Assessing Your Network For Voice Readiness

INTRODUCTION 3Com Solutions: ASSESSING YOUR NETWORK FOR VOICE READINESS For most organizations today, it’s less a matter of if and when, but more, a matter of how to embrace IP telephony communications. Since 2005, when the balance tipped and more IP telephony systems were shipped than traditional time-division multiplexed (TDM) phone systems, Voice over IP (VoIP) has become the technology of the present and the future. In thousands of installations worldwide, VoIP communications are daily enhancing collaboration, increasing productivity and lowering costs. But even networks that have been optimized to handle large and complex data workloads may not be ready for an IP telephony implementation. WHAT CHARACTERIZES A VOICE READY NETWORK QUALITY. Delivery of reliable, high-quality voice communications—comparable to what users get with traditional PBX systems—plus, support for advanced IP functionality. SECURITY. Protection of voice traffic from vulnerabilities and threats, including those introduced by data traffic running on the same network infrastructure. SIMPLICITY. Elimination of complexity for users and managers, and the ability to easily and economically scale the network to support new devices and applications. ENSURING QUALITY CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................1 What Characterizes a Voice Ready Network ....................................1 Questions to Consider Before Initiating a VoIP Implementation ......................................................................3 Key Elements of a Voice Ready Network..........................................3 Devising a Voice Transition Strategy.................................................5 Summary............................................................................................6 A Voice Ready Network in Action: House Ear Institute............................................................................7 To carry on business effectively, users must be able to conduct conversations as if they were in the same room with the person on the other end of the line. With the latest codecs, audio quality on IP phones now surpasses what was previously possible on analog or even non-IP digital phones. But to attain business-level clarity and immediacy, the network must deliver sufficient bandwidth to support the voice traffic and provide the quality of service prioritization that prevents latency, “jitter” and prolonged call setups. Just as important, the network must be able to reliably deliver a dial tone across the entire organization, over both wired and wireless installations. Phone users have long been accustomed to virtually 100% uptime. Many businesses cannot tolerate interruptions in their telephony service, losing money by the second when calls fail to get through. So a Voice Ready Network must provide high-availability, with the capability to support additional survivability features such as resilient links, uninterruptible power or back-up systems if required. In addition, a high-quality Voice Ready Network needs to be amenable to the strategic vision and budgetary constraints of the organization. If a company is planning to implement a call center, the network should support that capability in advance to ensure functionality and keep implementation costs in check. If a business unit expects to open another district office, the network should be architected to sustain employee productivity with telephony survivability features that can withstand even a WAN failure. Or if video-based training will eventually be part of the picture, the network installed today ought to be able to accommodate the bandwidth and low-latency demands that quality video signals will entail tomorrow. GUARANTEEING SECURITY severe. NAC technology identifies a user attempting network access, verifies that the device being used meets minimum security policies, and implements the proper access controls. PROMOTING SIMPLICITY The Voice Ready Network not only needs to be simple to manage, it must be able to scale as the business grows. This requires an intrinsically simple architecture that distributes intelligence where it is needed with minimal hands-on manual configuration. Communications are becoming increasingly mobile every day, but mobility means more than untethered phones and ear buds. It also involves converging wireline and wireless technologies and delivering critical applications to employees at home, in remote locations or on the road. That is why the network needs to be mobile-ready as well as voice-ready. Technologies such as those based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) will be particularly important in simplifying the process of extending full telephony privileges to users as they travel or roam the building. Then there is the matter of migration. Most managers prefer a migration strategy that is really more of a transition strategy. That is, they want to leave as little of their legacy network behind as possible when they move to a voice-capable infrastructure. This requires a thorough network assessment and implementation plan. Plus, it means installing voicecapable solutions with the flexibility to support a wide range of applications and a full complement of industry standards. To simplify the transition to voice, network technology should be exhaustively tested for compatibility, survivability and multivendor interoperability. This way, the company can preserve current investments and avoid costly and disruptive rip-and-replace upgrades. The various threats to business data networks—ranging from Trojan horses and worms to distributed denial-of-service attacks and intellectual property theft—are well known to IT professionals. But voice traffic is just as susceptible to attacks as data traffic, with most incursions occurring from within the firewall. And wireless networks present additional points of vulnerability. To protect business-critical communications of all types, the network must be capable of defending itself at the infrastructure and application levels by identifying threats and removing them while maintaining network integrity. In addition, network performance must be protected against traffic congestion generated by peer-to-peer, instant messaging and spyware activity. Network Access Control (NAC) is another key element in ensuring a secure VoIP network. The cost of not keeping the network secure from unauthorized entry can be devastating to the organization, and government- or industry-mandated penalties for noncompliance can also be › Voice reliability and quality assurance › Wired or wireless high performance › Integration of best-of-breed, multivendor solutions › Voice protection with secured network › Real-time IPS for IP telephony services › Quarantine capability for data (wired and wireless) VOICE READY NETWORK TY RI U EC S QUALITY › Cost-reducing easy deployment and management SIM PL IC ITY › Plug-and-play usability › Seamless interoperability in multivendor environments A well-designed Voice Ready Network offers organizations a balanced combination of quality, security and simplicity. 2 3Com Solutions: Assessing Your Network for Voice Readiness QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER BEFORE INITIATING A VOIP IMPLEMENTATION › How will traffic be prioritized on the existing network to ensure voice quality? › How can enterprise-level reliability for phone service be ensured? › How can network support of all the telephony applications that users need now and in the future be guaranteed? › How will security threats to voice traffic be handled? › How will the network be scaled to cost-effectively support IP telephony? › How will IP phones and other devices be powered where AC power is unavailable or inconvenient? › How will mobile users be supported? › How can an affordable transition from the legacy infrastructure to a secure, converged network be accomplished? It is attention to all these considerations that differentiates a 3Com Voice Ready Network. The 3Com solution delivers components that address each of these questions to ensure a smooth VoIP deployment. ADVANCED SECURITY Network attacks can come from almost anywhere—in fact, some surveys estimate that 70% of them originate from inside the network. This is why many organizations have gone beyond perimeter defenses, desktop antivirus software and operating system patches. IP telephony produces voice traffic that must be shielded from eavesdropping, and introduces additional types of devices that must be hardened against networkborne attacks. In addition, organizations with wireless connections need to integrate Wi-Fi protections into the security mix. Voice-over-IP vulnerabilities appear in three areas: applications, protocols and infrastructure. All of these touch points can be safeguarded in a 3Com secure converged network. 3Com protection includes advanced intrusion protection systems such as those from 3Com’s TippingPoint division. Because application vulnerabilities that affect voice performance and uptime can appear not only in the telephony applications themselves, but also in the operating systems that those applications run on, thousands of up-to-the-minute filters provided by TippingPoint™ solutions defend clients and servers from attacks on both applications and operating systems, while policy filters ensure that telephony applications are being used appropriately. Enforcement of SIP H.323 and other protocols further , ensures optimum performance. As VoIP communication solutions become increasingly popular, they need to be protected from the same types of IP network attacks that other IP infrastructure equipment faces, from worms and viruses to distributed denial of service and phishing. They also need to be protected against congestion. The TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) suppresses unwanted traffic caused by spyware and worm storms, and with peer-to-peer application filters it can control performance dips due to excess non-business-critical traffic and bandwidth hijacking. No Voice Ready Network can be considered secure without an extensive network access control implementation. The challenge for network managers is to provide employees and guests with appropriate access based on organization-specific criteria. With NAC in place, administrators always know who and what is on the network, and what activities they are engaged in. 3Com Network Access Manager (NAM) and 3Com network devices offer components necessary for an effective NAC posture, including authentication, authorization, policy enforcement, threat detection and switch-based quarantine of rogue devices. 3Com is unique in offering Radius Authenticated Device Access (RADA), an exclusive technology that checks to make sure that both the device and the user are authorized. Furthermore, 3Com NAM coupled with 3Com network management software can automatically assign phones to voice virtual LANs (VLANs), providing the low-latency quality of service that is critical to voice communications. WIRE-SPEED PERFORMANCE KEY ELEMENTS OF A VOICE READY NETWORK HIGH-AVAILABILITY ARCHITECTURE To ensure high availability, multisite survivability is especially critical for midsize to large enterprises whose business is distributed across multiple locations. If the organization needs all the telephony features to be fully active at branch offices in the event of a WAN failure, then each of the offices must support a complete implementation of the base telephony application and every related application. This is only possible with a carrier-class system architecture that constantly maintains at least one set of updated replicas or mirrored copies of the primary server. Such a system stands ready to immediately switch over to the replicas or copies if WAN connections to an office are lost or if the branch office server fails. The idea behind true multisite survivability, such as that provided by 3Com® VCX™ IP telephony solutions, is that not just basic calling capabilities survive a failure—all the telephony features do. This is termed full-featured survivability, implemented by 3Com Voice Boundary Routing technology. To give organizations of various sizes the flexibility to meet their particular needs, 3Com VCX systems allow telephony applications to be consolidated on a single economical server. For more protection, submodules can run on separate servers. In either case, IT personnel can manage the whole voice solution from headquarters. In 2006 the 3Com VCX V7000 IP Telephony Solution was awarded recognition as “Best-Distributed Survivability, High-End IP-PBX” from Miercom, an eminent industry testing firm. For smaller and single-site installations, 3Com NBX IP telephony systems use a call-processing engine built on the real-time VxWorks operating system, an OS so reliable that it is used in medical systems and other availability-critical applications. 3Com NBX platforms also offer resilient 10/100 Mbps Ethernet uplink ports with failover, optional redundant power and disk mirroring. ® A network can deliver excellent performance for data applications and still not measure up when it comes to carrying voice traffic. When running quality assessments, IT professionals have found that their legacy switches and routers could not adequately support converged voice and data services. This is not simply a matter of bandwidth. It involves the efficient handling of bandwidth in a multimedia environment, with devices tuned to facilitate throughput for voice as well as data. It also involves effectively managing the bandwidth on an ongoing basis. 3 Among the 3Com solutions that ensure high-performance, TippingPoint IPS systems delivered the fastest throughput and lowest latency among leading IPS systems in recent tests conducted by ICSA Labs. In addition, the 3Com Switch 5500G-E1 outperformed a comparable Cisco switch in independent tests conducted by The Tolly Group in January 2006. Several features embedded in 3Com infrastructure devices, together with network management applications, provide useful tools for assessing traffic flows, utilization and other performance-critical network criteria. For example, the 3Com NetStream feature built into 3Com switches and routers lets managers monitor data streams traversing the network to determine traffic volumes according to specific users and applications. STANDARDS-BASED INTEROPERABILITY To reach and maintain this level of quality, the network needs to offer carrier-class voice communications. That is to say, the IP telephony user experience should be on par with the high-grade sound and connection services that telephony carriers have offered users for years, as measured by industry-standard voice quality tests. Because carrier-class quality requires carrier-class equipment, a 3Com Voice Ready Network includes purpose-built network control nodes that provide detailed IP flow classification and policy enforcement to help guarantee quality transmissions. These nodes can be deployed seamlessly, cost-effectively and with no change to existing routers, switches or applications. 3Com LAN switches can detect the presence of an IP phone on a switch port and, without administrative intervention, automatically configure the LAN infrastructure for IEEE 801.1 packet prioritization. If a large portion of its networking equipment needs to be replaced in order to transition to converged communications, an organization can experience tremendous pressure to avoid the change. An important part of the 3Com Voice Ready Network concept is leveraging existing infrastructure and desktop devices to preserve investment and avert an expensive fork-lift upgrade. 3Com solutions are designed to support legacy PBX systems until the organization is ready to replace them. One way to ensure that all the components of the Voice Ready Network operate together seamlessly is adherence to standards. A vendor may claim standards-compliance, but its solutions are frequently incompatible with third-party systems and consequently lock customers into a proprietary architecture. The 3Com Convergence Application Suite and related 3Com products were designed from the outset for full SIP compliance. Moreover, the applications are fully compliant with IMAP4, POP3, SMTP and other key industry standards. An Internet Telephony Product of the Year in 2005, the 3Com VCX system features an architecture that was originally designed for telecommunications carriers, bringing that high level of operation to the enterprise arena. Another component of the 3Com converged networking solution, the 3Com Switch 5500G-EI, has earned seven “Tolly Verified” certifications from The Tolly Group as a LAN Switch with “core” network functionality, including verification of quality of service. POWER OVER ETHERNET In areas where AC outlets are scarce and would be too costly and inconvenient to install, Power over Ethernet (PoE) provides an easy, economical way to power IP phones as well as other networked devices. Organizations deploying phones powered by PoE can also dispense with clumsy power bricks (transformers). 3Com 802.3af-compliant PoE systems have helped companies save tens of thousands of dollars by eliminating the need to rewire their facilities. They also allow staff to manage network power consumption, prioritize power availability, restrict the power delivered by specific ports and prevent power overloads and unauthorized use of devices. Organizations such as schools can limit usage to business hours by turning the phones off over night. Additionally, in-the-wall 3Com IntelliJack® switches can multiply cost savings by expanding the number of ports with amazing ease and by forwarding inline power to other PoE devices. 3Com has led the industry in early utilization of the Session Initiation Protocol that is quickly becoming the most widely adopted protocol for IP telephony systems because of its simplicity, adaptability, versatility and scalability. 3Com created the first SIP-based softswitch for service providers in 1999, the first SIP-based IP telephony platform in 2003 and the first SIP-based convergence applications in 2004. Furthermore, 3Com enterprise switches are uniquely able to automatically recognize IP phones from multiple vendors and assign them to the correct VLAN. Customers can use any IP-compatible phone in a 3Com Voice Ready Network and be assured of compatibility with the rest of the system. Not only that, but legacy PBXs and non-IP phones can remain connected via 3Com media gateways. GUARANTEED QUALITY OF SERVICE Because voice streams are much more sensitive to packet loss, jitter, delay, compression and other quality-diminishing phenomena than are data streams, guaranteed minimum quality of service is of utmost importance on the Voice Ready Network. Quality must be equal to or better than what users experience with a legacy TDM system—on unwired as well as wired connections. 3Com Switch 5500 systems provide the industry’s only upgradeable PoE solution, giving customers the option of implementing PoE in a pay-as-you-grow manner with simple and straightforward deployment. The 3Com Switch 5500-E1 earned “First & Foremost” distinction for PoE support in a stackable Gigabit Ethernet switch from The Tolly Group in January 2006. 4 3Com Solutions: Assessing Your Network for Voice Readiness Bran ch O ffice IP Te 3Com ® o leph ny / Inte WAN rnet Co r and (Fibe pper ) IP 3Com h Telep ony PSTN GbE hes Switc Intru sio ventio n Pre n/Se curit y 3CRUS2475 Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch 24 Unified Unifie p Co mpu ters d Sw itc nd A hes a e Offic ts s Poin cces Cs an eless d Wir Phon es Main Wire P less d IP Wire Phon es an skto d De A 3Com Voice Ready Network considers the business requirements of organizations, the deployment and management needs of IT professionals and the reliable, high-quality telephony service demanded by office-bound and mobile system users. SIMPLIFIED MANAGEMENT DEVISING A VOICE TRANSITION STRATEGY Many enterprises with plans to adopt IP telephony systems are waiting to make the transition, or will not be making it all at once. When polled, IT professionals cite several reasons for such a delay: › Initial upgrade costs and budget constraints › Perceived complexity of converging voice and data › Impact of possible downtime on users › Concerns about reliability and security › Interoperability with recently purchased conventional PBXs › Uneasiness about standards and possible obsolescence A sensible and thorough transition strategy can address and help mitigate all these obstacles, allowing organizations to achieve VoIP benefits at the pace and within a budget that best suits their operations. PRELIMINARY NETWORK ASSESSMENT One of the chief advantages of network convergence is that only one system has to be managed, instead of two or more. The Voice Ready Network leverages this advantage with centralized management, so an administrator can log in at headquarters and perform activities such as configuration and traffic monitoring at any work site. In addition, it is also possible to set up systems for automated branch office installation, allowing a replacement telephony server to be installed at a location without requiring a technician onsite to configure it. Because 3Com VCX architecture was originally designed for carriers that manage their networks from network operation centers, it is optimized for central management. This allows economical system administration and the ability to add functionality without causing disruption for business units, departments or individual users. The VCX solution offers an extensive, web-based provisioning system that facilitates central management across large, multisite installations with numerous servers. And it provides abstraction layers for various levels of users such as IT managers, IT technicians and end users, facilitating the distribution of control and administration, and enabling users to configure many of their own phone features. Optional 3Com Enterprise Management Suite software provides graphical information about the system and how it is performing, while automated operations, intelligent defaults and suggestions for optimization help simplify administrative tasks. To start the process, the transition team needs to examine the existing LAN and WAN infrastructure to determine its capability for supporting voice. Some of the critical factors a network assessment can address include network and application performance, current bandwidth utilization levels, quality of service, security and reliability. Many tools are available to carry out an accurate assessment, including several features embedded in 3Com switching, routing and management products. For example, 3Com Network Quality Assessment (NQA) is a feature in 3Com switches and routers that lets them replicate voice and other applications and measure associated performance. This feature can identify and measure hindrances to voice traffic such as latency, packet loss and jitter, either network-wide or on specific segments such as WAN links. NQA may also be used to monitor ongoing network performance after the voice implementation is complete. 5 Another 3Com switch and router assessment feature called NetStream (compatible with standard Netflow) lets managers monitor data streams to get a detailed picture of usage patterns and spot problem areas that might affect the voice traffic. For a more focused look at network traffic, a port mirroring feature mirrors, or copies, traffic on a particular switch and forwards it for further analysis. For customers who may not have the time or in-house skillset to conduct a voice network assessment, 3Com offers a Voice Readiness Assessment Service. Conducted by skilled engineers, the assessment results in a comprehensive report that can be used for detailed transition planning. 3Com channel partners also provide expert services. DETAILED IMPLEMENTATION PLANNING ing email, instant messaging and file sharing. And a presence capability allows users to find out who is available to join a conference. With IP conferencing, business processes can run more smoothly and with shorter cycle times, and employees don’t have to invest the time and budget required to travel to meetings. IP Mobility. To help organizations better serve their travelers, home workers and roaming employees, the 3Com IP Telecommuting Module enables a remote 3Com IP phone to securely access all the telephony features and applications available at the headquarters site without the requirement of a virtual private network (VPN) connection. A preprogrammed phone—either wired or Wi-Fi compliant—simply needs to connect to a high-speed Internet service to gain access. To streamline implementation of an integrated mobility solution, the 3Com Voice Ready Starter Kit includes IP telephony components (platform and phone) and wireless connectivity solution (access points and the 3Com Unified Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch 24 system) in a single bundle. The unified switch lets an organization deploy a full-featured, secure and easily managed Wi-Fi network with “while you wait” convenience, delivering Gigabit switching, PoE and wireless controller in a single rack-mount or table-top form factor. The 3Com 3108 Wireless Phone is a perfect complement to this mobility solution, allowing untethered access to 3Com IP telephony services. The Voice Ready Network implementation plan will be largely based on information from the network assessment. This information points out what changes need to be made to the existing network to accommodate a successful voice deployment—often involving upgrades to performance, security, quality of service or PoE capability. The plan should also factor in the need for interoperability with legacy equipment such as TDM systems. Another important aspect of implementation planning is taking into account business factors such as priorities, budget, technical resources and timing that are unique to each organization. While coming up with a plan that meets all business objectives and concerns, the implementation team will need to answer key questions like: › What do we hope to achieve? › What benefits do we want to achieve first? › What is the practical timeframe for rolling out solutions? › What obstacles do we need to overcome? › How will we measure results to make sure we have achieved our goals? PREPARING FOR ADVANCED VOICE APPLICATIONS SUMMARY Most organizations are ready to benefit from the many advantages made available by Voice over IP technology. The question is: are their networks ready to deliver those advantages? Can they provide the performance, quality of service, survivability and network access control to ensure high-quality IP telephony and other advanced converged applications? Drawing from a broad, standards-based portfolio of converged network solutions, a 3Com Voice Ready Network can: › Guarantee enterprise-level reliability and availability › Protect network resources and users from internal and external attacks › Integrate with legacy solutions through a standards-based architecture › Support converged services—including conferencing and multimedia communications—with wire-speed performance › Deliver high-quality audio with prioritized traffic controls › Provide a practical power source with Power over Ethernet capabilities › Facilitate communications and business activities for mobile workers › Comprehensively monitor and manage main and branch networks › Easily scale to accommodate future growth 3Com gives an organization’s business and IT managers and end users a communications network with the quality, security and simplicity they need. A 3Com Voice Ready Network enables successful voice/data convergence and delivers tangible, measurable value. Most organizations want more from their Voice Ready Network than simply an IP voice implementation. They are often looking at advanced features such as enhanced messaging and multimedia conferencing that require VoIP and are not available on legacy systems. These applications change how people work together, and they can also help justify a significant IP telephony investment. A comprehensive voice transition scheme should support such applications. If they are not implemented in the first deployment, there is a good chance they will be in the future. IP Messaging. Voice mail is now pervasive, but highly mobile organiza- tions are seeking advanced messaging solutions that can make employees more productive wherever they are. IP messaging applications can deliver full-featured, centrally managed voice mail, plus they can let users manage their voice mail, email, faxes and instant messages using a single inbox accessible from their computer, phone, PDA or other device. In addition, IP messaging helps save calling time and boost productivity with findme, follow-me capabilities. And with speech-to-text and text-to-speech functionality, users can receive and respond to messages in whichever medium is most convenient. IP Conferencing. 3Com IP conferencing makes it possible for employees to collaborate dynamically, remotely and spontaneously. Users can add members to their conference by simply dragging and dropping names. They can get one-click access to video and data communications, includ- 6 3Com Solutions: Assessing Your Network for Voice Readiness A VOICE READY NETWORK IN ACTION: HOUSE EAR INSTITUTE Few organizations understand the importance of voice communications better than House Ear Institute (HEI), a Los Angeles, California based internationally recognized nonprofit research organization. HEI’s 180 employees require a robust, sophisticated communications infrastructure to support advanced audiology research and annually care for the thousands of patients who use the services of HEI’s five affiliated clinics. The institute’s existing 10/100 Ethernet infrastructure couldn’t cope with the massive file transfers generated by medical equipment and other healthcare data. Moreover, the voicemail system integrated with a legacy PBX that couldn’t deal with increased call volumes. Patients complained of difficulty in reaching doctors, making appointments and getting their test results. Additionally, regulations mandated by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requiring greater security for medical records placed a further burden on the network. A planned expansion into a new wing at the headquarters site presented HEI with a good opportunity to upgrade its network and implement VoIP applications. A network assessment revealed that HEI’s existing Cisco Systems switches and routers would not be up to the task of supporting converged voice and data services at the level the institute required. HEI went on to evaluate offerings from a number of network vendors, eventually choosing a Voice Ready Network from 3Com. “We compared cost and performance on a system-by-system basis,” said Martin Maren, HEI’s chief financial officer. “3Com not only offered us a superior secure and converged enterprise solution at the most affordable price, their Global Services organization gave us a methodical approach that freed us to focus on our business, ensured a smooth transition to the new network and, ultimately, distinguished them from their competitors.” 3Com Global Services advisors launched a five-phase implementation process, including configuration, testing and training, that enabled HEI to transition to its new system in a single weekend and with no disruptions to most users. By deploying a 3Com Voice Ready Network—featuring a full range of 3Com solutions with core and stackable edge switches, WAN routers, IP telephony platforms and applications, wireless mobility system, network management software and 3Com security systems—HEI was able to: › Increase productivity › Accelerate research efforts › Improve service to patients › Protect the network from attack › Provide round-the-clock information access › Manage the network efficiently Visit www.3com.com/hei to read more about HEI's Voice Ready Network implementation. 7 Visit www.3com.com for more information about 3Com secure converged network solutions. 3Com Corporation, Corporate Headquarters, 350 Campus Drive, Marlborough, MA 01752-3064 3Com is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol COMS. Copyright © 2005 3Com Corporation. All rights reserved. 3Com, the 3Com logo, IntelliJack and NBX are registered trademarks of 3Com Corporation. TippingPoint and VCX are trademarks of 3Com Corporation. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective companies. While every effort is made to ensure the information given is accurate, 3Com does not accept liability for any errors or mistakes which may arise. All specifications are subject to change without notice. 503171-001 11/05