Jitter is one of the most common causes of substandard voice communications over IP networks. This article provides an overview of jitter and how it influences voice applications, as well as methods for resolving it on your networks.

Topics: QoS, VoIP, Troubleshooting, Network Design, Unified Communications

In today's virtual world, telecom and network services have come a long way, from being offered using locally installed, standalone monolithic servers to ethereal entities residing in the cloud. This evolution has touched every part of network service provisioning, and one of the most fascinating facets of this trend is that the network infrastructure itself can be virtualized.

Network function virtualization (NFV) is a network architecture philosophy that virtualizes the network infrastructure. In this article, we take a look at what NFV is, how it works, how it fits in with other virtualization technologies, and how it can be of benefit for enterprise networks.

Topics: Trends, Network Design, Cloud

Redundancy and scalability are important for VoIP systems. Virtualization makes both of these easier, less costly, and more efficient. Coupled with cloud services, virtualization has revolutionized how network services are provided, and in particular, how VoIP deployment is executed.

In this article, we explain what virtualization is, the trends governing its newest technologies, and how all of this can be leveraged for use with VoIP services.

Topics: VoIP, Trends, Productivity, Network Design

Software-defined networking (SDN) is changing the way networks are managed and designed. In this article, we take a look at how an SDN approach can be of great benefit to VoIP and video telephony deployments in particular.

Topics: QoS, Trends, Productivity, Network Design, Unified Communications

A major challenge inherent in designing and maintaining an enterprise network is the administration costs. Software-defined networking (SDN) can dramatically reduce both the hard costs (money) and soft costs (time) of managing a network. Although this tends to be the most compelling argument in favor of using SDN, it in fact offers may more advantages than this. In this article, we introduce SDN and examine some of its key benefits.

Topics: Trends, Productivity, Routers, Network Design, Gateway, Switches, Unified Communications

For most organizations these days, WAN connectivity is so mission-critical that investing in a redundant WAN infrastructure is well worth the extra cost and effort. In this article, we explore the available options for WAN redundancy so you can help your customers decide which is the best for them.

Topics: Business Continuity, Network Design, WAN Technology

Many administrators resist implementing VoIP over Wi-Fi, often citing security and quality concerns. The truth is that if implemented correctly, voice can be safely and reliably deployed on a wireless network. This article examines some best practices for optimizing voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi).

Topics: VoWi-Fi, QoS, Wireless, Network Security, Network Design, Wi-Fi, Unified Communications

The choice of WAN technology and how it is deployed have a huge impact on the reliability and quality of voice services. For this reason, precautions must be taken to optimize WAN services for voice. In this article, we review best practices for achieving this.

Topics: VoIP, Network Design, SD-WAN, Unified Communications, WAN Technology

For those familiar with commercial-grade WAN technologies, connecting the internal network to the outside world may seem straightforward. However, large enterprises with thousands of employees and internal services whose existence depends on connectivity require more advanced WAN technologies, which can be far from simple. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most common high-grade WAN technologies and the characteristics of each, to help you decide which is right for you.

Topics: Network Design, SD-WAN, WAN Technology

Whether you’re preparing to deploy a new wireless network or upgrade an existing one, understanding wireless network design and deployment strategies is essential. In this article, we describe some strategies and best practices for getting the most out of your Wi-Fi network.

Topics: Network Design, Wi-Fi