ipoque Joins ALU's NFV Ecosystem

ipoque announced it has "joined Alcatel-Lucent’s Cloudband Ecosystem Program, a community of 60+ like-minded NFV innovators accelerating the reality of network functions virtualization (NFV).

With the agreement, ipoque committed to contributing its R&S PACE protocol and application classification engine to the program, an OEM software for application-awareness, designed to run in virtual environments with no loss of performance" 

Other members in ALU's Couldband are shown here and include ipoque's direct competitors: Qosmos, Procera, Sandvine and Allot.

See "ipoque brings application awareness technology to Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand ecosystem for traffic visibility and more agile operation of network functions virtualization (NFV)" - here.

ipoque New Net Reporter Doubles Analytics Capacity

ipoque announced it has "launched R&S Net Reporter 2 a versatile Internet traffic analytics platform that delivers twice as much analytics capacity than the previous version.

R&S Net Reporter 2 is a new release of the existing R&S Net Reporter software, which is the customer-facing element of ipoque’s traffic analytics solution for mobile, fixed and broadband operators. Information is presented to the user showing realtime subscriber behavior or generating trends of up to one year in duration from a whole network perspective down to individual subscriber level". 

New on R&S®Net Reporter 2:

• New Content Delivery Network (CDN) analytics 
• New video streaming analytics
• Extensive and flexible filtering, selection and drill-down options on data 
• New intuitive user interface
• The new qualitative analytics approach requires less hardware and delivers similar or better results than competing products – at a much more attractive price. It features short deployment times along with flexible options to customize the solution and integrate it with third-party systems such as CRMs or big data systems. Customers benefit from quick time-to-market for new business cases

See "ipoque releases R&S Net Reporter 2, a versatile analytics platform delivering actionable business intelligence to network operators and enabling a complete traffic analytics solution" - here.

ipoque Launches an Application/Subscriber Classification Probe

R&S®Net Sensor

ipoque, a Rohde & Schwarz company (acquired on May 2011 - here), launched "R&S®Net Sensor - a technically advanced IP application classification probe. R&S®Net Sensor allows mobile and fixed network operators and service providers to extract meaningful network traffic information and subscriber behavior data as well as identify statistical trends, either in real-time or aggregated up to one year.
 

.. R&S®Net Sensor also features a special internal interface to R&S®PACE which ensures that all updates to detection and metadata extraction performed on the R&S®PACE software are reflected in the R&S®Net Sensor’s output in real-time. Automatic remote updates to the IP classification library ensure that the probe capabilities stay current with minimal effort. This guarantees operators very fast time to market for detection and classification of formerly unknown new applications and protocols. It is available at various line speeds from 1 Gbps to 40 Gbps to cater to the requirements of small networks through to the demands of large
operators.

With this product release, ipoque becomes integrated into the Rohde & Schwarz brand. ipoque has been a subsidiary of the Munich based electronics group with a global sales and service network since 2013". 

See "ipoque launched R&S®Net Sensor, its first product under the Rohde & Schwarz brand" - here.

Qosmos CEO: "We own 70% of the market and Deployed in 6 out of 10 Tier1s"

Steve Saunders, LightReading, CEO and Founder, interviews Thibaut Bechetoille [pictured], CEO, Qosmos on DPI (which Qosmos calls now "Network Intelligence", a better name, as Steve comments).

Some quotes:

• Thibaut sees 3 use-cases for DPI - security, traffic management and analytics with its monetization potential. 

• Service chaining (here) is an important shift in the industry, where telcos will be able to do per-user, per application, service enablement,

• We have 6 out of 10 tier1 customers (through TEM OEM) .. we work closer to the telcos .. we have a team of 15 people (out of 100 employees) dedicated to direct touch with the telcos.

The competitors are Procera (based on the Vineyard Networks acquisition), ipoque .. We own 70% of the market.  we adjust our pricing proposal to the different  cases of our partners.

[According to Procera's 2014 annual reports [here], "NAVL revenue contributed $3.6 million in product revenue and $0.8 million in support revenue for the year ended December 31, 2014 compared to $1.7 million in product revenue and $0.9 million in support revenue for the year ended December 31, 2013"] 

Thibaut indicates 2 areas of new development:

• SDN/NFV/ Service chaining such as the Classifier (see "Qosmos Launches a Standards-based Service Classifier (2300+ Protocols and Metadata) - here)
   
• Going to adjacent markets to DPI, URL filtering  

See "Qosmos CEO: The Changing Face of DPI" - here.

ipoque Launches an "all-in-one" Traffic & Subscriber Analysis Solution

ipoque ".. introduced Net Reporter Compact (NRC), its first all-in-one traffic and subscriber analysis solution combining a network probe with advanced IP classification and a powerful analysis and storage tool in one integrated package. The combination of probe and IP analytics functionality in one solution makes visibility of traffic on the network more accessible than ever before. This provides small to medium network operators, or large operators who want to analyze a portion of their network, a cost- effective turn-key solution for sophisticated network analytics.

Net Reporter Compact is scalable up to 100 000 subscribers, which makes it the ideal solution for small to medium mobile or fixed operators or for large operators who need to gain insight into specific parts of their network. 

Based on ipoque’s IP application classification software PACE, Net Reporter Compact provides real-time recognition of more than 95% of all protocols and applications, including Peer-to-Peer traffic, VoIP, video streaming and tunnel protocols. Top users can be identified based on geography and protocols utilized along with attributes such as device type and ARPU, allowing for customization of service offers by market segment to match demand for type of service. 

The extracted data can be enriched further by integration with additional Radius Authentication Attributes, CRM or Type Allocation Code (TAC) databases in order to generate anonymized reports enabling visibility of additional revenue generating opportunities and the execution of targeted marketing campaigns".

See "ipoque, a Rohde & Schwarz company, announces an all-in-one IP traffic and subscriber analytics solution allowing operators to customize services offered to their subscribers based on usage attributes" - here.

[ABI]: Sandvine, Allot and Citrix Lead the Independent $600M DPI Market

A new report by Joe Hoffman [pictured], Practice Director, ABI Research evaluates the "independent vendors delivering Deep Packet Inspection, Traffic Steering, and Policy Control in the Gi-LAN space, and finds Sandvine as best of breed, followed by Allot and Citrix ByteMobile

... This research covers the leading independent vendors, Allot, Citrix ByteMobile, F5 Networks, Ipoque, Sandvine, and Procera Networks that account for nearly US$600M in revenues in this market space.

With the DPI commoditized, the independent vendors work hard to present differentiated value propositions to the telecom market:

• Sandvine takes top rating because of its industry leading power-performance efficiency [see "Sandvine Adds a 200Gbps/2RU Appliance w/100GE Interfaces" - here], focus on compact form-factor suitable for distributed or centralized networks, and a very rich analytics and monetization emphasis.
   
• Allot takes second place with virtually the same power-performance [see "Allot Launched the New Service Gateway; Orders from 4 Operators (over $9M)" - here] but in a NEBS compliant ATCA platform.

Allot's ServiceGateway Tera

Sandvine's PTS 32000

• The Citrix ByteMobile ATM places third with the added richness of its total package solution, and also with NEBS compliance.

See "Sandvine, Allot, and Citrix Top ABI Research’s DPI and Traffic Management Competitive Assessment" - here.

ipoque Enables Monetization with Enhanced Reporting Tool

ipoque announced the "release of its enhanced Net Reporter, a comprehensive and feature-rich traffic and subscriber analytics solution for operators with near-100% detection of all network traffic. 

Net Reporter delivers information such as application usage, device, location, ARPU and QoE/QoS statistics that are valuable to various departments within network operator, for example, Customer Service to pre-emptively avoid subscriber churn, Network Planning to predict and mitigate against congestion, and Marketing to identify specific subscribers to offer additional revenue generating services". 

Dirk Czepluch [pictured], CTO, ipoque said: “With our enhanced Net Reporter traffic and subscriber analytics solution we enable mobile and fixed network operators to monetize the pipe they provide by helping them get detailed knowledge about their customer’s usage behavior. The insight gained is extremely valuable for customized Marketing campaigns and made to measure service offers, for example guaranteed QoE for business critical applications or content partnerships with preferred streaming platforms”.

See "ipoque’s enhanced subscriber analytics engine enables operators to monetize the pipe" - here.

[TechNavio]: The DPI Market will Grow at 36% CAGR

A new report by TechNavio forecasts that ".. the Global DPI market will grow at a CAGR of 36.45 percent over the period 2013-2018 .. Although at present the EMEA region is a major contributor to the market, the APAC region is expected to emerge as a strong contributor to this market. ISPs and government organizations are the biggest adopters of DPI technology in the market .. with the increase in the use of bandwidth-intense applications such as P2P traffic and real-time multimedia content over the last few years, ISPs are increasingly adopting DPI solutions to manage and monitor the network".

The report identifies Allot Communications, Cisco, Procera Networks and Sandvine as "key vendors" and Arbor Networks, Bivio Networks, Endace, Huawei Technologies, ipoque, Quosmos and Tableau Software as "Other Prominent Vendors" (although some are no longer players in the DPI/traffic management market).

A year ago TechNavio had a similar forecast (see "[TechNavio] DPI Market to Grow at 35% 2012-16" - here).

See "Global DPI Market 2014-2018" - here.

ipoque Enhances Its DPI Package; Adds Metadata Extraction; VoLTE Performance Measurements

ipoque announced its "..next generation PACE 2.0 software that identifies thousands of applications and services and provides deeper insight on application attributes such as real-time performance metrics, all from a single solution .. providing high-speed application identification in real-time together with QoE metrics on VoLTE traffic at 40Gbps speed.

Dirk Czepluch [pictured], President and CTO, ipqoue said: “ipoque is focusing on key telecom industry challenges including the management of quality of experience for voice and video services on modern LTE mobile networks. This not only requires the fast application detection that PACE 2.0 provides, but also extensive metadata extraction and measurement in real-time of key performance indicators. This level of performance is particularly critical for the traffic steering of time-sensitive VoLTE & video apps, for deeper analytics to monetize new services and to assure services based on improved application monitoring and troubleshooting".

New on PACE 2.0: 

• New all-in-one protocol and application classification engine also capable of advanced metadata extraction. 
• More efficient for customers to get deeper application insight, and the granularity of detail is 100% configurable. 
• Advanced accuracy of application detection with clear separation of protocols, applications and services, including a packet processing toolkit. 
• Fully optimized to work with leading third-party acceleration solutions e.g. Napatech and Intel.
• QoS/QoE Analytics to enable VoIP/VoLTE performance measurements 

See "ipoque enhances IP application detection to meet the QoE demands of VoLTE and video on mobile networks" - here.

Napatech and ipoque Partner to Assist Network Equipment Vendors

Napatech and ipoque announced a ".. joint mission to improve quality of experience (QoE) in mobile networks using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers. 

Napatech and ipoque are working together to provide high-speed, real-time application insight into LTE networks supporting voice and video services .. Napatech and ipoque are currently engaged with key customers in deploying these capabilities today.

Napatech and ipoque will assist network equipment vendors to accelerate the identification, measurement and analysis of video and VoLTE services at high speed, under any conditions, with high reliability. The joint solution will combine the power of Napatech’s real-time network processing with ipoque’s application recognition software up to Layer 7, which is critical for traffic steering of time sensitive VoLTE & video apps".

See "Napatech and ipoque to Improve Quality of Experience in Mobile Networks" - here.

ipoque's DPI Engine Used for "Smart Pipe" Small Cell

ipoque announced a "new use case for its DPI to revolutionize consumers’ mobile Internet experience, as presented by Intel Lab’s engineers at Intel Developer Forum 2013 in San Francisco. Intel Lab’s Research Scientists showcased ipoque’s PACE engine, a Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) software library based on sophisticated detection techniques including behavioral and heuristic analysis, integrated into the “Smart Pipe” server used in small cells as a mobile Internet access gateway. The demoed prototype enables network operators to classify Internet traffic at the application level to ensure improved QoE for mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) calls and video streaming.

The “Smart Pipe” allocates all bandwidth available across all networks (WiFi or mobile networks) to these prioritized applications and also enables seamless handover for VoIP calls when connectivity is lost from one of the networks, ensuring the customer’s service is never interrupted.

See "New Deep Packet Inspection use case demoed at IDF13 helps small cell manufacturers to revolutionize consumer’s mobile Internet experience" - here.

R&S Radio Communication Tester Enhanced with ipoque DPI for IP Analysis

   

Rohde & Schwarz presents "the world's first integrated end-to-end test solution with IP and protocol statistic analysis for detailed assessment of data transmission on smartphones. Equipped with the new R&S CMW-KM051 option, the R&S CMW500 wideband radio communication tester can comprehensively analyze and test IP-based applications using ipoque’s powerful deep packet inspection (DPI) engine .. The R&S CMW500 provides a real-time testing environment for wireless communications networks such as LTE, WCDMA and even WLAN"

".. The IP analysis involves logging each IP data packet that is sent and received at the IP protocol level. The following functions are available for more precise analysis: list of active IP connections, TCP analysis, list of protocols used, data volume statistics, protocol name resolution, and triggering on IP events. The intelligent and reliable IP analysis records the IP traffic of applications – even when they are active in the background. This makes it possible to identify error sources".

See "Rohde & Schwarz and ipoque to offer the first integrated end-to-end test solution with IP and protocol statistic analysis for smartphones" - here.

News [Part-1]: Qwilt, Procera, Tilera, ipoque, BroadForward, Acme Packet, Tekelec, Roke, Smith Micro, Greenpacket

   

It seems that many consider the first day of MWC to be the best day for press releases. I am not sure about that. With the load of press releases in one day, the attention for each is naturally lower.

Here is the first part:

• Qwilt announced that its "QB-Series Universal Video Delivery appliance supports the new Internet Protocol, IPv6. Qwilt's QB-Series is the industry's first fully integrated, purpose-built carrier-grade transparent caching platform that identifies, monitors, stores and delivers over-the-top (OTT) streaming video in fixed and mobile networks. With this feature update, the QB-Series enables carriers to transparently cache and deliver all types of video content traversing over both IPv4 and the emerging IPv6 protocols in their networks".
  
  See "Qwilt Unveils IPv6 Support For Its Transparent Caching And Video Delivery Solution" - here.


• Procera Networks and Tilera announced they have "..achieved 200Gbps of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) performance deploying the Procera Network Application Visibility Library (NAVL) on TILExtreme-Gx™ Duo platform, utilizing approximately 70 percent of the TILE-Gx cores .. the solution can be deployed in a variety of networking scenarios including Network Security (IDS/IPS, DPI, DLP), Cyber Security, Network Monitoring, Data Forensics, Analytics and Big Data" processing.
  
  See "Procera Networks and Tilera Unleash 200Gbps Deep Packet Inspection Solution" - here.
     
• ipoque announced [with BroadForward]  the ".. availability of advanced interfacing capabilities for its PRX Internet Traffic Management solution .. Gaining network visibility, intelligence and management has traditionally been a complex integration issue and long-term project within network operators. Multi-vendor environments and often proprietary protocols create challenging conditions which prohibit fast time to market, require additional resources and drive up cost. This new DPI advancement addresses these issues faced by network operators. Now, a traffic management solution and elements such as an online policy and charging function can be integrated reliably in a matter of days rather than weeks or months".
  
  See "ipoque & BroadForward partner to deliver advanced DPI interworking" - here.
   
• Tekelec is expanding its "Policy Everywhere” partner ecosystem to help mobile operators deliver a superior subscriber experience. Tekelec is testing interoperability between its Mobile Policy Gateway (MPG) and solutions from Roke Manor Research Ltd. (SmartSwitch™), Greenpacket (Intouch Mobile Data Offload platform) and Smith Micro (NetWise Director™). This testing includes standards-compliant Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) capabilities, as well as advanced use cases that extend the reach of policy directly to mobile devices.
  
  See "Tekelec takes ‘policy everywhere’ with new partners" - here
   
• Acme Packet announced the "..release of Palladion 3.0 .. a non-intrusive monitoring solution, consists of three new management options: Communications Operations Monitor to track network signaling and media in real-time and enable detailed troubleshooting capabilities; Fraud Detection and Prevention to discover and prevent voice fraud; and Control Plane Monitor to track and troubleshoot Diameter signaling traffic in IMS and LTE networks". 
  
  See "Acme Packet Announces Real-Time Monitoring Solution for Next-Generation Service Provider Networks" - here.

[Vendor Review] Comverse's New Analytics Supported Policy Creation

Just before they leave to MWC, I met two of Comverse's Mobile Internet marketing team - Inbal Ben Ami, Product Marketing Manager, and Haim Rapoport (pictured), AVP Product Marketing.

I used the opportunity for a short brief on Comverse mobile internet business, and to learn more on the new products Comverse will be presenting in Barcelona this year.

Comverse Data Management and Monetization business (formally MIH - Mobile Internet Hub), offers all components of traffic management - from a PCEF (figure 1) with DPI (by ipoque - here), filtering and optimization, through PCRF, to a convergent billing system (Comverse ONE), with full integration between all systems (see figure 2 - 3GPP Sy "and beyond" support for billing-policy management integration).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Comverse is financially strong - with revenues $675M  (Q4 '11-Q3 '12), $250M in cash and no debt. Comverse internet business is no longer focused on the mobile market only, but addresses the fixed market as well, with the PCEF/DPI and policy management offering.

Encouraged by Infonetics Research report, showing that the two most important selection criteria for policy management systems are "Flexibility of rules engine" (96%) and "performance scalability across complex use cases and session/subscriber growth" (88%), Comverse decided to increase the usability of its PCRF rules creation and editing.

On top of the existing graphical rule editing tools provided to the marketing people designing new products (here, figure 3), Comverse adds analytics to assists marketers in their work - "Analytics Supported Policy Creation", they call it. Now, when a new service plan is created, the analytics function may advice on the popularity of the rule defined (figures 4 & 5).

Comverse clarified that the analytics function is not yet commercially available.

Figure 3

Figure 4

 

Figure 5

DPI Product Page Updated: ipoque Added

The DPI Product page [here] was updated with the addition of ipoque's PRX-10G to the standalone products.

[Update 61: ipoque <-> Comverse] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

ipoque ORX-10G

DPI vendor ipoque updated me that its PRX policy enforcement products are compatible with Comverse's PCRF. The PCRF-DPI matrix [here] was updated accordingly.

See also "DPI – Recent Product Announcements, New Player" - here.

[Update 60: Tango <-> Cisco, ipoque] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

Tango Telecom updated me that it "has successfully integrated our PCRF with both Cisco and Ipoque’s DPI solutions".

The PCRF-DPI matrix [here] was updated accordingly.

[Update 57: Aradial <-> ipoque] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

  

Aradial Technologies informed me that "We also support ipoque and have installation with it".

The PCRF-DPI comparability matrix (here) was updated to reflect this information.

[Update 52: Volubill-Ipoque] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

   
Volubill and ipoque announced that "..the companies have partnered to provide PCRF and PCEF solutions for fixed and mobile operators. The partnership will create a best-of-breed solution that gives network operators a better understanding of network traffic required to deliver more dynamic and contextualized data service plans .. Volubill's VBS policy and charging control is integrated with ipoque PRX Traffic Manager for Policy Enforcement .. The pre-integrated solution, which is already integrated within key Volubill and ipoque customer accounts".

The DPI-PCRF matrix (here) was updated, and now includes ipoque as a DPI vendor. The company updated me that in addition to Volubill, they also interoperate with Comverse (related post - here), and "..there will likely be two to three more announced within the next couple of months".

See "Volubill and ipoque Partner to Deliver Real-Time Policy Management and Policy Enforcement Engine for Communications Service Providers" - here.

How to Build DPI Products? (Part XIII - L7 Identification with 4 Bytes)

    

WAND, "a research group at the University of Waikato Computer Science Department" offers Libprotoident (here):

"a library that performs application layer protocol identification for flows. Unlike many techniques that require capturing the entire packet payload, only the first four bytes of payload sent in each direction, the size of the first payload-bearing packet in each direction and the TCP or UDP port numbers for the flow are used by libprotoident. Libprotoident features a very simple API that is easy to use, enabling developers to quickly write code that can make use of the protocol identification rules present in the library without needing to know anything about the applications they are trying to identify". The project is managed by Shane Alcock,

WAND says it collaborates with ipoque (here) - "The [former] CEO and co-founder of ipoque [now CEO of Adyton Systems], Klaus Mochalski, is an ex-employee of the WAND group. ipoque have provided WAND with a research license for their PACE application classification library, which is being used to compare [see chart below] the performance of libprotoident with a commercial-grade DPI product. In turn, WAND is sharing the results of research into application protocol detection with ipoque to enable them to improve their product".

See here how it works and here for an in-depth description.