Enterprise Traffic Management Challenges Performance Management for Converged Networks

Overview  Introduction…  Leslie Miller, Sr. Solutions Marketing Manager   Converged network challenges  Meeting the challenge using the Management Lifecycle  Pre-assessment  Planning and pre-implementation preparations  Post-deployment impact analysis  On-going management of converged environment

Converged Network Challenges

 Primary Business Concern  High level of expectations surrounding voice services  Technical  Voice traffic overwhelming existing network resources  Voice is a real-time application, i.e., sensitivity to delay, jitter and packet loss  Proper traffic prioritization (QoS) to ensure other applications do not contend with voice-allocated bandwidth  Adding complexity to already very complex enterprise networks

Meeting the Challenge Performance Management for Converged Networks

Management Lifecycle for Convergence  Assessment  Is your network ready for Voice?  Planning  Have made decisions to ensure an effective rollout?  Impact analysis  Is everything running as smoothly as planned?  Ongoing management  How is your network changing and growing over time?

Step One: Assessment Is your network ready for Voice?  Create an inventory of all applications on the network  Evaluate bandwidth to ensure capacity for Voice  Understand network utilization to determine areas with too little capacity  Identify how business sites use network resources  Baseline the response time of key business applications  Audit the network for subtle, systemic problems  Identify issues that may impact a VoIP deployment  “No matter how well architected your network is, once voice is added, any idiosyncrasy is bound to appear.”

Application visibility provides business justification for IT decisions: Are there good reasons for an upgrade? Are there non-business uses of the network? Understand how the business uses the network Well-known, custom, web-based, P2P, complex, etc.

A pre-deployment snapshot of response time can be used as a comparison post-deployment to ensure voice does not negatively impact delivery of key business applications Baseline response time of key business apps Response time provides insight into the end-user experience and should be an integral part of any performance management tool

Step Two: Planning Have you made all decisions to ensure an effective rollout? Based on gathered data…  Fine-tune capacity and implement needed upgrades  Investigate and troubleshoot subtle problems  Establish post-deployment alarm thresholds  Establish and implement QoS policies

Fine-tune capacity and implement needed upgrades What applications contribute to capacity? Eliminate undesired traffic Reschedule processes Redistribute load Add new bandwidth where required What applications contribute to capacity? Eliminate undesired traffic Reschedule processes Redistribute load Add new bandwidth where required

Step Three: Impact Analysis Is everything running as smoothly as planned?  Confirm voice configuration and quality  Is voice being delivered as designed?  Confirm QoS configuration and success  Are all applications in the proper delivery class?  Determine whether voice and bandwidth utilization estimates meet with actuals  Re-evaluate response time of critical applications  Have there been negative impacts of voice or positive impacts because of QoS?

Monitor call jitter, packet loss percentage, and setup times to confirm voice performance Validate codec and voice traffic prioritization configurations Validate voice is being delivered as designed

Applications that have been assigned a wrong DSCP will be quickly identified in this view and will make pinpointing the mis- configured device much easier Validate QoS configurations were set correctly

Pre-implementation Evaluate the impact of voice on utilization Post-implementation Does actual volume meet with estimates

Step Four: Ongoing Management How is your network changing and growing over time?  Converged networks need unified performance management  Managing the network in pieces can be time consuming  Unified product provides a lower TCO!  Continuation of the tasks you performed in assessment and post-deployment impact phases  Troubleshooting - requiring real-time information  Planning and traffic engineering - requiring longer-term historical information  Communication to key constituents  Easy to create, customizable reports

Converged networks need unified management Voice doesn’t exist alone on the network. A converged view of all applications provides context to a problem and allows you to troubleshoot faster

Context to performance problems enables faster troubleshooting : Make sure your performance management solution can display needed information side-by-side Converged networks need unified management

Forecast the growth of segments, circuits or applications and continue to refine traffic engineering and capacity planning based on application additions and changes in usage patterns Evaluate growth on an ongoing basis

Customize reports to reflect individual needs: from high-level summaries to meticulous details Reporting results

Summary

Management Lifecycle for Convergence  Assessment  Is your network ready?  Planning  Have made decisions to ensure an effective rollout?  Impact analysis  Is everything running as smoothly as planned?  Ongoing management  How is your network changing and growing over time?

THANK YOU! Leslie Miller