Assuring Performance of Carrier-Class Networks and Enterprise Contact Centers SP-11: Ensuring Service Quality While Increasing Revenue February 4, 2009 Daniel Teichman Senior Product Marketing Manager Voice Service Assurance

Ensuring Service Quality While Increasing Revenue Service Quality Measurement Getting from Measurement to Monitoring Service Level Agreement (SLA) Benchmarking SLA Reporting VoIP Peering Examples Summary

Testing and Monitoring Lifecycle Pre-service lab testing Pre-service testing In-service monitoring Field service testing for performance Test service logic and operational functionality Benchmarking service quality & performance Ensuring ongoing network and service quality

Service Quality Measurement Signaling Media Passive and / or Active Methodologies

Signaling Quality Measurements Real-time analysis / reporting of call completion statistics – Post-Dial Delay, Call Attempts, Calls Successfully Completed, Failed Calls, Answer Seize Ratio, Answer Bid Ratio, Network Efficiency Ratio, Call Setup time, Call Disconnect time, Minutes of Use Real-time analysis / reporting on protocol statistics: – SIP packets, SIP Invites, SIP Errors, SIP 1xx / 2xx/ 3xx etc, SIP Registers, etc. Per call capture of signaling quality measures, retained storage for diagnostic and analysis purposes

Media Quality Measurements More difficult to capture than signaling quality measures – Includes RTP, as well as DTMF (RFC 2833) and fax (T.38) Real-time analysis / reporting of packet and call statistics – Packets Received, Lost, Duplicate, OOS – Jitter, Burst; Gap, Mean Opinion Score (MOS) – Instantaneous or Worst point in call as well as Average per call Per call capture of media quality measures, retained storage for diagnostic and analysis purposes

Getting From Measurement to Monitoring Measurement gives you data – lots of it! Monitoring create value from measurement data. It gives you information for diagnosis, analysis and reporting Monitoring enables pro-active behaviors, enhances reactive behaviors Correlation, data segmentation and automatic notification of service issues are the three keys to success

Correlation per Call / Session Correlate signaling across both trusted and untrusted sides of SBC Complicated call flows, e.g. SBCs can/will change call Ids Measure RTP across both trusted and untrusted sides of SBC

Data Segmentation Network-wide assessment is not sufficient for specific SLAs Data segmentation is a mandatory requirement – Per network segment or component – Per interconnect point – Per customer (typically large enterprise) Should be part an integral part of the database structure as opposed to a reporting tool – Integration is a must for responsive reporting (when you have million of records to analyze) – Segmentation has to be easy to apply – could have thousands to manage

Data Segmentation Example Data segmentation by “tagging” Call Detail Information “Tag” assignment by multiple parameters, such as: – Phone number digits (country code) – IP address (source and/or destination) – SS7 address (originating and/or destination point code) – VLAN Id Combine “tags” to capture multiple “views” of traffic

Automatic Notification of Service Level Issues Pro-active integration with “northbound” Network Management systems Both network and segmented data based alerts – Network-based addresses internal metrics – Segmentation-based alerts enable isolation to particular interconnect, peering site, or Enterprise Alerts on both signalling and media metrics, such as: – Call Failure rates exceed 1.0% threshold – Average MOS falls below 3.0

SLA Benchmarking Done by testing live network conditions – For the network – Per interconnect partner / Enterprise Done for specific Key Performance Indicators, such as: – Average / Minimum MOS – Average / Maximum Post Dial Delay – Answer Seize Ratio Should be normative across network if possible

SLA Reporting SLA verification via ongoing monitoring or via periodic or on-demand testing – For the network – Per interconnect partner / Enterprise Trend analysis indicates potential problems or future areas for re-negotiation

VoIP Peering Example 1 Event: Carrier routing table update process fails to complete properly Problem: Standard network level alerts will not recognize this problem What service quality monitoring does: – Identification of abnormal traffic conditions – low call completion rates – Pro-active alert to Network Management System upon threshold violation – Ability to isolate problem to specific peering partner or peering sites Remediation: Re-routing of traffic to alternate carrier Net impact: Minimize or avoid customer service disruptions  reduce churn  minimize revenue loss

VoIP Peering Example 2 Event: SLA compliance dispute between carrier and customer Problem: Customer believes VoIP quality falls below agreed SLA What service quality monitoring does: – Analysis and reporting on quality measurements specific to customer – Accommodate multi-site, multi-country reporting – Trend analysis over time Remediation: Set up periodic capture specific quality metrics from customer sites, using SIP loopback or SIP VQ reporting capabilities Net impact: Minimize or avoid future customer disputes  maximize revenue potential

Summary Service Quality Monitoring is MUCH more than just measurement Service Quality Monitoring provides the ability to perform SLA verification and reporting More accurate handling of SLAs means more valuable peer and customer relationships