In managing VoIP, the analytics provide McDuffie comprehensive bursts, gaps, and jitter metrics that allow him to quickly identify and gauge the seriousness of a performance problem. In addition to monitoring call quality, Observer and GigaStor can reconstruct and replay an entire call.

“Network Instruments tools let me rebuild and listen to an entire VoIP call,” says McDuffie. “By listening to that, I get a sense of the user's experience. VoIP is still a fairly new technology, so you want to make sure everything is set up correctly. This tool set allows me to have eyes and ears into a customer's network.”

In-Depth Network and Retrospective Analysis
In addition to conducting pre-deployment testing, McDuffie uses GigaStor Portable to quickly troubleshoot sporadic network issues that could adversely affect VoIP performance, and to capture days of network traffic to disk for later analysis. GigaStor Portable gives them eyes into all activities occurring on the network allowing them to replay any network problem rather than having to wait for the problem to recur.

Using GigaStor’s unique time-based navigator, NEC engineers can quickly sort through massive amounts of traffic and find the specific issue impacting VoIP or any other business-critical traffic. The GigaStor’s user interface makes it easy to navigate between different points in time and run Expert Analysis on a specific period.

“If the problem took place on Tuesday and this is Thursday, we can go back with GigaStor,” McDuffie said. “Having everything saved to disk means we can quickly isolate the time of the event, pinpoint the source and present evidence to our client of the occurrence. It definitely cuts down on the time we spend trying to find the source of the problem.”

Time Savings and Convenience
NEC found Network Instruments’ portable units to be flexible and economical. For example, one unit takes the place of 3 to 4 appliances. The company’s portable units have been configured to support analysis of gigabit, LAN, and WAN topologies on the same unit. The flexibility the portable solutions provide in monitoring multiple network interfaces on a single appliance make all the difference.

GigaStor Portable also saves time. Network Instruments solutions reduced set-up time by 75%, so that engineers can begin analyzing traffic in as little as an hour rather than the 4 hours they were accustomed to spending. The GigaStor Portable provides ample storage capacity, eliminating the “in-between” visit where engineers had to remove appliances from the site and unload the data in their lab.

“Our old tools didn’t have enough disk space for a complete assessment,” McDuffie said. “Now, we can leave GigaStor out there for an entire week and capture a full cycle of the network and make recommendations based on that. This decreases the time we have to spend at the customer’s site.”

Having GigaStor Portable Pays
Pay back on the GigaStor Portable for NEC Unified has been immediate and significant. The unit allows them to provide a comprehensive, customizable service and guarantee successful VoIP deployments. “Essentially the revenue generated from each assessment we do usually more than pays for the cost of a single GOSS or GigaStor Portable,” said McDuffie. “The last three assessments generated $58,000, $30,000, and $22,000.”

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