[VoiceOps] VoIP passive monitoring appliances or software - any recommendations?

[Max Clark]

Along this thought we've been looking for an appliance/probe that can be
easily installed behind the firewall at a customer location. Simply put
something simpler/cheaper than an Edgewater EdgeMarc.

Max


*Max Clark*
Managing Director | Phyber Communications
+1 (213) 929 1700 | mclark at phyber.com

Visit us at www.phyber.com

Hosting | Network | Voice


On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Brian Knight <ml at knight-networks.com>wrote:

> $DAY_JOB is at a national ISP/NSP where we resell VoIP services.  We do
> peering with the VoIP carrier at one of our remote POP's.  We are looking
> for a better way to be able to monitor the handoff of those calls to our
> carrier over that peering link.
>
> We have quite a bit of instrumentation within our walled garden to tell us
> about call quality.  We can monitor our QOS policies to ensure packets
> aren't being dropped by intermediate routers.  If the customer uses our
> routers to terminate their SIP session, we can pull call quality stats from
> those routers as well.  We can also use our own office telephones to make
> and receive test telephone calls, and we can of course run Wireshark
> captures from the switches to which those phones are connected.
>
> However, we can't say for certain that the customer's RTP traffic actually
> made it on the wire connecting us to the VoIP provider, nor can we say that
> the traffic is being transmitted and received properly.  The peering link
> is connected to a Cisco 12k router on our side, so there is no way (afaik)
> to mirror the port, as on a switch.
>
> For the moment, I am envisioning that we'll need to deploy a server
> running Wireshark to the remote POP.  It will need two network interfaces;
> one connected to a management network, the other a capture interface.  The
> capture interface will connect to a network tap, and the network tap
> connected in-line between our router and the patch panel.
>
> Wireshark is probably adequate for what we need.  But I'm wondering if
> there is any software or an appliance that would do the job better.  Given
> the usual details - calling number, called number, date and time - we want
> to be able to quickly inspect traffic and dig into the details of the
> stream.  Do we see any missing packets from the media stream?  What is the
> MOS score of a particular call?  Do we see any missing packets coming from
> us?  Any missing packets from the provider?
>
> Alerting on bad call quality would be a nice-to-have addition.
>
> Any recommendation would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance.
>
> -Brian Knight
>
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