IP telephony lifecycle

management
White paper

Table of contents
Introduction ................................................................................................ 2
Managing IP telephony: scoping the problem .................................................. 2
HP Management Solution for IP Telephony ..................................................... 5
Conclusion .................................................................................................. 8
Introduction This paper reviews the challenges of IP telephony, and
then provides an overview of the HP IP Telephony
Management Solution. This solution is based on a
The adoption of IP telephony (IPT) is steadily growing
lifecycle approach that optimizes the utilization of
as companies recognize the value of converged voice
people, process and technology for managing IPT.
and data networks. Growing evidence today suggests
From planning through delivery, to operation, the HP
that IPT will eventually replace traditional telephony
solution simplifies management of the complex IP tele-
technology, and sooner rather than later. Helping drive
phony environment and provides the highly specialized
the success of IPT, early adopters are reaping the
and automated management features needed for
promised benefits of reduced operating costs, increased
success.
efficiency and productivity, and greater flexibility to
deploy additional voice-related services.

Of course, IP telephony is not without risk. Deploying Managing IP telephony:

IPT can involve significant commitments of capital and
resources to replace a high-quality, reliable legacy
phone system. In addition, once an IP telephony system
is widely deployed, the phone service it provides is
essential for conducting business and for the people who
depend on it—people like customer service representa-
tives, sales teams and stock traders, to name a few.
Lastly, IP telephony systems are highly complex, real-
time systems with stringent quality and availability
requirements.
Given the benefits and the risks of IP telephony, it’s
vital that a company examines the challenges and
employs a rigorous and holistic approach for deploying
and managing IP telephony.
scoping the problem
The importance and complexity of an IP telephony
system creates a number of challenges related to
managing the environment. These challenges result
from the fact that IP telephony:
• Is a business-essential application and thus, drives
stringent quality and availability requirements
• Is one of the first real-time applications to be widely
deployed on the IP network
• Is a service comprised of interdependent technologies
including: applications, systems and special network-
ing infrastructure
• Is typically rolled out in phases over time

2
Figure 1. Network design
considerations for VoIP Endpoints Access Distribution Core WAN/PSTN

Network trust boundary WAN

WAN
PSTN
PSTN

End-to-end delay should be less than 150ms

Sources of delay
CODEC (G.729A 25 ms Duplex mismatch Queuing delay Queuing delay Serialization delay
(packet loss) (variable) (variable) (variable)
Jitter buffer (20–50 ms) Propagation delay
(6.3 ms/Km + variable
network delay)
Network design considerations
L2 QoS Separate VLANs for Rapid convergence Rapid convergence Modularity
voice and data
VLAN trunking Rapid convergence IP summarization L3 QoS WAN QoS
Trust boundary L2 QoS L3 QoS Traffic shaping
Link efficiency (LFI)

Source: Ramesh Kaza and Salman Asadullah, “Cisco IP Telephony: Planning, Design, Implementation, Operation, and Optimization,” Cisco Press, pages 117,
125, 2005

2.1 Stringent quality and availability 2.2 Real-time application

In general, a telephone service is considered a business-
essential application. For example, voice communica-
tion is essential for discussion and correspondence
among employees within a company, among a com-
pany and its vendors, and among a company and its
customers. Thus, the availability and quality of the
voice service can impact business performance,
including revenue.
Next, in most cases, IP telephony is replacing a highly
reliable and high-quality legacy phone service. And
legacy phone systems have been known to work even
during power outages. In order for an IP telephony
deployment to be successful, it must meet or exceed
these existing benchmarks. This translates to 99.999
percent (“five nines”) availability and “pin-drop”
quality of service (QoS).
At the highest level, these availability and quality
benchmarks drive the objectives for the management
system. For example, an effective management system
should provide comprehensive and detailed availability
and quality reporting for the IP telephony system. Also,
an effective management system should enable maxi-
mum availability and quality through reduced mean
time to repair.
IP telephony is one of the first widely adopted real-time
applications to run on the network and this presents
some unique management challenges. As a real-time
application, voice service quality is sensitive to network
jitter, latency and packet loss. General thresholds for
these metrics are as follows:
• Maximum jitter can be no higher than 40 milliseconds
• Latency must be less than 100 milliseconds
• Packet loss must be less than 1 percent
To meet these stringent network performance criteria,
it’s typical for an IP telephony deployment project to
also include a significant amount of re-engineering
of the IP network. Examples of network upgrades to
support VoIP are provided in Figure 1.
An effective management solution can play important
roles in planning, delivering and supporting a real-
time network for VoIP. For example, automatically
configuring L2 and L3 QoS settings across a network
can improve accuracy and save IT staff time. Further-
more, management solutions can be used to monitor
and diagnose transient and hard-to-locate voice quality
issues resulting from poor network performance
and/or configurations issues.

3
Figure 2. Distributed IP telephony
system HQ

E-mail IP PBX Softphone

LDAP/AD

IM etc. FAX

PSTN CO-Voice CO-Data (WAN) Internet

VPN

LOC #1 LOC #2 LOC #3

2.3 Complex and multi-domain An effective management solution should manage

across the entire IP telephony system from the phone,
system to the IP PBX, to the gateway and throughout the IP
IP telephony is a service comprised of interdependent network. Furthermore, it should manage for service
technologies including: applications, systems and levels, faults, availability, performance, capacity, etc.
special networking infrastructure—all of which require
management. Figure 2 and Table 1 provide a sample 2.4 Phased rollouts
layout for a distributed IP telephony system and a Finally, within an enterprise, IP telephony is typically
listing of associated potential problems for the key rolled out in a phased approach versus all at once and
components. this drives special management considerations. There
are several reasons for phased implementations of IPT
including: mergers and acquisitions, depreciation
Table 1. IP telephony system component management requirements schedules of legacy telephony systems, brand new
sites and, probably most importantly, enterprises work
Component Potential problems
to increase IPT deployment success by building a
IP PBX—call processing system Application availability
services, application processes, Application process fault
center of expertise around IP telephony deployments.
system resources System overload Thus, a management solution should accommodate the
Gateway, gateway endpoints, Overutilization lifecycle nature of IPT deployments. For example, the
channels Gateway endpoint shows availability IPT management solution should be able to expand
but zero utilization
and scale as the IPT system grows overtime and it
IP network Availability and performance of IP
network incorporates reusable templates (e.g. network config-
Routing configuration error sends voice uration templates for QoS).
traffic through inefficient path
IP phones Poor quality during call

4
Figure 3. IP telephony
management lifecycle
Plan Deliver Plan
IPT business case/ROI
Information and data gathering
Operate
HP Management
Solution for IP Telephony
The complexities of an IP telephony system and its
phased deployment schedule create many challenges.
To handle these technical and management challenges,
it’s prudent to adopt a rigorous and holistic manage-
ment approach. One such approach is provided by the
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).1 ITIL provides an applica-
tion lifecycle management model, which offers a best
practice framework that accommodates people, pro-
cesses and technology and is well suited for IP telephony.
And because it’s a lifecycle model, it matches the
phased rollout plans typical of IP telephony deployments.
The HP IP Telephony Management Solution is based
on the ITIL application lifecycle management model
and is depicted in Figure 3.
The following sections describe how the HP
Management Solution for IP Telephony helps enable
a successful IPT project at each stage of the lifecycle.
3.1 Plan
The first step toward migrating to IP telephony is to
work through the business case. Companies deploy IP
telephony for economic and productivity benefits and
an ROI analysis is a common first step. This paper
assumes this step is complete.
Once the business justification has been completed,
the technology planning begins. The key objective of
the technology-planning phase is to gather data for the
delivery phase. So it’s important to look ahead to the
delivery phase to understand what data is necessary
to complete an effective design. Following are exam-
ples of types of information collected during the
planning phase:
Deliver Operate
NW routing service design Fault, availability, diagnostics
QoS policy determination Service level management
Network configuration Performance management
Capacity planning
• Reliability of the existing network
• Redundancy and resiliency of existing network
• Capacity (bandwidth and ports) of existing network
• Performance of existing wide area network (WAN)
to handle IPT traffic
The HP IP Telephony Management Solution provides
several automated capabilities to aid in the planning
phase. These capabilities include the following:
• Network availability and fault reporting to determine
the overall reliability of the network and individual
components. This reporting enables the identification
of network devices with the highest overall fault counts
and the lowest mean time between failures, which
are potential weak links within the network.
• Automated network discovery and topology mapping.
This can be used as the basis for network architec-
ture analysis (i.e. subscription ratios between access,
distribution and core layers).
• Automated network inventory reporting. Inventory
reports can be used to identify legacy network
hardware and software to assess upgrades that will
be required to support VoIP (e.g. identify which
switches support L2 QoS and rapid convergence
technologies).
• Network performance reporting and capacity
planning for establishing existing baseline capacity
and performance. For example, performance reports
can identify congested devices, interfaces and links.
1
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework of best
practice approaches intended to facilitate the delivery of high quality informa-
tion technology (IT) services. ITIL outlines an extensive set of management
procedures that are intended to support businesses in achieving both quality
and value for money in IT operations. These procedures are supplier-
independent and have been developed to provide guidance across the
breadth of IT infrastructure, development and operations. [Source: Wikipedia]
5
 The following example illustrates how HP software
Figure 4. Route analytic
automates this process. First, the performance baseline
management system (RAMS) is automatically captured from the existing network
traffic view showing network (see Figure 4 above). Then, the required VoIP band-
performance baseline
width is estimated using a table similar to Table 2.
Next, the estimated VoIP traffic load is injected into the
network using an HP simulation and modeling engine.
This modeling engine recalculates the routes and traffic
across the network and develops reports showing the
new state. See Figure 5. At this point, operators can
change network infrastructure and configurations and
re-run simulations to optimize the network to support
the VoIP traffic.

Provisioning
Once the design phase is complete, the desired state
must be provisioned throughout the network. Network
3.2 Deliver changes and configurations must be carefully imple-
mented, equipment must be commissioned and its
The second phase of the IP telephony lifecycle is the
proper functioning verified. This typically involves:
delivery phase. The delivery phase includes both
design and provisioning tasks. The design tasks utilize • Deploying and configuring new hardware
the information and data collected during the planning • Deploying new quality of service policies
phase to design the IP telephony system and the under- • Provisioning the IP telephony system (IP PBX,
lying IP network to support VoIP. The provisioning tasks Gateways, etc.)
involve implementing and commissioning those designs.
HP IP Telephony Management Solution provides cap- HP IP Telephony Management Solution provides auto-
abilities to support the design and delivery tasks within mation for several tasks associated with provisioning
the delivery phase. the IP telephony system. First, HP provides automated
network change and configuration management for
Design automating the configuration of network devices (e.g.
There are many aspects associated with designing an L2 and L3 QoS configuration policies). Furthermore,
IP telephony system. However, this paper only focuses HP WAN optimization capabilities enable real-time
on some of the design tasks associated with the IP views of routing and traffic analysis for validating
network to support VoIP that are aided by HP software. expected network performance.
The first area of focus is associated with network con-
Table 2. VoIP bandwidth calculation example
figurations for VoIP. Because of the connectionless
nature and required real-time performance of VoIP, Small site Medium site Large site
it’s common to deploy special network configurations. Phones 250 1,000 5,000
Examples of configurations deployed to support VoIP Call profile
include the following: separate VLANs for voice data, Utilization 20% 20% 20%
layer 2 and layer 3 quality of service and advanced Simultaneous calls 50 200 1000
router settings (e.g. link fragment interleaving). But in Internal 60% 60% 60%
large multi-vendor environments, planning and design Internal calls 30 120 600
for network configurations can be a tedious, time con- Intersite (LAN) 60% 60% 60%
suming and error prone. Automated network change Intrasite (WAN) 40% 40% 40%
and configuration management software by HP pro- Intersite calls (LAN) 18 72 360
vides a significant amount of automation and control Intrasite calls (WAN) 11 43 216
for these tasks. External PSTN 40% 40% 40%

Another key area of design for the network is the IP External calls (PSTN) 20 80 400

network routing service. Migrating from traditional Utilization codec 6.711 (64 Kbps) 3.2 Mbps 12.8 Mbps 64 Mbps

telephony to IP telephony places additional traffic on

the network and it must be designed for. HP provides
automated simulation and modeling capabilities to aid
in the design process for routed networks.

6
Figure 5. Network topology
showing redesigned network
links
Figure 6. Network node
manager smart plug-in (NNM
SPI) for IPT IP communication
console
3.3 Operate
The final phase in the IP telephony lifecycle is the opera-
tional phase. The objective of the operational phase is
to maintain the desired state for the IP telephony system
(i.e. to increase its availability and performance).
Because an IP telephony system is a complex multi-
domain system a comprehensive end-to-end solution
is required. That is, a solution that provides for the
management of IP telephony services, applications,
systems and networks. Furthermore, it’s critical that the
HP IP Telephony Management Solution is integral with
a company’s existing operational management frame-
work to enable efficiency.
HP provides a comprehensive solution for managing
the operational phase of the IP telephony lifecycle,
which includes the following: fault and availability
management, performance management, capacity
planning and service level management. Following are
descriptions of each.
Fault and availability management
The HP solution provides for end-to-end IP telephony
fault and availability management. The dashboard
presented in Figure 6, illustrates the breadth of the HP
solution. For example, it provides status indicators for
IP telephony services (e.g. route patterns), IP PBX
resources and performance monitoring statistics, gate-
keepers and gateway endpoints, all in one view. From
this one view, operators can quickly assess the health
of their cross-domain IP telephony system and respond
efficiently. Also, each status indicator enables drill-
down to underlying real-time metrics for additional
information and links to performance reporting and
capacity planning.
In addition to overall monitoring of the IP telephony
system, HP provides advanced diagnostic capabilities.
Voice quality issues can be difficult to detect and
diagnose. The HP solution is designed to catch voice
quality issues in real-time (i.e. while they are occurring).
The HP solution initiates when call metrics exceed
performance thresholds and automatically analyzes the
network path among phones to isolate the problem. An
important benefit of this approach is that, once set up,
it works automatically without operator involvement.
Performance management
Performance management is about verifying that the
IP telephony system operates within acceptable perfor-
mance thresholds on an ongoing basis and it’s about
capturing data for diagnostics. The HP solution pro-
vides performance reporting and monitoring across
an IP telephony system for the following:
• CallManager system resources: CPU, memory, disk
usage
• CallManager usage/load: calls active, calls rejected
due to call throttling
• Call statistics: call success ratio (CSR), disconnect
cause, call type distribution
• Gateway, Gateway endpoints and Gateway endpoint
channels: availability and usage
7
Figure 7. Automatic root-cause
analysis for voice quality issues NNM + IPT SPI RCA Event

SNMP Collect SNMP Collect

x142

L2 L2

IPSLA Tests
WAN Problem between Nodes BLR_Edge and DEN_Edge,
Phone: Src. Ext 132 (15.106.79.68) Dest. Ext. 142 (15.10.79.93)

HP Problem
Diagnosis

BLR_Edge DEN_Edge
Router Router

Figure 8. Voice quality service

level reporting: mean opinion
score (MOS) reporting

Capacity planning (voice services), CallManager availability and voice

Capacity planning verifies that the IP telephony system
is right-sized. Most of the data that is collected for fault
and availability management and performance man-
agement is automatically trended and forecasted for
capacity planning. For example, CallManager system
resource metrics, such as CPU utilization, are trended
and alerts can be generated when forecasted trends
exceed acceptable capacity limits. Capacity planning is
provided for the entire system including CallManagers,
CallManager clusters, Gateways and Gateway
endpoints.
Service level management
As with other business services, service level reporting is
essential to provide ongoing service health and quality.
Furthermore, service level reporting provides evidence
and justification as to the success of an IP telephony
project for stakeholders. The HP solution provides for
automated service level reporting for service availability
quality (i.e. minimum mean opinion score (MOS),
average MOS and maximum MOS reporting).
Conclusion
In summary, HP IP Telephony Management Solution
provides the capabilities necessary to manage the IPT
lifecycle and delivers:
• Increased service availability and performance for
the business-essential voice service
• Reduced business risk and successful deployments of
VoIP
• Reduced capital and operational expense via
optimized converged infrastructure
• Increased operational efficiency and productivity for
converged operations teams, engineering and telecom

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© Copyright 2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to
change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty
statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an
additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
4AA1-6016ENW, October 2007