VQManager - VoIP Call Quality Monitoring Software

Release Notes

Distributed Edition

VQManager Distributed Editionis a scalable solution best suited for large enterprises and VoIP service providers for monitoring their VoIP network. Distributed Editionhelps monitoring VoIP networks spread across distributed locations / multiple VLANs in a single location. Consolidated Central console GUI helps identify and troubleshoot VoIP problems and provides more insight into your VoIP. Apart from troubleshooting, the management can also get inputs on maintaining their VoIP user base and use the bandwidth accordingly. For installation details of Central and Probe Servers, refer the installation guide.

Distributed Edition- Central Server

Distributed EditionCentral Server is the master server which provides a consolidated view of the data from all the Probe Servers. It collects data from all the Probe Servers periodically and shows it in a centralized UI.

Configuring the Site and Probe Server

A Site is a logical representation of a group of IPPhones monitored by a single Probe Server. Each Site should be associated with a Probe Server which monitors that Site and provides data to the Central Server periodically. To see the list of all the registered Probe Servers with the Central Server, go to Admin tab and click the Probe under System Settings. It will show the list of Probes as shown below.

Here Status indicates whether the Probe Server is Up / Down. Last polled at indicates the time at which the Probe is last polled by the Central Server for data sync-up. We have three icons present under the Action header field

• The first one (end to end arrow symbol) is "Sync Probe data now" symbol. It is used for data sync-up immediately. The Central Server will periodically fetch the data from the Probe. If we want to sync the Probe data with Central Server manually at any time, we can click on this icon. Data sync-up will be immediately scheduled irrespective of the polling interval.
• The second icon (notepad symbol) is "Edit Probe" icon. We can edit the Probe details by clicking on this icon.
• The third icon (Trash can) is "Delete Probe" symbol. We can click on this icon to delete the Probe. But make sure that the Probe is not associated with any other Site, as an associated Probe cannot be deleted. It should be Unassociated first and then can be deleted.

Editing probe details

See below for the editable Probe fields.

• HTTP/SSL Port is the Probe Servers web-server port.
• Poll interval to Retry(Seconds) indicates the time interval for polling and data sync-up.
• Enable/Disable Probe drop down is used for enabling or disabling a Probe. If a Probe is disabled, the data polling will be stopped and the Site will not be monitored.

Steps for adding the Sites and assigning the Probe Server

• Go to Admin tab and click on Site under System Settings

• After the Site is added, there will be a '+' symbol beside the Site name under Associate Probe header. Click on the symbol. The same symbol is used for Unassociating any associated Probe for the Site.

• Select a Probe from the list of Probes available and click Associate

• By clicking on the "[+]" symbol before the Site name, we can see the associated site, if any.
• Now this Site will be listed in the Central Server Dashboard "Site" dropdown list.
• Follow the same procedure to create new Sites and to associate Probes for these Sites.

Editing / Deleting a Site

• To Edit the Site name, click on the Edit Site icon present under Action header. Provide the new name and click Update to save the changes as shown below.

• To delete a Site, we need to Unassociate the Probe Server, if any, associated to that Site.
• To Unassociate the Probe Server from a Site, click on the Associate Probe('+' symbol) icon present beside the Site name.
• It will show the Probe associated, if any, to that Site. Click on the Unassociate button. Probe will be Unassociated.

• Now, click on the Delete Site(Trash Can) icon present under the Action header. An alert message will be shown to confirm Site deletion. Click Yes to delete the Site.

The Top Bar

The top bar of the Central Server UI contains options Refresh Every(only for Dashboard), Site(s) drop down and Time filter(drop down) as shown in below image

Refresh Every

To configure the refresh interval, click on the link available beside Refresh Every: option(By default, it will be 2 Minutes). It will provide a drop down from where we can choose the time interval as shown in the below image. Click on the required time interval and it is saved. Click on Cancel button to leave the existing value.

Site(s) drop down

We can see the Site(s) drop down menu in all the tabs (except Admin tab). In the VQManager Central Dashboard page, by default, "All Sites" option will be selected as shown in the above Top bar image. Then VQManager will show the consolidated data collected from all the associated Probes. We can select a particular Site name from this drop down menu if we want to see data corresponding to a particular Site. On selecting a Site, we will be taken to the Probe UI showing data about the corresponding Site using the SSO feature enabled. If we select a Site in one tab, it will be carried over to the other tabs also.

Time filter

The Time filter is available in all the tabs(except Reports and Admin tabs). The Time filter is used to filter the data that we are going to see in the Central Server by date. By default, Today will be selected and the Dashboard graphs and other pages will be populated with today's data. We can also see the data for Yesterday, summary data for Last 7 days and Last 30 days. To see data for any other time interval other than the above provided options, we can choose the Custom time option from the Time filter. Here we can select any date interval for which we want to see the data.

Central Server DashBoard View

The Central Server Dashboard view provides a consolidated view of all the sites and a unified view of each site which can be drilled down to see the information about each site. Here is a brief description of the dashboard

• The Call Volume graph shows the percentage distribution of call volume of all the sites in graphical view and tabular view which provides the actual count of the calls. Clicking on a single site in the graph provides an hourly based call volume graph for that site. On further drill down, it will lead to the corresponding Probe details page.
• The Voice Quality Graph also provides the percentage quality distribution of the successful calls across sites similar to Call Volume graph.
• The Alarms generated across the sites can be seen in a tabular form based on the severity of the alarm.
• The Concurrent Calls graph shows the number of concurrent calls across sites. We can choose either minimum / maximum / average concurrent calls based on the necessity by clicking on the corresponding button available in the graph.
• The Traffic Monitor graph provides the information about the bandwidth utilization of each site based on the type of packets. It will provide information on which traffic is consuming most of the network bandwidth.

Call Volume

The Call Volume graph provides us the percentage distribution of the Successful, Error, Unanswered and Unmonitored calls of all the Sites in a graphical view and the actual counts of these calls in the tabular view. Refer the screenshot shown below.

• Mouse over on the horizontal bar for each site shows the number of calls of the corresponding type. It can also be seen in the table present on the right side.
• Answer Seizure Ratio(ASR) of the selected site is shown above the Call Volume graph on the right side.
• Clicking on the percentage bar of any site on the left side opens the hourly based Call Volume graph on the right side.
• The tabular format and graphical view on the right side can be toggled by clicking on the table and graph icons present on the top right corner of the Call Volume graph.
• Clicking on the links in the Call Volume table or in the Call Volume graph will load the corresponding details page.
• The hourly Call Volume graph for a site is shown in the below image.

We can also see a particular type of calls in the Call Volume graph. Clicking on the bar icon present before the legend (Successful, Error, Unanswered and Unmonitored) under the Call Volume graph will hide/show the corresponding calls in the graph for all the sites. A sample Call Volume graph for Successful Calls alone is shown below. All the other calls are hidden by clicking on the corresponding icons. This is applicable for all the graphs present in the Central Server Dashboard.

Voice Quality

The Voice Quality graph provides the percentage distribution of the Successful calls as Good, Tolerable, Poor calls and No MOS based on the MOS value of the site. This can also be seen in graphical and tabular format. The tabular format can be toggled to graphical format (Line graph) by clicking on the graph icons present at the top right corner of the Voice Quality graph. A sample graph is shown below

Alarms

The tabular view provides the count of Critical, Major and Warning alarms generated in the corresponding sites. For configuring the alarm profiles, login into the Probe Server.

Concurrent Calls

The graph depicts the hourly trend of concurrent calls for each site. The graph can also be plotted based on Minimum, Average and Maximum concurrent calls for each site by selecting the corresponding button present above the graph. We can also see the concurrent calls for each site individually by clicking on the icons present before the legend under the graph. Click on the corresponding sites to show/hide the graph for an individual site.

Traffic Monitor

The Traffic Monitor graph provides us detailed information of the type of traffic flowing in each site. We can see the what amount of bandwidth is consumed by SIP/Skinny/H.323 traffic and the amount of bandwidth consumed by Voice traffic in your VoIP network. Clicking on the percentage distribution graph for any site provides the graphical representation of the bandwidth utilized by the signaling traffic and voice traffic. We can toggle between the tabular format and graphical view by clicking on the graph icons present on the top right corner of the Traffic Monitor graph.

Calls Tab

Calls tab provides the list of active calls going on in a particular site. Here "All Sites" option will not be available in the Site(s) drop down list. By default, the first Site in the dashboard will be selected and the active calls corresponding to that site are shown. We can see the active calls for any site by selecting the corresponding site from the Site(s) drop down list. For more information, please refer this link.

Alarms Tab

Alarms tab provides the site wise count of all the alarms generated in the sites. It provides the site wise list of Critical, Major and Warning alarms generated as shown in the below image.

Clicking on the alarm count provides the detailed list of the corresponding alarms generated for that particular site as shown below. For more information on the alarms, please refer this link. Note : Configuring and editing the alarm profiles can be done only in the Probe Server.

Endpoints tab

The 'Endpoints' tab provides endpoints specific details that would help in analyzing and troubleshooting endpoint specific quality deficiencies. By default, the first site will be selected and the list of endpoints auto-discovered / manually imported for that site are listed. Importing / deleting the endpoints manually to the endpoints list can be done only in the Probe Server. Refer this link for more information on Endpoints tab.

Reports tab

The 'Reports' section provides the statistical information on 'what is going on' in your VoIP network and how your VoIP network is performing. The status and summaries of the different activities are provided in the form of tables and graphs, which assist the administrators in making well-informed decisions and taking precautionary measures.

Broadly, VQManager provides four types of reports:

• Custom Reports
• Reports on Top Users
• Reports on Top Hosts
• Concurrent Calls reports

Admin tab

The following configuration settings are available in the Central Server.

• Site : Adding/modifying the Site(s). Refer this link for more information on creating and associating the sites.
• Probe : It will list all the Probe Servers registered with the Central Server. We can edit/delete the Probe details here. Refer this link for more information on editing the Probe details.
• User Management : For all the user management operations. Refer this link for more information on User Management
• Runtime Administration : VQManager logs the information in the log files which will be helpful while trouble shooting any issue. Refer this link for more information on Runtime Administration.
• Mail Settings : To configure the mail server settings. Refer this link for more information on Mail Settings.
• Proxy Settings : To configure the proxy server details. Refer this link for more information on Proxy Settings.
• Database Administration : To configure the DB clean up interval. Refer this link for more information on Database Administration.
• Change Password : The password for the user who is currently logged in can be changed here. Refer this link for more information on Change Password
• Skin Selector : It is used to select the theme for VQManager. Click on the corresponding radio button and the theme is applied.

Limitations / know issues in Beta Build

Known issues :

• "Guest" user should not be modified/deleted in Probe Server, Since, the "guest" user is being used for the SSO functionality for Beta release.
• CDR input method should not be used since, it is not applicable for Distributed Edition. The CDR option will be removed in GA Distributed Editionrelease.
• "Site" filter not implemented for Alarms tab.
• "Site" details will not be available in the Exported Reports (pdf,csv)
• "View Profile" option in Reports tab will not work.
• Links to the "Alarms" summary details in Dashboard view will not work.
• "No MOS" Links will not work in "Voice Quality" table view in Central Dashboard
• Proxy server configuration for communication between Central-Probe or vise-versa if the Central and Probe Servers are being installed in different Network(geographically distributed networks).
• Database cleanup policy for Central server Database

Limitations:

• The traffic can be splitted if the concurrent calls count exceeds 1000 in a single site. It can be re-directed to a different probe server and monitored as a separate Site.
• Licensing Module
• Browser should be Flash enabled to view the "Dashboard" of Central Console.
• The user in Central Server will have read only access to the Probe Server, he cannot perform any configuration changes in Probe Server through Central GUI. He has to login separately to the Probe Server GUI.