AppManager for Call Data Analysis
NetIQ's AppManager for Call Data Analysis module enables you to collect and report on call detail records (CDRs) produced by VoIP systems such as Cisco CallManager. These records contain information such as call origination, destination, duration, and termination status. Most VoIP systems also provide information about the quality of the calls they process, including metrics such as jitter and latency, as well as the number of packets that were sent, received, and lost.
The Business Problem
A CDR is a log of phone calls that contain information related to the calls, such as callers, called parties, connect time, duration, disconnect causes, security and more. In a VoIP environment, CDR data can be generated from multiple sources, including Cisco CallManager publishers and voice gateways. These different sources have different formats and semantics and can produce large volumes of data.
The NetIQ Solution
The AppManager Call Data Analysis Module provides a consolidated view of CDR information from different sources (publishers), enabling users to report on CDR data in a variety of ways. With AppManager Call Data Analysis, you can create and schedule detailed reports using AppManager Knowledge Scripts that analyze the traffic represented by the CDR data. Sample reports include Call Volume Report, Call Success Rate Report, Call Completion Rate Report, Call Failure Cause Report, Call Quality Report and Call Authorization reports.
The CDR also contains security-related information that provides AppManager for Call Data Analysis the ability to analyze call usage patterns in order to spot abuse and for long-term planning purposes. The security-focused reports give you the ability to monitor for toll fraud, unauthorized usage and malicious call activity.
Sample Reports
There are two primary types of reports available with AppManager Call Data Analysis: Enterprise reports and Detailed/Troubleshooting reports. Enterprise reports represent data across multiple Cisco CallManager clusters that can be grouped different ways (e.g., by calling location, calling partition, outbound trunk group). Detailed or troubleshooting reports are based on calls matching specific criteria (e.g., calling number, originating IP address, outbound gateway name).
Enterprise Reports
- Call Volume Report - Grouped by calling location. Shows volume in both number of calls and duration. Used to find the busy hour and for capacity planning.
- Call Success Rate Report - Success rate is determined solely by disconnect cause code; can configure additional cause codes to consider normal.
- Call Completion Rate Report - Similar to success rate but takes into account abandoned calls. An abandoned call is one with a successful disconnect cause code but with zero duration.
- Call Traffic Report (Stacked Bar Chart) - Shows call traffic by location using a stacked bar chart. Default rules for classifying traffic uses North American numbering plan; rules can be modified for other numbering plans and to configure gateway local area codes.
- Call Traffic Report (Pie Chart) - Shows a breakdown of all traffic using a pie chart.
- Call Jitter Report - Grouped by calling location, this report classifies the jitter measurement for each call as good, acceptable, or poor based on defined thresholds. In this example, the drill-down indicates a severe jitter problem during peak hours of the day.
- Call Packet Loss Report - Grouped by calling location, this report determines percent packet loss for each call and then classifies each call as good, acceptable, or poor based on defined thresholds.
- Trunk Group by Hour Report - Shows inbound, outbound, and tandem calls by trunk group. A tandem call is one that is inbound to the trunk group and then is routed out of the trunk group. Can also choose to show same report by gateway to see info at gateway level.
- Call Authorization by Name Report - Grouped by department, this report shows the amount of long distance calls made per hour. Administrators can easily determine long distance abuse or toll fraud.
Detailed/Troubleshooting Reports
- Call Failure Causes Report - Shows the failure cause codes that are occurring in the environment.
- Call Quality by Phone Report - Finds directory numbers that are experiencing problems (e.g., poor success rate, jitter). This example shows all numbers matching 7021* and is sorted by worst jitter.
- Call Details Report - Shows details of calls that match specified criteria. You can choose which columns to include in the report. This sample report matches all calls from 7021* numbers that had a duration of at least one second.
- Frequently Called Numbers Report – Shows all called numbers with more than 20 calls over the last 7 days. This report allows administrators to see if any number is suspicious (e.g. high volume to 911, 411, or 1-900).
