Although many enterprises choose to deploy and manage VoIP on their own networks, others outsource this service to a provider or systems integrator. Hosted VoIP service providers typically offer a growing variety of VoIP services, including IP-Centrex, contact centers, audio conferencing, and unified messaging, all hosted in the provider's network. Managed VoIP service providers deliver a range of consulting, installation, maintenance, and performance management services for enterprise VoIP applications installed in the enterprise's network.

The challenge with hosted and managed services for enterprises and service providers alike is that some portion of these services reside on the other's network, out of sight of traditional management tools. Enterprises purchasing a hosted or managed service and providers delivering these services both need visibility across the entire service, not just the pieces in their networks. To the end user experiencing service problems, it doesn't matter what their VoIP provider or local administrator owns and controls. They expect their problem to be fixed immediately.

In addition to this lack of full visibility, VoIP inherently presents several other concerns to providers:

• Users Have High Expectations
  Like it or not, users hold VoIP to the same very high quality standard as the familiar Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The PSTN has delivered decades of "five-nines" (99.999 percent) reliability and crisp voice quality and users expect and demand the same from VoIP.



• VoIP Is A Performance-Sensitive Service
  VoIP is a highly performance-sensitive, real-time service that is especially prone to impacts from network impairments, such as network delay and signal loss.
  
  
• VoIP Is A Complex And Multi-vendor Application
  Yesterday's single-vendor, integrated PBX is replaced in today's converged networks with upwards of a half-dozen components — gateways, routers, firewalls, session border controllers, feature servers, and proxies — from different suppliers, a complex environment made even more difficult by the fact that no one vendor can provide full service visibility.



• Traditional Monitoring Tools Are Inadequate
  Traditional telephony monitoring tools and general-purpose IP network management tools do not offer the service-wide visibility, actionable performance information, or VoIP-specific metrics needed by providers.

Individually, each of the above is a challenge, but combined they pose an even more formidable problem.

THE REQUIREMENTS
To overcome these challenges, and supply consistently high-quality VoIP services to their enterprise customers, providers need to:

• Identify, isolate, and resolve service problems
  The Brix System enables administrators to quickly find and fix problems using a variety of tools and capabilities, including: call quality, root-cause analysis; network path analysis; and on-demand and threshold-based conditional troubleshooting.



• Separate enterprise issues from those in the provider's network
  When a problem is reported, managed VoIP providers use the Brix System to answer the essential question, "Is this problem ours or not?" With Brix solutions, network operators can easily trace performance problems to their source, pinpointing whether the problem lies in the enterprise campus or LAN network, the VoIP call servers or other infrastructure, or a wide-area service provider network.



• Prequalify prospective enterprise customer's network
  The Brix System makes it possible for managed service providers to identify customers with substandard network and infrastructure quality before they sign a contract. Providers can then tailor service delivery specifically for their environment, or require the enterprise to purchase consulting and upgrade services before accepting them as a customer.



• Continuously monitor service quality
  By continuously measuring the performance of both live and actively generated calls and other traffic, the Brix System enables providers to know, at all times, whether they are meeting target service quality goals, and dispatches early warning alerts for substandard quality and failures for outages.



• Satisfy enterprise demands for service-specific, verifiable, Service Level Agreements
  The Brix System provides the ability to specify, monitor, and report on service level agreement (SLA) compliance. Administrators create VoIP service-specific SLAs customized for each enterprise customer, the Brix software engine continuously monitors each SLA for compliance, and both administrators and end users view real-time and historical SLA performance using operational and end-user portals.



• Help customer care representatives quickly and effectively resolve user-reported problems
  The Brix System extends visibility and troubleshooting capabilities to end-user locations. Providers have the option of testing directly to the desktop with agent-less configurations, like the Brix Golden Phone, or deploying powerful, software-based Brix agents at the end-user location under the control of a Customer Support Representative.

BRIX BENEFITS
Managed service providers and integrators that deploy Brix VoIP management solutions realize the following benefits:

• Faster problem identification, isolation, and resolution within their network or a customer's network before users are impacted
• Reduction in costly outages and service degradations
• Faster time to market with the right services for their network
• Shorter mean time to repair (MTTR)
• Achievable SLAs that showcase the strengths of their network
• Reduction in expensive customer care costs
• Higher levels of end-user satisfaction

TYPICAL DEPLOYMENTS
Providers of network-hosted and managed VoIP services both require service visibility out to the enterprise premise, but, due to differences in their service architectures, each deploys the Brix System differently.

• Hosted VoIP Service
  Hosted VoIP service providers typically deploy a Brix 2500 Verifier at each of their VoIP network ingress points, usually a PoP. This Verifier acts as a demarc between the provider's VoIP delivery network and the access networks. The provider also installs a Brix 100 Verifier in the enterprise network to create a demarc between the enterprise and access networks (see diagram above).
  
  To validate the performance of all service components, and to continuously monitor a customer's call quality to the enterprise premise, providers measure test calls between the customer's Brix 100 Verifier and the local Brix 2500 Verifier in their own network. Providers demonstrate the availability and performance of their VoIP delivery network from each enterprise customer by initiating tests of their in-network registration infrastructure (e.g., proxy servers, gate keepers, etc.), Web-based self-service management portal for moves, adds, changes, and deletions, and application and media servers, from each customer premise Brix 100 Verifier.
  
  For troubleshooting isolated problems affecting only specific users, providers use the Brix Golden Phone testing capability to measure call quality between the user's phone and either the customer premise Brix 100 Verifier or the provider's Brix 2500 Verifier. Golden Phone testing initiates or terminates (and measures) test calls from the user's desktop.
  
  For user issues requiring more in-depth or continuous troubleshooting, the powerful Brix VoIP Care Application enables providers to identify the cause of the problem and repair or determine that the problem resides in the customer's network and must be fixed there.
  
  In addition, providers deploy Brix 1000 or Brix 2500 Verifiers, depending on expected call load, in their own IP core locations and regional data centers, and Brix 3500T Verifiers at PSTN trunk connections to expand their view and further segment their own VoIP delivery network.

• Managed VoIP Service
  In a managed VoIP service environment, providers deploy a Brix 1000 Verifier in the enterprise network near each call server(s) and one or more Brix 100 Verifiers, depending on building network topology and IP phone density, throughout each site. Providers install the BrixWorx central-site software in their networks, generally at a regional data center or other centralized location (see diagram at right).
  
  Before accepting an enterprise as a managed service customer, providers first deploy the Brix Verifiers temporarily to prequalify the enterprise's network and VoIP deployment, if one already exists. If the deployment exhibits inadequate performance during the assessment period, the provider then requires appropriate upgrade and design consulting before enrolling the enterprise as a managed service customer.
  
  For both prequalification and subsequent quality monitoring, providers schedule test calls between deployed Verifiers to measure intra-site signaling, delivery, and call quality, across the local-area network (LAN), and inter-site, across the wide-area network (WAN). Verifiers also directly measure call management server availability and performance by testing to local and remote servers.
  
  For troubleshooting isolated problems affecting only specific users, providers use the Brix Golden Phone testing capability to measure call quality between the user's phone and either the customer premise Brix 100 Verifier or the provider's Brix 2500 Verifier. Golden Phone testing initiates or terminates (and measures) test calls from the user's desktop.
  
  For user issues requiring more in-depth or continuous troubleshooting, the powerful Brix VoIP Care Application enables providers to identify the cause of the problem and repair or determine that the problem resides outside the scope of the VoIP infrastructure and must be addressed by enterprise network administration staff.

• BrixWorx — central-site software engine
• Brix Advanced VoIP Test Suites — tests to assess signaling, delivery, and call quality
• Brix 100 Verifier — for enterprise locations
• Brix 1000 Verifier — for VoIP network delivery and enterprise call server locations
• Brix 2500 Verifier — for VoIP network delivery and high-speed core locations
• Brix 4000 Verifier — for passive measurement of VoIP network delivery at signaling and media aggregation points
• BrixCare — end-user care and troubleshooting

Click here to learn more about Brix products.