Migrating Reports to Another VoIP Monitor Installation

Congratulations on your purchase of SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor. Because you need to know how well your VoIP network is performing, you can rely on VoIP Monitor to provide clear, easily accessible, historical and realtime metrics of VoIP network performance. Building on the proven Orion Network Performance Monitor (Orion NPM) Web Console interface, VoIP Monitor uses Cisco IP Service Level Agreements (IP SLAs) to continuously monitor quality of service on your VoIP network. VoIP Monitor collects real statistics measuring network latency, jitter, and packet loss to compute mean opinion scores (MOS) for the VoIP-specific devices of your Orion-managed network. These realtime and historical performance metrics are presented in readily accessible tables, charts, and gauges within the VoIP Monitor Web Console, giving you a continuously updated and accurate picture of VoIP call quality over your network. Additionally, with the established Orion Advanced Alert Manager and Orion Report Writer tools, VoIP Monitor allows you to leverage the capabilities of Orion NPM to create custom VoIP alerts and reports.

Upon installation, VoIP Monitor offers extensive monitoring capabilities, presenting detailed realtime and historical statistics, for devices on your VoIP Network. Major features of VoIP Monitor include the following:

Performance metrics of jitter, latency, packet loss for sites and call paths.
Up-to-the-minute calculation of Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for sites and call paths.
Automatic configuration of Cisco IOS routers for IP SLA operation.
Performance statistics, including measures of registered and unregistered phones and gateways, interface traffic, and CPU load, specifically tailored to Cisco CallManager and CallManager Express devices.
Full integration with Orion NPM, providing a customizable web console and easily configurable alerting and reporting engines.

The full array of monitoring and reporting capabilities available with Orion VoIP Monitor makes it a smart decision for continuously tracking the performance of your VoIP network.

Why Install this Version

VoIP Monitor version 2.1 includes the following new features:

Ability to group your VoIP equipment for greater ease of use
You can now assign Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) names
Ability to assign a specific voice codec at the site level
You can specify voice path source by interface IP
Ability to assign multiple devices as a site at one time

Features of Previous Versions

VoIP Monitor version 2.0 included the following features:

Support for SNMP v3 devices
Improved navigation and usability
Manual configuration of call paths
More secure, restricted use of read/write credentials
Support for multiple VoIP pollers
Additional CallManager data resources
CallManager alerts
New resource gauges
Improved performance and scalability

VoIP Monitor version 1.0 included the following features:

Performance metrics of jitter, latency, packet loss for sites and call paths
Up-to-the-minute calculation of Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for sites and call paths
Automatic configuration of Cisco IOS routers for IP SLA operation
Call manager performance statistics, including measures of registered and unregistered phones and gateways, interface traffic, and CPU load
Resources specifically tailored to monitoring Cisco CallManager and CallManager Express devices
Full integration with Orion Network Performance Monitor, providing a customizable web console and easily configurable alerting and reporting engines

Fixes in this Release

This release of Orion VoIP Monitor includes the following fixes:

Version 2.1

The Call Manager Connected Phones graph now includes all appropriate default time frame options.
You can no longer add a device with a down status as a Call Manager device.
"VoIP Auto-Configured Call Path Configuration" page is no longer displayed when VoIP Montitor has no created call paths.
IP SLA operations using a custom codec wont be recreated when the global codec is changed.
All related call paths (IP SLA operations) are now deleted when the associated site is deleted.
Call Paths that are created with invalid IP addresses can no longer be created.
Integration: NetFlow performance monitor counters are no longer deleted after installing VoIP Monitor on a server with NetFlow Traffic Analyzer installed.
Polling is no longer interrupted when the database and poller operate in different time zones.
The MOS score chart maximum has been reduced from 10 to 5.
The "Access denied" error message that is sometimes displayed on graphs has been resolved.
Routers that only support SNMP v1 can no longer be designated as VoIP devices.
VoIP Monitor no longer recognizes Cisco Unity Call Manager (CUCM) version 6.1 as Call Manager Express.
Latency and jitter graphs now properly scale the Y-axis.
MOS graphs now display data when selecting a period of less than 24 hours.
The values of scale tic marks on the Y-axis on MOS and Phone charts are now aligned properly.
The VoIP Thwack resource in now listed properly within the VoIP Summary resources list.

Version 2.0.2

Fixed a problem with the 2.0.1 installer that failed to update a pervious install if it was not installed in the default drive/folder location.
Resolved an issue where sites could not be added using a read/write community string after upgrading from 2.0.1.

Version 2.0.1

The ability to add devices via SNMPv3 has been implemented.
Fixed issue where upgrading from an evaluation version to Orion 9.1 would cause errors.
Resolved the issue where VoIP Monitor would stop checking on call paths that were labeled as misconfigured.
Corrected an issue where a failed IP SLA operation would show a status of "OK".

Version 2.0

Multiple issues with the user interface, including format inconsistencies, incorrect error messages, and unordered listing of elements in resources, have been fixed.
An issue where the configuration wizard was not properly parsing dates in non-US formats has been fixed.
VoIP Monitor now correctly tests devices for IP SLA-compatibility. As a result, VoIP Monitor is now able to add any valid IP SLA-enabled device.
The Last XX VoIP Events resource currently honors configured account and view limitations.
VoIP Monitor now properly handles the lifetime reset of IP SLA operations on SNMPv1 devices.
Issues causing the failure of data collection from SNMPv1 devices have been fixed.
The configuration wizard no longer displays twice when completing a new installation of VoIP Monitor.
The VoIP Monitor website no longer fails when displaying a VoIP interface that does not have a parent node.
VoIP Monitor now correctly reschedules and recreates expired IP SLA operations.
Data values in the CallManagers resource now link directly to the corresponding CallManager view.
VoIP Monitor can now delete configured hubs from the VoIP Monitor Call Paths page without error.
The CallManager resource on the CallManager view now lists percentage values as whole numbers.
Call Path gauges now show Packet Loss values as whole numbers.
Licensing required for both the installation of an additional VoIP poller and the installation of VoIP on an Orion web-only server now functions correctly.
The Call Paths resource on the VoIP Summary View is now better able to handle larger call path lists.

Installing VoIP Monitor

Installing VoIP Monitor is a straightforward process. The server that you use to host VoIP Monitor must also support an installation of Orion Network Performance Monitor version 9.1 SP3 or higher. Though it is an enterprise class monitoring solution, VoIP Monitor does not require any additional resources beyond those required for the underlying implementation of Orion NPM. For more information about system requirements, see Installation Requirements in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide.

To install VoIP Monitor, shut down any Orion NPM applications that you may have running, and then run the installation executable. For more information about installing VoIP Monitor, see Installing VoIP Monitor in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide.

Warnings:

Back up your Orion database before you install VoIP Monitor, to ensure that none of your data is lost during the upgrade.
You must install Orion NPM version 9.1 SP3 on the server that you will be using for VoIP network monitoring before you can install VoIP Monitor.
Orion NPM, including the VoIP Monitor module, does not support the use of case-sensitive database servers.

Licensing VoIP Monitor

VoIP Monitor licensing follows and matches the licensing level of your underlying Orion NPM installation. In other words, the license level for your installation of VoIP Monitor is dependent upon the license level of your Orion NPM installation.

Adding VoIP Devices to VoIP Monitor

VoIP network devices and interfaces can not be added to VoIP Monitor unless they have first been included in the Orion NPM database. For more information about adding devices to your Orion database using Orion System Manager, see Starting System Manager and the instructions that follow in the SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor Administrator Guide.

Although it will ease the configuration and maintenance of IP SLA operations on your VoIP devices if you provide valid read/write credentials when you add your VoIP device to Orion System Manager, it is no longer necessary with VoIP Monitor. This version of VoIP Monitor provides a VoIP Site Wizard to aid in the configuration of your IP SLA-enabled VoIP devices for monitoring. For more information about configuring IP SLA operations on your VoIP devices with the VoIP Site Wizard, see Starting the VoIP Site Wizard in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide. To confirm that the Cisco IOS release for your VoIP device supports IP SLA operations, visit the Cisco Feature Navigator, click Search by Feature, and then select IP SLAs - UDP Based VoIP Operation. For more information about the management information bases (MIBs) that VoIP Monitor maintains, see MIBs Maintained by VoIP Monitor for IP SLAs in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide.

Configuring VoIP Devices for IP SLA

Cisco IP Service Level Agreements (IP SLAs) are the primary means by which VoIP Monitor acquires information about the performance of your VoIP network. The process of configuring a device for IP SLA can be quite intricate, as it can involve numerous command line operations on each router. To ease the process of device configuration for IP SLA, this version of VoIP Monitor provides a VoIP Site Wizard that you can use to automatically discover the IP SLA configuration of your VoIP devices. For more information about configuring IP SLA operations on your VoIP devices with the VoIP Site Wizard, see Starting the VoIP Site Wizard in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide. When you add your VoIP routers, you can tell VoIP Monitor to automatically discover required IP SLA operation numbers, allowing you to start monitoring your VoIP network immediately.

Notes:

Although VoIP Monitor can attempt to automatically discover the IP SLA configuration of your added VoIP devices, auto-discovery is not required. The VoIP Site Wizard provided with VoIP Monitor offers you the option to manually configure your VoIP devices for IP SLA operations. For more information about manually configuring IP SLA operations on your VoIP devices with the VoIP Site Wizard, see Starting the VoIP Site Wizard in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide.
VoIP Monitor automatically checks for IP SLA compatibility when adding routers that will serve as VoIP sites by confirming that rttMonApplResponder of CISCO-RTTMON-MIB is "on". Older Cisco IOS versions may require an upgrade to attain IP SLA compatibility. To confirm that your Cisco IOS release supports IP SLA operations, visit the Cisco Feature Navigator, click Search by Feature, and then select IP SLAs - UDP Based VoIP Operation. For more information about the management information bases (MIBs) that VoIP Monitor continually updates, see MIBs Maintained by VoIP Monitor for IP SLAs in the SolarWinds Orion VoIP Monitor Administrator Guide.

Migrating Reports to Another VoIP Monitor Installation

Custom reports that you have created for a standard installation of VoIP Monitor are easily migrated to a second VoIP Monitor installation that is typically an Additional VoIP Poller. The following procedure copies existing reports from one VoIP Monitor installation to another.

To migrate VoIP reports from one installation to another:

Open the Orion Reports folder, located in Program Files\SolarWinds\Orion\ on your original VoIP Monitor server.
Select the reports you want to copy to your second VoIP Monitor server, using Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click as necessary, and then click Edit > Copy.
Locate your second VoIP Monitor server on your network, and then open its Orion Reports folder, located in Program Files\SolarWinds\Orion\.
Click Edit > Paste to paste your reports in the Reports folder on your second VoIP Monitor server.

Your original VoIP reports are now available to your second VoIP Monitor installation.

Known Issues

The following issues may arise in your installation of VoIP Monitor. These are known issues that are being addressed for a future release.

Cisco Call Manager version 4.1 is not fully supported at this time.
After editing the Title and/or Subtitle of the Node Details resource, the web console displays the Orion Node Details page for the selected node.
Administrative functions may be limited if your VoIP Monitor server and your Orion NPM server are not in the same domain. SolarWinds recommends that you install VoIP Monitor on the same server as Orion NPM.
Under specific conditions, a Timeout Exception may occur on the VoIP Summary view when expanding a node in the VoIP Sites Overview resource. This has occurred when a large number of VoIP sites are linked by call paths in a fully meshed configuration and a high proportion of the call paths are listed in the Misconfigured Call Paths resource. If this error occurs, SolarWinds recommends that you remove the Misconfigured Call Paths resource from the VoIP Summary view.
An SQL exception may occur when you try to open VoIP Monitor on an additional Orion Web Console if the Orion server hosting the shared database does not also have VoIP Monitor installed. SolarWinds recommends that you not install VoIP Monitor on an additional Orion Web Console unless the original Orion server is also hosting VoIP Monitor.
German-specific characters may not display correctly.
Custom reports created in Report Writer may not be available to installations of VoIP Monitor for Additional Orion Web Consoles.

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