Speeding time to acceptance

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, nevertheless readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

Unified communications requires many elements, protocols, back-end processes and pieces of communication equipment to work at the same time seamlessly. Nevertheless users don't care about the complexities involved. If they experience poor voice quality, frozen screens or inconsistent performance, they won't use any solution, no matter how cutting-edge.

To ensure workforce acceptance organizations need an effective UC Assurance Program that offers a methodical, end-to-end approach to performance evaluation. User experience cannot be understood by making a few test calls or sporadically checking video streams. UC solutions must be evaluated pursuant to this agreement conditions that accurately reflect how -- and how often -- they will be used.

UC Assurance Program

When designing a UC Assurance Program, it is important that it accurately reflect expected usage patterns. Only by emulating -- and at the time analyzing -- the correct volume and mix of traffic, can an organization fully validate the proposed solution. For instance, if a company expects 40% of employees to utilize the new "notify and respond" application by mobile phone, 15% by text and 60% via the Web, the test traffic needs to be configured consequently.

When designing a test plan for a proposed UC solution, first create a map of all network components and applications. At once, evaluate how users will interact with the applications to estimate traffic loads and required bandwidth. At the time simulate the environment to clarify how traffic from one service impacts another. This will as well provide an understanding of routing requirements. Lastly, it is important to assess the functionality of all user options within the application itself. Use this information to create the complete test plan.

There are two ways to evaluate network traffic. The first approach is to passively monitor it as it goes by to obtain metrics just as jitter, round trip time and packet loss, which enable MOS calculations for real-time voice and video communications. This is an excellent way to obtain important system health metrics, calculate MOS ratings for voice and video quality and ensure availability.

The second approach is to actively monitor specific services, applications or equipment by placing test calls or injecting test traffic into the network, at that time following the traffic's progress and analyzing the results. This method serves to assess voice quality for customer-agent systems, measure data response times, evaluate video packet loss rates, check routing paths or test system capacity. Organizations can specify a complete range of test paths to fully evaluate the end-to-end performance of even the most complex UC solutions.

Together, these approaches help organizations monitor their UC solutions and predict issues earlier they impact clients. And proactive correction of problems ensures consistent use across the business.

UC solutions promise greater loyalty, enhanced productivity, improved operational efficiency and tremendous cost savings. Nevertheless, this research will never have a chance to prove itself if users dismiss it because it does not work correctly.

Empirix is a market leader of service quality assurance solutions for comprehensive customer experience management and end-to-end communication analysis of mobile broadband and IP-based communications systems. The company addresses the quality and interoperability challenges posed by the increased use of mobile broadband, LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology), converged voice and unified communications in both IT and Telecom Environments. For furthermore information, please visit www.empirix.com.