From the Editor’s Desk: Quality of service comes of age

In the uneasy truce that many enterprises have between network administrators on the data side, and telephone providers on the voice side, perhaps no area is more fraught with tension than quality of service (QoS).Administrators, familiar with the "green light/red light" world of data packet transfers, often aren't attuned to the specific requirements of IP-based voice systems. Of course, the same could be said of the folks who have grown up with TDMs. But things change, both culturally and technologically - they have to, because with the advent of video and advanced call-centre technologies, the talk has already shifted from QoS, to quality of experience (QoE).In this issue we look at QoS from a variety of perspectives: inside the network, across the WAN, and out into the cloud. Analysts from Forrester Research, AR Communications, and Delphi Inc. offer their opinions on complex, and often poorly understood, viability of QoS in cloud computing (see VoIP in the cloud tackles quality of service, page 1). We then take a look at how concerns over QoE are now commonplace, whether it be specific to voice and human interaction in the data centre, or the multimedia demand of video in the context of unified communications (When quality of experience trumps quality of service, page 4).In the "blame game" that sometimes occurs when it comes to QoS issues, things can really heat up if it is difficult to locate the problem: is it on the, LAN, the WAN, the PSTN? And who's responsible, the vendors, administrators, carriers? We examine the common scapegoat, the WAN (Home on the range: the wild world of quality of service on the WAN, page 6). As we sometimes do at Telemanagement, in this issue we offer some tips on determining QoS (Determining VoIP quality of service, page 8). And finally, Telemanagement gets to know an end user, the Sudbury & District Health Unit, and learns some lessons from a pioneer in how to get the most out of a provider (Don't settle for poor quality of service for IP voice, page 12).In this issue we also have our regular features, the Green Page and Security Beat, to help keep you up-to-date in these ever relevant, yet constantly changing areas.Enjoy - and may this issue of Telemanagement offer you the desired QoE.

From the Editor’s Desk: Quality of service comes of age

News | June 29, 2008

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