Understanding core IP telephony architecture design and functionality is essential for successful application support and performance. IP telephony performance problems are often indicative of network traffic, capacity and traffic management issues, which will likely impact all network applications.
This collection of our best IP telephony tutorials and primers for 2010 covers IP telephony infrastructure migration and management strategies; the inherent challenges of IP telephony interoperability; how to overcome IP telephony interoperability and integration issues; and how to ensure the overall health of your network by maintaining IP telephony QoS.
IP
telephony infrastructure basics
Moving to an IP telephony infrastructure represents a significant shift from more traditional voice
services. Leveraging unified communications (UC) depends on understanding the differences between
circuit- and packet-based communications and treating enterprise communications as a single entity
rather than a group of discrete telephone systems. Learn
how a centralized IP telephony solution effectively mobilizes users and helps businesses
achieve least-cost routing for calls and extension dialing between locations.
IP
telephony gateway primer
IP telephony gateways serve an important and ever-increasing role in an enterprise unified
communications infrastructure, delivering both circuit-switched and newer packet-based telephony
solutions to the enterprise. Initially designed to adapt analog voice, the gateways are now the
conduit to bring video and data solutions to enterprise users, no matter where they may be. Learn how
common protocols, like SIP, are used to connect gateways not only to services but all the way
down to individual handsets. Also, find out how to overcome the inherent challenges of obtaining
interoperability in a multi-vendor environment despite widespread adoption of open protocols.
UC
and IP telephony integration: Understanding the challenges
IP telephony integration with collaboration applications can boost user productivity and streamline
workflow, but piecing together varying iterations of UC and IP telephony protocols with voice
services and other unified communications applications is challenging for both the uninitiated and
seasoned professionals. Learn
about the benefits and challenges of UC and IP telephony integration and the protocols and
interfaces necessary to extend communication services to business applications.
IP
telephony QoS: Capacity planning and management
Poor or irregular IP telephony QoS
levels should alert voice managers to review network traffic, capacity and traffic management
measures before problems spread to all applications on the network. Congestion occurs when network
load exceeds network capacity for a period of time. The most effective way to manage congestion is
to augment capacity. Learn
how to pinpoint the cause of your IP telephony network congestion symptoms by assessing
peak-level utilizations and analyzing link utilization along traffic routes, and find out how to
use this information to solve your IP telephony performance problems.
IP
telephony QoS: VoIP traffic management and prioritization
When congestion is not the root of IP telephony performance problems, it’s time to size up your
network design. When adding capacity or limiting traffic from competing applications isn’t a viable
option, VoIP traffic management and prioritization can help, but they can also increase the overall
complexity of the network, raising the operations and support costs. Learn
how prioritization and route optimization can resolve IP telephony performance issues by
managing delay (handling delay, serialization delay, routing delay) and other factors that degrade
VoIP traffic.
This was first published in December 2010