Documentation forVoIP & Network Quality Manager
Monitoring VoIP and network quality is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition.

How do I get started with SolarWinds VNQM?

SolarWinds VoIP and Network Quality Manager (VNQM) helps you troubleshoot performance problems you experience with IP-based applications, including audio conferencing, video conferencing, and web conferencing. After you configure SolarWinds VNQM to monitor your Network Service Assurance-capable and call manager devices, SolarWinds provides real-time historical network performance and call quality statistics that you can use to quickly identify issues and take steps to resolve them.

Use this guide to configure SolarWinds VNQM and your devices to monitor network performance and call quality statistics.

Customers: following the recommendations in this guide ensures your system capabilities and production environment is sized correctly. Minimum system requirements used during an evaluation are not sufficient for a production environment. Access your licensed software from the SolarWinds Customer Portal. If you need implementation help, contact our Support Team.

Read this SolarWinds Customer Support article to learn how to properly open a support case and get your case the right level of visibility.

Evaluators: download your free 30-day evaluation. The evaluation version of SolarWinds VNQM is a full version of the product, functional for 30 days. If you evaluate SolarWinds VNQM on a Windows Server operating system, you can easily convert your evaluation license to a production license by obtaining and applying a license key. If you need assistance with your evaluation, contact sales@solarwinds.com.

Getting started with SolarWinds VNQM involves the following tasks:

Install SolarWinds VNQM.

The SolarWinds Platform Installer Guide lists system requirements and provides instructions for downloading and installing the product.

Discover and add your devices to the SolarWinds Platform.

You must discover your Network Service Assurance-capable Juniper RPM devices, Cisco routers and CallManager, and Avaya Communications and Media Server devices.

Discovered Network Service Assurance, call manager, and Avaya devices must then be added to SolarWinds VNQM.

Add a Network Service Assurance Cisco router to SolarWinds VNQM.

After discovery, add the Network Service Assurance-capable Cisco router to SolarWinds VNQM. After you add the device, SolarWinds VNQM has SNMP read/write, CLI through Telnet, or SSH access to the device. Access to the device is required for SolarWinds VNQM to create Network Service Assurance operations.

Add Network Service Assurance operations to SolarWinds VNQM.

Network Service Assurance operations are performance tests that SolarWinds VNQM runs against network segments you specify. You must configure SolarWinds VNQM and choose which operations you want to monitor.

Troubleshoot a Network Service Assurance network issue.

After the system is configured, network performance data populates resources in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Use the resources to troubleshoot network performance issues.

Add a call manager device to SolarWinds VNQM.

After discovery, add Cisco or Avaya call manager devices to SolarWinds VNQM. This step is required so that SolarWinds VNQM can verify service accounts are established, and that it can make direct API calls to the device, and parse CLI commands.

Configure a call manager device to send data to VNQM.

SolarWinds receives call data that is sent from the call manager device. You must configure your Cisco CallManager or Avaya call manager to send data to SolarWinds VNQM.

Troubleshoot a VoIP network issue.

After the system is configured, call quality data populates resources in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. Use the resources to troubleshoot issues with VoIP services.