Specifications

Network Requirements and Preparation
9 – 10 ShoreTel, Inc.
Wide Area Network
To manage bandwidth in the wide area network, prioritize your voice traffic ahead of
your data traffic. The voice packets on the ShoreTel 6.1 system always travel on UDP
port 5004, so you simply prioritize this UDP port within your routers with priority
queueing. You can prioritize based on the voice switch IP address, the MAC address, or
the physical port on the Ethernet switch. As an additional step, you can also prioritize
the distributed call control signaling that always travels on UDP port 5440 through
UDP port 5445.
If the voice traffic for the call needs to flow across a WAN link, the routers needs to be
configured to prioritize voice ahead of data using one of the two tagging methods
(DiffServ/ToS or UDP 5004).
NOTE ShoreTel customers typically choose to prioritize UDP 5004 to avoid costly
network upgrades since older routers and more Ethernet switches support this
function. Additionally, configuring UDP 5004 for prioritization is easy to set up.
Client Bandwidth
ShoreTel Call Managers communicate with the ShoreWare server for call information
and control, configuration changes, and advanced services such as extension
monitoring. Table 9-6 provides an estimate of the client bandwidth used for each of the
Call Manager applications.
Distributed Call Control Signaling
Voice switches maintain communication with each other. A single voice switch
maintaining basic connectivity with 59 other voice switches consumes less than
1.5 Kbps of bandwidth.
Admission Control in the Wide Area Network
To ensure that your voice traffic does not overwhelm the wide area network and
degrade voice quality, the ShoreTel 6.1 system has an Admission Control feature. From
ShoreWare Director, you can limit the amount of WAN bandwidth used for telephone
calls on a per-site basis. For a telephone call to be established between sites, admission
control must be met at both sites. If the admission control limit is reached at a site,
additional calls cannot be placed to or from the site, thus ensuring the voice quality of
calls already in progress. If the user is making an outbound call, the call is
automatically routed out of a trunk at the site. When making an extension-to-extension
Table 9-6 Typical Call Manager Bandwidth Use
Call Manager Bandwidth Use
Personal .2 Kbps
Advanced .2 Kbps
Operator
Extension Monitor
.2 Kbps + 1.5 Kbps
1.5 Kbps per monitored extension
Workgroup Agent
Queue Monitor
.25 Kbps
6.5 Kbps per queued call
Workgroup Supervisor
Queue Monitor
Agent Monitor
.25 Kbps
6.5 Kbps per queued call
1.5 Kbps per agent