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Use the "V"-Utilities on Access to Validate Voice Routes.

Article Number: T009
Article Type: Tip
Modified: September 31, 1999

SUMMARY

In a Voice-over application, establishing a dialing plan and then creating the corresponding routing entries can be a complex task. Ensuring that the routing entries properly reflect the original intention of the dialing plan is a valuable step in the integration process. The Athena Call Director and the Athena Access offer a facility to help validate the proper routing of calls.

This article overviews this facility and shows briefly how it is used.

MORE INFORMATION

Two facilities are provided to aid in the validation of voice routes. They are the Voice PING and the Voice TRACE features.

Similar in concept to the PING and TraceRoute facilities used in IP-based diagnostics, these two facilities operate over virtual voice paths created over either Frame Relay circuits or IP-based links.

Voice PING

Voice pinging a remote node yields information about the round trip time (RTT) to that node and its reachability. This is useful information in assessing the quality of the network route.

The Ping command will send a number of ping test packets to the remote node and measure the RTT for each packet. After the node sends the last packet it will display the minimum, maximum and average RTT. You can optionally specify the ping count in a range from 1 to 50000.

          Ping Echo Results Display
 
 Ping to FR1, count 10
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 1, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 2, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 3, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 4, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 5, time 1 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 6, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 7, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 8, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 9, time 2 ms
 Echo reply from FR1, sequence 10, time 2 ms
 Ping results for FR1, packets transmitted 10, received 10
 Minimum 1 ms, Maximum 2 ms, Average 1.90 ms
 

You can ping an IP or frame relay callgroup, in which case the ping will cross a single hop. You can also ping from a port, measuring the end-to-end RTT to the remote node that the port has called. A useful tactic is to start the ping on a port using a very large ping count and then call various destinations from the port. The command will display the RTT to each destination while the call is in progress and "no response" at all other times.

To ping a callgroup or from a port:

Voice TRACE

Voice tracing a remote node tells you the path of voice nodes the call is passing through and the (RTT) to each node. This is useful information in assessing where to find delays in the network.

Example: In the following trace example the first hop is 3 ms, the second hop is 94 ms and the third hop (to the final destination) is 6 ms. The majority of delay in the network is through the second hop.

 Trace Results Display
 
 Trace will run for next 3 seconds...
 Echo reply from 199.85.24.12 after 3 ms
 Echo reply from 198.42.6.86 after 97 ms
 Echo reply from 200.23.42.1 after 103 ms
 3 hops replied
 

To trace a port call:

REFERENCES

Please consult the Athena or Athena Access Reference Manual for additional details regarding the use of this feature.§

Copyright © 1999 Develcon Electronics Ltd.  All Rights Reserved.