The Daily Network Monitor

Talk about VoIP for the masses, Costco announced yesterday that the Syspine Digital Operator from Quanta Computer wil be available from Costco.com immediately. Focused on small businesses of under 50 employees, the Syspine Digital Operator A50 is a single-solution device that will connect up to eight standard telephone lines. It features a high-end, server-grade, fan-less design and can be installed anywhere. Businesses can add up to 50 individual Syspine IP310 business phones to create a complete, integrated small business phone system with no additional licensing fees.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1406182/
syspine_voip_phone_system_now_available_at_costcocom/
index.html?source=r_technology

Very interesting, but does raise some questions. Specifically, how does an SMB manage the system in an integrated fashion and make sure that the network is able to handle the additional VoIP traffic on an ongoing basis? Network management and monitoring are now even more critical to business success especially if all voice communications are now network based.

SMB IT personnel need effective network management and monitoring to provide visibility into what is going on on the network to ensure that the combination of data and voice do not degrade network performance and impact business continuity.

Here is a useful list of tips that network administrators can leverage in their everyday travails.

1. Assume nothing. Where does the real fault lie? Is it really the network or something else? Go to #10…

2. Is IP addressing correct? Proper subnetting and VLANs?

3. Conduct a visual inspection of the equipment.

4. Validate proper device power-up after a power failure.

5. RTM or Read The Manual (polite version); believe it not, the manufacturer release notes have valuable information.

6. Configuration of equipment. More often than not a change, that is either managed or not, has a cascade effect. Check settings for auto negotiation, for example.

7. Check MTU settings. This is the cause of most black holes.

8. Are the router tables correct? Is the gateway correct? show iproute is a useful tool.

9. If using a service provider/telco. Are your PE routers setup correctly and with the right MTU for WAN links?

10. Leverage network management and monitoring tools to rapidly and preemptively locate issues and to get 360^o visibility into, actionable intelligence about and complete control of your IT infrastructure.

There has been a lot of buzz around WAN optimization over the past few months, with numerous mentions of what WAN optimization is and what it brings to the table. On the surface, it is certainly a cool technology, but it is a technology that requires some additional thought before implementing. It is certainly another great tool in the network managers arsenal.

WAN optimization should be considered as another component of an overall network management strategy. Why do I say this? Well there are several reasons, first of all, WAN optimization only provides a capability for a small subset of the network, WAN links. Certainly organizations want to use their bandwidth more efficiently and cost effectively, but if the links were not properly engineered and provisioned in the first place, WAN optimization will not help.

If anything, WAN optimization actually builds the case for more effective management of local networks connected by WAN links. Since WAN optimization only looks between edge routers, a more complete and consolidated end-to-end perspective is required and network management and monitoring provides that holistic view. No only does a network manager need to look at device status, but also the infrastructure as a whole; including devices, applications, and bandwidth. Network management and monitoring is the elemental solution that brings it all together in one place. For those organizations that are thinking about implementing WAN optimization, be sure that you have an overall network management and monitoring strategy or even better, a solution in place to get the whole picture and not just pieces of it.