SOLUTION BRIEF: Riverbed OPNET Unified Communications Xpert

END-TO-END SERVICE
MANAGEMENT
FOR UNIFIED
COMMUNICATIONS
EMPOWERING UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS
AS PART OF RIVERBED PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS, RIVERBED OPNET
UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS XPERT ALLOWS
CONTINUOUS MONITORING OF VOICE AND
VIDEO QUALITY SO YOU CAN CATCH AND FIX
PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY BECOME AN ISSUE.

OVERVIEW
Riverbed OPNET Unified
Communications Xpert
(UC Xpert) software provides
end-to-end service management
for Unified Communications
including Cisco IP Telephony
and Telepresence, such as
automated proactive testing,
performance monitoring,
configuration management, and
remote troubleshooting. Proven
to improve service performance
and availability while dramatically

reducing your cost of deployment

and operations, OPNET UC Xpert
uniquely combines pre-deployment,
continuous testing, production
monitoring, remote phone control
and troubleshooting with business
analytics. Its centralized, efficient
management approach provides
you with 24x7x365 visibility without
requiring widespread placement of
probes throughout your enterprise.

KEY BENEFITS
IMPROVED SERVICE QUALITY LEADING
TO FEWER TROUBLE TICKETS AND
HIGHER END-USER SATISFACTION
USES REMOTE PHONE CONTROL TO
AVOID THE COST OF DISPATCHING
TECHNICIANS TO REMOTE SITES

50% OR MORE REDUCTION IN

DEPLOYMENT TIME
EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND
DOCUMENTATION OF UC
ENVIRONMENT
PROACTIVE APPROACH DETECTS
UC SERVICE PROBLEMS BEFORE END
USERS DO, 24X7

A REPEATABLE, STANDARDIZED
AND CENTRALLY CONTROLLED
DEPLOYMENT
AGENT AND EMPLOYEE CONFIDENCE
IN CISCO UC

SOLUTION BRIEF: Riverbed OPNET Unified Communications Xpert

Automated
Testing

Remote
Troubleshooting

The
Four Pillars of
UC Management

AWARD WINNING UC TOOL

Performance
Management

Cisco IP Telephony User Group (CIPTUG) has awarded

and recognized OPNET UC Xpert as the Best Tool
for IP communications. In fact, Cisco Advanced
Services regularly relies on UC Xpert functionality for
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)
deployment verification testing.

Configuration
Management

THE FOUR PILLARS OF RIVERBED OPNET

UNIFIED COMMUNICATION XPERT
Unified Communications
(UC) only stay unified
when you have complete
management of your
communications spectrum.
So when you are deciding
upon a comprehensive UC
management solution, it
is important to consider
a solution that provides
end-to-end service
management during
new deployments and
upgrades and for ongoing
operations. By automating
the four pillars of UC
management, you will be
on your way to solving
the most challenging
aspects of todays unified
communications systems.

Automated Testing
With a mission critical
application such as VoIP,
it is imperative to test
the functionality after
deployment, following
upgrades, and during
off-hours when problems
may go undetected. OPNET
UC Xpert constantly tests
end-user functionality for
you with the purest form
of testing that uses real
phones to make test calls
and verify the availability
of voice services from
the end-user perspective.
Calls can be scheduled
during off-hours to not
disrupt business operations
during the day and
testing can be done for
outbound/inbound calls
as well as intra/inter site
communications including
telepresence. With such
comprehensive testing, you
can take samples of phones
from different branches
for an understanding of
baseline performance to
help identify potential
anomalies, reducing costs
through proactive and
automated testing.

Performance
Management

Configuration
Management

Remote
Troubleshooting

OPNET UC Xpert monitors

and alerts on problems
in voice quality, service
availability, performance,
security, capacity and other
key performance metrics.
It provides performance
monitoring from the
enterprise all the way
down to the branch level
and includes monitoring
of devices to determine
server health such as CPU
utilization, disk space and
standard usage patterns.
And you can even generate
historic reports for SIP
trunk utilization as well
as alerts for such areas as
poor voice quality, low or
no bandwidth, suspicious
or malicious activity, and
incorrect call routing. With
OPNET UC Xpert, you
gain actionable, near real
time insight into whats
happening within your
Unified Communications
environment.

Track and isolate

configuration related
changes for accelerated
troubleshooting. In a
typical scenario, a change
is made by a member of
your team on a Friday
evening to fix a problem.
That problem is fixed, but
come Monday morning
unbeknownst to you, this
change broke something
else. As luck would have
it, that person is out of
the office. With OPNET
UC Xpert configuration
tracking, you can find what
changes were made, the
time of the change and
most importantly fix it
quickly and be assured that
the new change does not
effect any other part of
the system.

In a multi-site environment,
the ability to remotely
troubleshoot and diagnose
problems is a critical
component to scaling
your voice IT team and
the remote hands
functionality is a true
differentiator for OPNET
UC Xpert. It has the ability
to take over control of the
phone to correct issues
and speed up repair time
by accessing an end users
phone remotely. This
feature allows the use
of just a small team to
monitor all your remote
sites, drastically saving both
time and money. OPNET
UC Xpert can gain access
to the problematic user
phone in order to report,
reproduce, diagnose and
retest, all without end-user
involvement.

SOLUTION BRIEF: Riverbed OPNET Unified Communications Xpert

RAPID ROI - INCREASE UC EFFICIENCY WITH

ONGOING OPERATIONS AND DEPLOYMENT
Customers routinely demonstrate that OPNET
UC Xpert pays for itself within 2 months simply
by enabling central, remote management
of service quality and automating day-today operations. Without OPNET UC Xpert,
customers take more time to verify that required
tests are actually completed and that phone
and telepresence systems are working properly.

OPNET UC Xpert significantly automates these

processes without interfering with remote site or
end-user activity and accelerates troubleshooting
for dramatically fewer and shorter trouble
tickets and unplanned downtime. The payback
to implement OPNET UC Xpert is illustrated in
the real life examples below.

Scenario 1: UC Ongoing Voice

Operations IT Staff Time Savings
and Downtime Avoided
Example - 30,000 units being managed
across 25 physical locations
$3.4M savings and 220% ROI over 3 years + significant
qualitative improvement in customer satisfaction*

Manual Time

UC Xpert Time

IT Staff Hours
Saved

Unplanned
Downtime Avoided

Regular Health Checks

N/A

125

N/A

50,000

Capacity ManagementTrunk Utilization

400

30

370

250

Phone Fault Management

1,875

125

1,750

750

Asset/Inventory/Billing

300

295

TroubleshootingConfiguration Errors

250

25

225

37,500

Total Annual Hours

2,825

230

2,595

88,500

(hours)

(hours)

(hours)

(Call hours)

*SAVINGS BASED OFF $100/HR. IT STAFF COST AND $10/HR. PER HOUR OF DOWNTIME

Scenario 2 - UC New Deployment

Rollout - Verification Time Savings
Example 1,000 unit deployment distributed
over 5 physical locations
$33K savings on project + significant qualitative
improvement in customer satisfaction*

Project Phase

Manual Time

UC Xpert Time

Time Savings

Pre-Deployment

20

1.5

18.5

Deployment

140

11

129

Post Deployment/Final Customer Acceptance

164

12

152

Day 1Proactive Monitoring Five Business Days

30

4.5

25.5

Total Project Hours

354

29

325

(hours)

(hours)

*SAVINGS BASED OFF $100/HR. IT STAFF COST

LEARN MORE
With products and solutions including WAN optimization, performance management, application delivery, and storage acceleration,
Riverbed helps organizations manage and accelerate performance.
To learn more about Riverbed performance management and other Riverbed products and solutions, visit: http://www.riverbed.com/rpm.

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