DATA SHEET

nGenius Voice | Video Manager Assuring User Experience in Unifi ed Communications Environments

Highlights • Proactive performance management of video and voice services • Real-time dashboard with business relevant Quality of Experience (QoE) based service level alerting and automated troubleshooting • Deep visibility into end-to-end call quality and session performance across all user devices • Historical analysis reporting by service, fault, location or device • Innovative service desk capabilities enable IT Staff to interrogate by extension, phone number, user ID or IP address • Powerful troubleshooting and diagnostics enable drill down to Figure 1: nGenius Voice | Video Manager Real-time Dashboard. individual user sessions and calls Enterprise organizations invest signifi cantly in Unifi ed Communications (UC) technologies with the expectation of improving collaboration and business productivity across their organizations. This adoption of UC services to enable better collaboration assumes that service quality will be suffi cient for end users to interact effectively. However, today’s UC deployments are very complex, require uncompromising interoperability between multi- vendor products and traverse a number of different network domains. While traditional performance monitoring approaches have focused on the network-related performance of these services, there are a myriad of issues that can impair video and voice quality. IT organization must consider the performance of the UC application and network together to accurately understand and assure UC service quality. While network performance attributes have been a reasonable proxy for video and voice service performance, IT organizations must also measure at the application level to completely characterize the quality of UC services. Consequently, to achieve a true representation of user experience, IT organizations must look beyond basic network performance to understand how UC applications behave.

Product Overview The nGenius® Voice | Video Manager is a self-contained UC performance management and analysis module for the nGenius Service Assurance Solution enabling comprehensive real-time service management for UC services. nGenius Voice | Video Manager delivers granular application-specifi c metrics for IP-based telepresence, video and voice session transmission and conversation quality to characterize real-time service performance and the true user experience. This enables IT organizations to obtain actionable visibility into the end-to-end behavior and quality of UC applications and services. Supporting a broad complement of UC technologies, vendors and services, the nGenius module combines proactive service management, intelligent troubleshooting, automated diagnostics, fl exible reporting and innovative service desk support to reveal UC application-level behavior on a per-user, per-call basis. nGenius Voice | Video Manager collects real-time IP traffi c metrics from strategic instrumentation points along the call path, from endpoints, and from data collected from VoIP call controllers and Session Border Controllers (SBCs).

ENTERPRISE DATA SHEET | nGenius Voice | Video Manager

nGenius Voice | Video Manager

nGenius Voice | Video nGenius InfiniStream Data Collector Appliance

nGenius Voice | Video Engine Appliance Branch Office

Endpoint Embedded 3rd Party Metrics Metrics Call Path Call Path Metrics Metrics CDRs PSTN

Campus WAN/ Data IP Network SBC PSTN Center Far End SBC

Figure 2: Collecting user experience metrics end-to-end. nGenius Voice | Video Manager enables Real-Time UC Session and Call for analysis, reporting and diagnosis of the IT organization to understand Measurements faults. By leveraging a wide range of application-level behavior and its impact on measurement points to fully assess the nGenius Voice | Video Manager measures user experience to quickly isolate service quality and performance of UC services, and analyzes RTP stream and payload impact beyond network performance. nGenius Voice | Video Manager leverages by leveraging highly effi cient, distributed Powerful fi lters enable quick analysis the following for measurements: data gathering from intelligent data by traffi c type, location, geography, sources deployed across the UC service function, specifi c user groups. Rich quality • nGenius Voice | Video Engine Appliances delivery chain. The solution collects UC measurements for voice services include – dedicated UC deep packet analysis performance metrics in real-time along echo, speech level, noise level, speech appliances call paths using high defi nition packet fl ow distortion, and listening and conversational • nGenius Infi niStream® appliance – analysis, from mid-point appliances and quality. Video-related measurements combined measurement of data traffi c embedded agents in end-points, to deliver identify the impact of IP impairments and and UC traffi c from a single device a highly accurate assessment of UC media application issues. stream quality and performance. nGenius • Measurements from video and voice Voice | Video Manager also dynamically agents embedded in IBM and Microsoft Support for Any UC Vendor measures in real-time and extracts granular UC application soft-clients nGenius Voice | Video manager supports call and session quality as well as user • CDR data leveraged from IPT session highly complex multi-location, multi-vendor experience metrics from active UC media managers and Session Border environments. Quality measurements and streams. nGenius Voice | Video Manager Controllers (SBCs) assessments are agnostic of any particular collects and correlates these metrics to vendor platform and can assess virtually provide a unique view into UC service any UC technology vendor environment. behavior with granular per-user, per- Whether the service is voice or video, session QoE assessments. desktop or room-based, soft-client or fi xed phone, assessment methods are applied Media stream performance and user in a consistent manner. Measurements experience measurements are collected can be made across service types and by appliances deployed along the call for complex multi-vendor deployments. path, at traffi c aggregation points, at the Measuring Real Time Protocol (RTP) point of demarcation, from soft-clients, streams, nGenius Voice | Video Manager or from physical desktop devices. Call assesses UC service performance across Data Records (CDRs) from call or session a wide range of VoIP platforms including, managers can also be collected to identify Cisco®, Avaya®, Nortel®, ShoreTel®, called and calling party information. CDR Siemens®, Mitel®, NEC® and many others. data is correlated with call/session media Video systems are supported from vendors stream metrics into a single call/session including Cisco, Tandberg®, Polycom® and record. nGenius Voice | Video Manager LifeSize®. Most unifi ed desktop solutions collects all metrics from distributed are supported, with unique endpoint measurement points across the service metrics from Microsoft® Lync™, and IBM® delivery environment and correlates them Sametime®.

ENTERPRISE 2 DATA SHEET | nGenius Voice | Video Manager

Figure 3: Troubleshoot View of a high-level service performance summary.

Comprehensive Performance specifi c user call to quickly identify quality triage and resolve problems as they occur. Management with Seamless problems, triage impact and isolate the The Monitor View is updated in real-time, Integrated Workfl ows root cause of degradations. For less including updates for calls in progress, technical IT staff, automated diagnostics at user defi nable increments and IT staff nGenius Voice | Video Manager supports enable a guided troubleshooting workfl ow can defi ne relevant alarms and alerts to a comprehensive range of UC service that simplifi es and accelerates problem meet their particular operating environment performance management and analysis resolution. These views range from high requirements. tasks. An intuitive integrated dashboard level service summaries down to individual provides real-time proactive service level users session and stream analysis. Troubleshoot alerting and quality indicators for all video and voice sessions. nGenius Voice | Building on its rich heritage, nGenius The Troubleshoot View provides Video Manager proactively analyzes all Voice | Video Manager offers fi ve cross- experienced IT staff with a contextual UC service traffi c to identify emerging integrated views that provide progressive, analysis path into network and payload quality affecting issues. When service meaningful and relevant metrics that allow details for UC sessions. This view enables performance degradations are identifi ed IT staff to quickly retrieve the precise more technically skilled users the ability alarms and QoE events are generated information needed to resolve problems to drill-down into a range of detailed prompting further investigation. The event with video and voice sessions as they performance metrics to quickly identify is paired with links to the calls that are occur. problem areas and pinpoint the source affected by the issue, source devices of UC service degradation. Sessions of the problems and targeted service Monitor and calls can be assessed by grouped characterization reports. Although events endpoints or by a per user session with The primary Monitor View delivers a are used to resolve issues proactively in detailed call level performance metrics powerful at-a-glance real-time summary of real-time, they are also stored for historical and powerful fi lters, enabling fl exible overall UC service health and performance reporting and performance trending. analysis based upon traffi c type, location, levels. IT staff can progress from this geography, function, user groups. Calls or IT staff can seamlessly progress from dashboard to underlying data for more sessions that have been assessed across a high level status view into specifi c detailed analysis to quickly identify multiple locations are presented in an user call/session analysis based upon problems affecting users. From this easy-to-view network-oriented visualization measurements correlated from all dynamic console, IT staff has a unifi ed displaying correlated metrics from along data sources and assessment points. view of Enterprise-wide video and voice the service delivery chain. Consequently, Streamlined and fl exible workfl ows enable application performance with up-to-the- IT staff can quickly identify which users powerful analysis and troubleshooting minute insight into QoE events, service are experiencing video and voice quality activities that support a wide range degradations, call counts, active alarms/ problems and empower them to rapidly of proactive and reactive service alerts, along with a breakdown of video and identify and triage performance problems management tasks. Consequently, IT staff voice Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). and assign issues to the correct service can quickly assess large call volumes, Each identifi ed event provides contextual teams. with guided diagnostics, drilling into a linkage to underlying metrics needed to

ENTERPRISE 3 DATA SHEET | nGenius Voice | Video Manager

Figure 4: Service Desk View of a query.

Proactive for a given user with session-specifi c Granular Bi-Directional Session Building on the Troubleshoot View, the details along with identifi ed problems and Visibility diagnosis. This enables the immediate Proactive View is specifi cally designed to nGenius Voice | Video Manager provides identifi cation of service affecting issues as provide a more automated troubleshooting granular visibility into the bi-directional well as recurring faults for any endpoint. workfl ow. Optimized to empower the stream of a specifi c user video and voice As with the Proactive View, the Service less technical IT staff, the Proactive View sessions. The granular visibility into Desk View provides IT staff with a guided displays critical video and voice service bi-directional session streams enables workfl ow that delivers simple, non-technical events, with a guided analysis workfl ow to the assessment of each direction of a assessments with suggested actions. help quickly pinpoint and isolate service user session to quickly determine where Context sensitive help with simple English problems. To simplify the troubleshooting performance impairments may have been explanations is also available to speed process, plain English contextual help introduced. For video and Telepresence diagnosis and enable support staff to raise is available as the IT user progresses environments, nGenius Voice | Video trouble tickets with the correct resolution through the workfl ow. This simplifi ed and Manager can assess dual-party and multi- teams for immediate resolution. automated view enables much broader use party conferences, providing a combined across IT organizations while promoting Report view into the multi-party conference better cross-team collaboration as the session as well as visibility into each entire IT organization will be working from The Report View provides a individual user session. the same data and metrics. comprehensive range of reporting capabilities that enable the on-demand Unique End-Device Calibration Service Desk or scheduled generation of business- Innovative device-specifi c calibration The Service Desk View enables integrated relevant reports. IT staff can generate enables the adaptation of quality service desk support for reactive customer custom reports base upon a wide range measurements to match the unique complaints and is specifi cally targeted for of metrics or leverage a number of pre- characteristics of specifi c endpoints. use by fi rst-level support, help desk and defi ned report templates for profi ling of This ensures that quality measurements staff. The Service Desk View enables the common performance metrics, service and the resulting metrics provide a true support staff to make informed, accurate summaries, trending and detailed service representation of a particular device’s and factual decisions based on the problem characterization and service level reports. performance and compensate for error the user may be having, enabling the quick IT staff can automate reports to generate recovery methods and a specifi c fi rmware escalation of the user’s issue to the right regular snapshots or leverage the view to releases. IT team member for decisive resolution. create reports on-demand. With the Service Desk View, a specifi c voice or video session can be accessed based upon the user’s name, extension or IP address. Upon query, support staff will see a historical list of all calls or sessions

ENTERPRISE 4 DATA SHEET | nGenius Voice | Video Manager

USER EXPERIENCE

Network Performance Application Performance Header Metrics Payload Metrics

‡ Jitter ‡ Listening Quality ‡ Packet Loss ‡ Conversation Quality ‡ Latency ‡ Voice Degradations ‡ Congestion ‡ Video Degradations

Identify transport impairments impacting UC Assess application performance and quality of service delivery, availability and quality UC services

Advanced RTP stream and payload analysis

Figure 5: Standards-Based user experience measurements.

Standards-Based Measurements Audio Performance OSS Integration nGenius Voice | Video Manager For voice sessions, nGenius Voice | Video nGenius Voice | Video Manager can deliver quality assessment measurements are Manager assesses both network and a wide range of performance and service based upon a number of International application performance to reveal session level metrics to third-party management Telecommunications Union (ITU) standards quality and identify the impact of any IP systems through an API-based interfaces for real-time video and voice quality impairments and application performance that enables customized reporting and real- assessment, including ITU P.564 for IP issues. Assessments are calibrated to time metric access. Integration is available network impairments, and ITU P.561, specifi c endpoint characteristics and for many industry-leading platforms P.562 and P.563 for packet payload measurements include: payload analysis, including those from HP, IBM and CA. condition. In addition, measurements and listening quality and conversation quality. quality assessment ratings performed These measurements will help to identify by nGenius Voice | Video Manager are common quality impacting issues such as further strengthened as a result of more acoustic echo, delay, noise, signal-to-noise than 500,000 subjective tests of user ratios, speech level, and speech distortion. perception of quality for video and voice communications. Complements Vendor-Specifi c Management Tools Video Performance Assessments nGenius Voice | Video Manager For video sessions, nGenius Voice | Video empowers the IT organization to Manager assesses both network and video effectively and decisively manage all the application performance to reveal session delivery of UC services with a unifi ed, quality and identify the impact of any IP independent view of application and impairments and application performance network performance characteristics. issues. Assessments are calibrated to This approach complements UC vendor specifi c endpoint characteristics and platform management tools by allowing the measurements include video application assessment of the end-to-end performance analysis, video compression artefacts, of UC services across multi-vendor frame-rate and bit-rate and mid-call environments independent of a specifi c coding changes. Measurements will UC vendor platform. This independent help to identify issues with oversight enables the IT organization to performance and errors, video payload readily identify performance and QoE application behavior and platform driven related issues missed by platform-specifi c bandwidth throttling. Measurements will management tools such as multi-vendor assess audio and video together and interoperability, gateway issues as well as identify specifi c video frames (I/P/B) that network performance, carrier issues and may be affected. outside environmental factors.

ENTERPRISE 5 DATA SHEET | nGenius Voice | Video Manager

Transport Voice/Audio Voice/Audio Video Coding Video Coding Supported Protocols Coding Coding Standard Advanced Standard Metrics Standards Advanced Measurements Calibration Calibrated Assessment Assessment Metrics Metrics • RTP • G.711A • GSM 06.10 • H.261 • MPEG-1 Video • Voice: ITU P.564 • RDT • G.711μ • AMR-NB and WB • H.263 • MPEG-2 Video • Video: ITU P.561 • MPEG-2 TS • G.723.1 • VMR-WB • H.263+/H.263++ • MPEG-4 Visual P.562, P.563 • MSB (Microsoft - • G.722 • G.729D and E • H.264 • VC-1 Multicast) • G.728 • GSM-EFR • MS RTVideo • JPEG • G.722.1 • EVRC • Windows Media • Celb • G.722.1C • SMV Video 9 • BT.656 • iLBC • iPCM-WB • DV • G.726 (16kbps, • Uncompressed Video 24kbps, 32kbps, • Realvideo 40kbps) • • 16kbps • AAC-LD • iSAC

Deployment Specifi cations Supported Data Sources • Appliances Per Server: 20 • nGenius Voice | Video Engine Appliance • Max Interfaces per Engine: 4 • nGenius Infi niStream Appliance • Interfaces per Manager: 50 • nGenius Voice | Video Manager Data Collector • Concurrent Streams across solution: 100,000 – Microsoft Lync (endpoint voice quality via Microsoft Lync Server) – IBM Sametime (endpoint video and voice quality via client plugin) – Cisco Call Data Records – Acme Packet SBC Call Data Records

Minimum System Requirements

Client Server • Category Requirement • Operating System Software-only options are supported with RedHat 5.5, 64-bit • CPU • Storage 200 GB – Minimum: 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium M processor, or equivalent • RAM 8 GB – Recommended: 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium M processor, or equivalent • Processor 2.33 GHz, single quad-core • RAM – Minimum: 512 MB (Virtual machines that fully meet the hardware and operating system specifi cation – Recommended: 1GB are supported) • Monitor with 1280x1024 resolution • Link Bandwidth: 1.5 Mbit/s • Web Browser – Minimum: Microsoft Internet Explorer v6; Firefox v3.0 – Recommended: Microsoft Internet Explorer v8, Firefox v3

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Copyright © 2012 NetScout Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. NetScout, nGenius and Infi niStream are registered trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc. and/or its affi liates in the United For more information, please visit States and/or other countries. Cisco and Tandberg are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. Microsoft is a registered trademark and Lync is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. www.netscout.com or contact NetScout IBM and Sametime are registered trademarks of IBM Corporation. All other brands and product names, and registered and unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective at 800-309-4804 or +1 978-614-4000 owners. NetScout reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to make changes at any time in its technical information, specifi cations, and service and support programs.

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