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VoIP Is Top Priority For Government Organizations In 2005, According To New Network General Survey

Lack of Satisfaction with Current Application and Network Performance Analysis Tools Could Hinder Successful VoIP Deployments

SAN JOSE, CALIF., May 17, 2005 Voice over IP (VoIP) is emerging as a top priority for 57 percent of U.S. government organizations over the next 12 months, according to a new survey by Network General Corporation, the global leader in enterprise application and network performance analysis. However, the survey which was conducted in April of 2005 and includes responses from more than 350 local, state and federal government IT professionals also indicates a fairly widespread dissatisfaction with the tools they currently use for application and network performance management.

For example, while 69 percent of government IT professionals surveyed said they depend on tools that can monitor and optimize application and network performance across their networks, only six percent rated their existing application performance management solutions as highly effective. The data suggests these users may face a potentially significant problem when they begin to deploy VoIP, due to the stringent performance management requirements associated with that application.

"An effective VoIP management solution must unify application and network performance analysis," said Jim Vale, Sniffer Voice product line manager at Network General. "And it must correlate the two major elements of VoIP traffic that comprise service quality call control and voice/video media into a single application view. This is key in troubleshooting and monitoring VoIP service quality. This holistic method allows IT professionals to best monitor and manage - in real-time - service quality from the end-user's point of view."

In order to ensure a successful VoIP rollout and to manage newly converged voice/data networks to the extremely high standard of end users' perception of audio quality, IT professionals must ensure that VoIP delivers call quality and reliability equal to that of traditional telephony, as well as understand how VoIP traffic affects the performance of other key applications and the network itself. An effective application and network performance analysis solution provides real-time, per-call alarms to alert the IT professional to analyze any detectable call quality problems at the packet level, as well as deliver information to understand and adapt to the organization's changing use of voice and video services, and ensure a high-quality end-user experience.

Network General's Sniffer Voice enables IT professionals to troubleshoot, monitor, and perform expert analysis on a number of converged networking topologies. Sniffer Voice applies capture and analytic capabilities to VoIP networks, providing diagnostic analysis of VoIP applications and the data networks over which VoIP technology operates, while showing how those VoIP applications are affecting other key applications and vice versa. Sniffer Voice monitors the two essential call elements of VoIP collectively call control and voice-video media - correlating this information into a single, unified view of true VoIP service quality.