By Sharla Sikes

Despite VoIP’s obvious benefits for small and medium businesses, it’s not a “set it and forget it” solution for communications. Incorporating analysis tools for VoIP into your network management system is vital.

But how to begin shopping for such tools?

Network World invited makers of VoIP analysis tools to participate in an evaluation, and Agilent Technologies, Brix Networks, ClearSight Networks, Fluke Networks, Touchstone Technologies, Viola Networks and WildPackets accepted the challenge.

Network World chose ClearSights Analyzer for the top honors, based on its “extreme ease of use and its capability to analyze a range of VoIP protocols.”

Fluke took second place for its OptiView package, which shone “by capturing a substantial amount of information on the VoIP calls,” but lost the No. 1 position because it was a bit cumbersome to use.

Network World couldn’t choose between products from Agilent, Touchstone and WildPackets, resulting in a three-way tie for third place. All three companies provided products with an in-depth analysis of VoIP traffic in session initiation protocol environments.

Network World notes that VoIP analysis tools are “oriented toward particular VoIP protocol environments,” making it important that you select the right tool for your network. The two-month test involved four different VoIP environments for each product. The products were tested against three proprietary protocols and two SIP implementations.

Except for the tools named as first and second place in the comparison, most of the products performed “dramatically” different when monitoring SIP-based VoIP than when working in a proprietary protocol environment. ClearSight and Fluke both performed well in all environments.

We’ll get more into the nuts and bolts of the test on Friday.

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