels e.g. some will simply define http or udp over a given port but it won't determine what type of application traffic is actually being used (some may share http for example).

In your scenario though, you could use it simply to identify the VoIP protocols and give them a certain minimum bandwidth from your ADSL pipes.

You may be better getting a reseller or telco company to help you design it all.

Stefan

babber

Thanks for all this class information I understand the principle of QoS, just don't know how it's deployed or how to deploy it.

I'm in the process of writing an ITT for that very reason. Let the vendors come in and design the system based around what the company I'm working with already has. I thought VoIP was the way forward to allow scalability and above all flexability, and above all provide a cost effective solution.

Keep the information coming chaps

Phill

ozzy

That sounds like a Sales brochure

The QoS stuff can be implemented at the router level (so within your office or even on the BT managed network). You can also get devices that just do QoS/traffic management ala PacketShaper.

babber

Lol, no not a sales brochure, just normal consultancy bullsht

Is PacketShaper S/W or H/W ? So within the router looks the way forward to me, then at least they can manage the network themselves

Thanks for all this great info....

Phill

ozzy

Packetshaper is hardware, but there's software outthere that will do a similar job. You'd need to look at the type of routers you have to work out how good the QoS is to setup and manage.

If BT manage the ADSL (i.e. its their business services you have) then they should be able to do some QoS for you.

Stefan

tonybooth

Just seen this. God, where to start. There are quite a few ways of doing this. We have just started to roll out VoIP across a very large DIY chain where each branch has its own IP based branch gateway back to the main telephone system at HQ.

Its as easy or as complicated as you want to make it.

Give me a shout if you need a solution.

Cheers
TONY
07803 955600

Dazza's-STi

you can traffic shape on any cisco voip enable router... not strictly hardware at all, are you thinking of Sitara box's or something like that...?

Phil
I personly set QOS only on cisco box's and we as siemens run all our voip systems over cisco equipment, and set QOS accross the network on them... Basicaly cisco have the best QOS tools available... look up CBWFQPQ of LLQ for short (low latency queuing)
As for network voip readiness and testing its a very complex thing, and i must admit has taken me 5 years to come to grips with fully. there are so many aspects its not soemthing you'll simply be able to just go ahead and do it...
There are many many considerations for voip, it has been my specialist subject for some time now and i'm still finding new things all the time...
Also each vendor has different methods of making connections to the gatekeepers and gateways, some good some bad... Often these connections are overlooked and you run into all sorts of problems sorting out RTP and RTCp paths that shouldn;t be there...
if you need to voip check your network... you'll need a solid QOS model in place otherwise it will fail and you'll be wasting your time... If you need some help doing a basic link voip test across the network i may be able to help, maybe run a voip simulator with 1-100 calls I could give you a bit of free advice and assistance if it doesn't take u too much time..
... I use a combinatin of Vivinet Assessor, Ni Observer, IPload, and Cisco router inbiult NBAR and reporting tools to to the tests... And tbh you need to use the lot to get the full picture... If anyone says just run an ethereal trace and SNMP on your networks then there talking bobbins!
PM me and i'll give you my number...

Daz