When companies implement VoIP, they often focus almost exclusively on initial deployment. However, success isn't just contingent on achieving good voice quality for the first 30-90 days. Maintaining that quality over time is also a significant challenge, especially in light of the dynamic nature of today's enterprise environments.
A variety of factors can undermine VoIP call quality over time. These include:
-Growth in VoIP and overall network traffic.
-Introduction of new resource-hogging applications into the production environment.
-The unforeseen impact of changes in network and server infrastructure on VoIP performance.
-Organizational changes that shift the number and distribution of end users.
A virtual network test bed can be used to maintain VoIP quality in the face of change.
Coping with changes in the production environment
Are traffic loads for specific applications projected to increase by 20% over the next year? Then it's a fairly straightforward matter to introduce those traffic levels into the testing environment and see how VoIP performance is affected. Acquiring a new company? The test bed provides an ideal environment for assessing what (if any) modifications need to be made to deliver VoIP to the acquired locations.
Validation of new applications
New and/or modified applications can have significant impact on VoIP performance. The type of application testing traditionally done by development teams (typically performed on a LAN connection using only the application under development) is insufficient to predict this impact. A virtual network, on the other hand, makes it easy to discover contention issues before they disrupt the production environment.
Simplified troubleshooting of intermittent problems
It can be particularly difficult to deal with intermittent problems in the production environment that undermine VoIP performance and then disappear before they can be adequately diagnosed. Test beds are very useful in these situations because they enable technicians to play back conditions at the moment the problem occurred. This allows them to effectively analyze the problem and experiment with potential remedies.
Virtual networks have many uses beyond VoIP. These include the development of more network-friendly applications and better planning of infrastructure modifications. By implementing network emulation, companies can protect critical VoIP service levels and achieve a broad range of other high-value benefits including elimination of unnecessary infrastructure build-outs and more predictable performance for all applications across the ever-changing enterprise.
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