IP Communications

Packet Island (News - Alert) has stated that it has extended its VoIP-Data lifecycle management solution to include video network assessments for HD telepresence deployments.

 

A small (4”x 5”) micro appliance will be fitted into each conference room to provide this video assessment. The appliance can generate HD video traffic ranging from 10 to 25Mbps. After fitted into the system, the functionality allows users to get accurate assessment of the amount of video traffic a network can handle before experiencing video quality degradation.

 

Packet Island creates scalable solutions that allow Enterprise IT managers and service providers to pinpoint network, signaling, or equipment based problems affecting voice quality in minutes. Solutions are available that allow 24/7 monitoring of real-time traffic and signaling net flows remotely, removing the need for staffing each site of a multi-site enterprise with IT experts. Each solution features the ability to view individual calls, UDP (News - Alert) vs TCP/IP traffic flows, dropped packet stats, QOS, jitter, and the ability to perform remote packet captures with Ethereal/wireshark interoperability to quickly diagnose or predict network issues.

 

“Given the rising cost of travel and the broad desire to fight global warming, telepresence has huge growth potential. The one problem that could slow the momentum of this new technology is the quality of the transport networks – especially when converged media networks are used for such deployments. We have introduced new video assessment functionality to support the pioneers in this market in making telepresence a quick success. We will soon follow up with passive monitoring solutions that allow MSPs to offer full lifecycle management for telepresence services,” said Praveen Kumar (News - Alert), CEO and founder of Packet Island.

 

According to Packet Island, with the advent of high-definition videoconferencing (referred to as Telepresence in the IT industry) there is now a demand for checking the readiness of the data networks to handle the high data transfers of HD videoconferencing. This is because most enterprise data networks are not ready for carrying real-time traffic like VoIP, let alone video. Packet Island's video assessment solution provides an efficient means to accurately assess the telepresence-readiness of both LAN and WAN links without the need to locate experts at every site.

 

The company adds that enterprises could feel that one micro appliance will not be enough to handle the transfer rates of their network. For them, Packet Island has made provisions to install multiple micro appliances. Besides being used for telepresence/HD-Video pre-assessments, the micro-appliances can be permanently deployed for continuous active monitoring of the inter-site links using low bandwidth (< 10kbps), synthetic RTP streams.

 

The assessment tests carried out are typically executed over a period of 24 hours to ensure that the network path has sufficient capacity during all times of the typical business day. The results are viewable either through a real-time GUI or via a report that summarizes the results.

 

Packet Island also states that they offer this assessment solution both as a SaaS (News - Alert) (hosted) service and as a portable self-contained platform solution for use in highly secure networks. Companies can choose according to their comfort or their infrastructure.