Call Detail Record (CDR) Analysis and VoIP QoS Management

In a voice-over IP (VoIP) call, a call detail record (CDR) provides data on the history of the call. When VoIP calls are used for web-based communication, IT admins need to monitor the calls’ performance metrics, just like any other member of the application suite. Information collected in a CDR report can include call details like duration, termination call code, Mean Opinion Score (MOS), packet loss or jitter as well as user identities and other details on a call’s points of origin.

For IT admins who are supervising a system with VoIP services, a call detail record tracker is an important way to manage your budget and identify inefficiencies. Similar to traditional phone calls, call detail records are an important part of providing itemized receipts for VoIP services.

In addition to VoIP call data, a CDR report can provide data on a variety of web-based communication, including written correspondence. Regardless of the format of the VoIP call, CDR data offers a secure and private way to manage web-based call logs without intruding on the content of the call.

As an IT admin, VoIP calls can be an unpredictable part of your job, with the potential for slow calls, high data consumption, or expensive billing. SolarWinds VoIP and Network Quality Manager (VNQM) offers a comprehensive solution to VoIP performance monitoring, complete with detailed CDR analysis. With VNQM, you can monitor VoIP data in real-time to identify bottlenecks before they affect network performance. Additionally, historical CDR analysis allows you to pinpoint trends in your VoIP system, for more effective troubleshooting.

VNQM offers a complete quality of service (QoS) monitoring solution for VoIP calls, all from a centralized dashboard. With VNQM’s user-friendly interface, you can identify network performance at a glance and address performance issues using intuitive graphics. Using Cisco Network Service Assurance, VNQM collects CDR data for real-time alerts and troubleshooting.

CDR reports include a wide range of data, all of which is important in understanding VoIP call performance. With VNQM, you can more accurately assess VoIP quality with a comprehensive report of CDR details. These include network latency, packet loss, jitter, and Mean Opinion Score (MOS). Like other file transfer operations, VoIP calls require smooth network performance and complete data transfer with minimal packet loss.

SolarWinds VNQM offers several unique features that provide a deep dive into CDR reports. These include:

• Historical Network Service Assurance Operation reports: With minimum and average round trip time for HTTP, DNS, DHCP, and TCP Connect requests
• Gateway Monitoring: With VNQM, gateway monitoring allows you to analyze the PRI trunks of each call gateway
• VoIP-enabled devices data: including information about calls in last 24 hours, average jitter, latency, and packet loss
• …and more.

Call detail records provide the basis for effective VoIP monitoring. Whether you’re using Cisco or Avaya call manager servers, CDR analysis allows you to monitor VoIP call data for optimal call performance. With SNMP and ICMP monitoring capabilities, VNQM allows you to track network operations and VoIP call performance using auto-discovery of ports and devices.

CDR uses source and destination data, as well as network and file transfer data to identify inefficiencies in VoIP performance. With a bird’s-eye view into network configuration, VNQM allows you to troubleshoot performance issues. As you gather real-time performance metrics, you can use your network mapping to identify the root cause of slow calls. With automated network mapping and Cisco’s AXL API, troubleshooting is just around the corner.

Ultimately, CDR allows you to identify issues in VoIP call performance—then, your VNQM complete VoIP monitoring solution allows you to identify free ports and switches, and address call latency as soon as it occurs.

Effective CDR analysis requires you to map and monitor all the relevant network devices. Before you can monitor CDR data, you will need to discover each node that may be used in your VoIP communications. SolarWinds VNQM offers an intuitive approach to discovery, with auto-discovery of call manager nodes once you have added your call manager device to VNQM.

The most common call manager devices are Cisco CallManager and Avaya Communications and Media Server—both of which can be easily integrated with VNQM. To add other call manager devices from different manufacturers, SolarWinds^® Network Performance Monitor (NPM) offers additional configuration of VoIP network nodes with its universal device poller.

After you add the call manager device, you can add VoIP call manager nodes to your SolarWinds platform database and to VNQM. For a more detailed understanding of configuration, our helpful SolarWinds documentation can guide you through the VNQM setup.