cPacket New Product Monitors and Correlates Links, Virtual Tunnels, and Applications

cPacket Networks announced "cClear technology for performance monitoring and optimization across physical and virtual realms of modern networks .. Existing network performance monitoring tools only provide limited information of average link utilization, which masks reliability issues like bottlenecks, spikes, microbursts, jitter, and inconsistent user experience.

cClear is the first technology to provide a correlated performance mapping of physical links, virtual tunnels, and applications behavior in real-time .. At the heart of this novel architecture are cPacket’s Smart Ports, which are high-speed and cost-effective distributed sensors based on the company’s algorithmic chip. cClear technology correlates information from multiple Smart Ports to identify intricate dependencies between the virtual overlays and the underlying physical network connectivity. Having a granular view of the performance of both the physical and virtual environments allows Network Managers to monitor traffic behaviors, identify critical bottlenecks, and make fact-driven decisions".

Unfortunately, I could not find or obtain any additional information on the new technology.  

See "cPacket’s Novel Technology Delivers Unified Performance Monitoring For Today’s Cloudy Virtual Network Environments"- here.

Israel: Will ISPs have to Send Detailed Surfing Records to Subscribers?

Gilad Erdan,Minister
of Communications 

Earlier this month, Israel's Ministry of Communications (the local regulator) published 2 calls for hearing about new parental control services to be provided by broadband ISPs (here) and MNOs (here, both in Hebrew).

According to the documents, only a small number of the subscribers have signed for the filtering services of harmful sites. These services should be provided by all licensed ISPs and MNOs for free.

Related posts:

• [Israel]: Why were ISPs Fined for not Promoting Free Parental Control Services? - here
• [Israel]: ISPs will have to Offer Free Web Filtering Service - here
• UK: How do ISPs Implement Network Based Parental Control Service?  - here

In order to increase public awareness to the risks, and to the SPs solutions, the Ministry is considering requiring SPs to add the following services to the filtering service:

• Allowing subscribers to manage the time of day and duration of surfing, with an option for flexibility and changes
   
• The SP will send, on a daily weekly or monthly basis, a report by Email a report on all sites visited by the subscriber
   
• The SP will allow the use of "user names" on a single device, enabling the service to some of the user names
   
• The filtering service will not affect the browsing QoE
   
• The subscriber will be able to select between a device based or a network-based service 

And again - all the above is expected to be provided for free!!!

Cisco's New WAE Enables SP's Application-Aware WAN Services

 
Cisco announced it has added "..Cisco WAN Automation Engine(WAE) to its Evolved Services Platform (ESP), marking another key milestone in the company’s network function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined-networking (SDN) strategy. These new capabilities will provide service providers with tools they need to analyze, visualize and control functions across multi-vendor, wide area networks (WAN)"

Cisco added quotes from Tencent, Italtel, TDS (Sandvine customer - here) , XO Communications and Wow! to the release, about the use of WAE or its predecessor, MATE.

Technology Highlights:

• Situational and Predictive Analysis: Uses historical traffic data and anticipated demand to produce real-time and predictive models that increase overall service velocity; calculates high traffic “what-if” analysis while offering solutions for ultimate load balancing; utilizes flexible policy routing to enforce latency and utilization constraints for overall network optimization.
   
• Traffic Visualization: Enables an accurate “total WAN” topology view with comprehensive modeling; collects and models traffic, equipment and topology data while maintaining the “state” of each and then maps everything together for holistic, real-time network transparency; utilizes time-sequenced global models to provide accurate forecasting across thousands of WAN nodes.
   
• Control and Automated Provisioning: Extends Cisco ESP advanced orchestration and management across the WAN and dynamically assesses total traffic views to allow on-the-fly WAN reconfiguration of path calculations.

See "Cisco Delivers Advanced Traffic Visibility and Control with New WAN Automation Engine" - here.

[Survey]: SMBs Need Deeper Application-User-Aware Traffic Monitoring

NetFort Technologies published the "findings of its annual network monitoring survey. NetFort surveyed a total of 138 network managers from small and medium size businesses (SMBs). Key findings from the report include the following:

• 76% of respondents already use network monitoring tools
• Most important feature not provided by existing tools - Ability to break down traffic by application and user
• Reports most often requested by management: Information on bandwidth consumption
• 71% of respondents think it is a necessity to associate network activity with usernames and not just IP addresses
• 18% of respondents want more visibility into bandwidth consumption
• 18% would like to monitor application performance
• 12% would like more visibility into Internet activity and monitor activity by IP address and username
• Nearly 27% of respondents would like a breakdown of traffic by application and user"
  

See "Results of our network monitoring survey" - here.

AdaptiveMobile Uses Big Date to Defend ISPs in Real-Time

  

AdaptiveMobile announced the "..launch of Tethra™, a Hadoop-based “Big-Security” threat analytics platform designed to defend service provider networks. Tethra provides powerful real-time continuous monitoring of threats, evaluating the billions of events occurring every day within the typical mobile and fixed line service provider. Unlike traditional approaches to network security, which rely on daily feeds to databases of signatures and categorisation decisions, Tethra™ is uniquely able to respond immediately to new threats as they emerge within the network".

See "AdaptiveMobile Launches Tethra™, the Industry’s First Big-Security Platform Designed to Protect Service Providers" - here.

CommProve Adds LTE Support

CommProve launched its "Mobile Broadband (MBB) Insight application for LTE. Expanding on the existing CommProve Insight application suite, the LTE application provides operators with invaluable network-wide information including handset usage trends, subscriber location and customer profile information. MBB Insight enables operators to improve both the quality of service (QoS) on the network but also subscriber quality of experience (QoE) .. CommProve’s MBB Insight application has been widely deployed to date with customers all over the world including Telecom Italia as well as Telecom Personal in Argentina and Wataniya Maldives. The application is available immediately for deployment.

Source: Commprove

Source: Commprove

CommProve’s NetLedge 4G monitoring platform provides the MBB Insight application with correlated user and control plane information so operators know where a subscriber is, and what device/application they’re using. This network subscriber view enables operators to truly understand network congestion and how this is impacting subscriber experience so that they can proactively trouble shoot network issues even when subscribers are on the move".

See "CommProve Launches Mobile Broadband Insight for LTE" -here.

Ixia Enhances Visibility Tool with 100 GbE Interfaces

 

Ixia announced that it " has further advanced its award-winning Ixia Anue Net Tool Optimizer® (NTO) solutions .. the release of the Network Visibility Operating System (NVOS) v3.8 and the 100GbE Interface Module [pictured] supports new capabilities that improve forensic analysis capabilities, advance application performance monitoring and simplify security monitoring of 100GbE networks".

 

"The new 100GbE Interface Module and NVOS update protect monitoring tool investments by enabling users to perform packet-level monitoring of 100GbE networks at full line rate, utilizing existing 1, 10 and 40GbE monitoring tools. Up to four 100GbE interface modules can be supported on one high-density Anue NTO device, or may be combined with 1, 10 or 40GbE ports in a single 2RU chassis"

Ixia's Anue Net Tool Optimizer® (NTO) 5293 carrier grade

See "Ixia Delivers Advanced 100GbE Visibility Solution for Service Providers and Large Enterprises" - here.

France Implements Monitoring System to Track QoE and Net Neutrality

The French regulator, ARCEP, announced that "The minister responsible for electronic communications having approved the ARCEP decision of 29 January 2013, the Authority has introduced a system for measuring and tracking the quality of fixed internet access services [see below or here].

The aim is to improve the information available to internet users, and to provide ARCEP with the means to fulfil its duty to supervise the overall quality of fixed calling and internet access services. This system is also part of the work and discussions and that ARCEP has been conducting since 2010 on the technical and economic aspects of net neutrality.

The new system has two components: main measurements performed in a controlled environment and on dedicated lines, and supplementary measurements performed by users themselves:

• The main measurements, which are to be performed by operators, are carried out on dedicated test lines, inside a technically-controlled environment whose conditions make it possible to achieve a high degree of comparison between operators, and a sufficiently broad representation of the various network access conditions that users encounter. The metrics obtained in this fashion concern seven performance indicators: four generic technical indicators (particularly throughput) and three indicators relating to specific types of usage: web browsing, streaming video and peer-to-peer file sharing. These measurements will be carried out separately on fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-last-amplifier (FTTLA) connections, as well as the copper local loop (whose lines will be segmented by transmission capacity)".

• The supplementary measurements, for which ARCEP will be responsible, will consist of tests that volunteer users will perform using their own equipment. Thanks to a web-based interface, these users will be able to measure their line's performance, and transmit the results to ARCEP. The Authority will thus be able to refer to these supplementary metrics to check that the main measurements are consistent and representative of the user experience".

See "ARCEP introduces a system for measuring and tracking the quality of fixed internet access services" - here.

ACSI Connect to Launch "Monitoring as a Service"

   

ACSI Connect will announce tomorrow the "..availability of Network Monitoring Centre [NMC] – A cloud-based network monitoring and reporting service that delivers comprehensive visibility into network traffic, delivered through the cloud to a single pane of glass. It does so across both single- and multi-vendor networks, ensuring high-quality experiences for users and all but eliminating help desk calls".

"..  Using NetFlow v9, IPFIX and JFlow traffic data, ACSI Connect NMC provides comprehensive traffic visibility without the cost and complexity associated with deploying and managing multiple network appliances. NMC goes well beyond other NetFlow-based reporting systems that see all port 80 traffic as HTTP, individually classifying a wide variety of applications, including video and voice streaming, instant messaging, file sharing and email.

See "ACSI Connect Launches Network Monitoring Centre (NMC) -- Cloud-hosted Network Visibility and Reporting in a Single Pane of Glass" - here.

NI Deployments [232]: Unitel [Angola] Uses Astellia for E2E Monitoring

Astellia announced the signature of a major contract with "Unitel, Angola’s biggest cell phone operator. Astellia will provide Unitel with a complete E2E picture - from RAN to Core network - of their 2G, 3G and 4G traffic.

Amílcar F. Safeca, Deputy CEO, Unitel Angola said: “Astellia’s track record and global experience in passive network monitoring will help us gain more visibility and control of what is happening on our network. Hereby, we can increase problem resolution efficiency and increase our knowledge of our subscribers’ usage”.

See "Unitel Angola adopts a complete E2E monitoring approach with Astellia" - here.

NI Deployments [228]: Telus [Canada] Uses Avvasi for Video Analytics

Avvasi announced that "Telus as the latest wireless service provider to select Avvasi’s Q-VUE™ video analytics to measure its subscribers’ mobile video experience as 3G, 4G and LTE video demand continues to grow ..  Deploying Avvasi’s Q-VUE provides Telus with the industry’s best capability to understand video usage and QoE per service, location, device, subscriber and more. Avvasi’s Q-VUE also includes additional video analytics such as traffic demographics and in-depth analysis of usage trends. This information is crucial to service providers who wish to optimize their traffic, create service level agreements and build new services".

Telus sees continued growth in the number of wireless subscribers (7.6M at the end of 2012) and wireless ARPU (see charts).

Related post - "Majority of Netflix Traffic Uses its Free CDN" - here and "Telus Sees 2,700% Signaling Growth Y/Y" - here. 

See "Telus Selects Avvasi to Measure Mobile Video Quality on National Wireless Network" - here.

Astellia - Partnership w/DigitalRoute; 24% Revenue Increase

   

Astellia and DigitalRoute announced that "Astellia is integrating DigitalRoute’s MediationZone platform into its real-time Nova monitoring solution .. DigitalRoute’s MediationZone provides strong processing and aggregation capabilities that support Nova’s multi-dimensional data manipulation (network elements, cells, group of subscribers, handsets, mobile applications and services)".

Recently, Astellia reported its ".. 2012 revenue of 42.2 M€, an increase of 24% compared to the previous year. International activity represented 85% of the 2012 revenue, reaching 36M€, a 41% increase compared to 2011" (here)

Astellia - visualization of network performance,

See "Astellia picks DigitalRoute for expert mediation in its Nova 4G monitoring solution" - here.

Qosmos and Napatech Launch a DPI-based Analytics Probe

Napatech 4-Port 10 GbE Adapter 

for Packet Capture

Qosmos  and Napatech (here) provided details on the new "Qosmos DeepFlow™ Telecom probe, a pre-configured analytics appliance ideal for telecom solution providers who need to perform big data analysis on high-speed mobile data for service assurance and optimization .. The DeepFlow Telecom appliance combines Qosmos Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities with Napatech intelligent network adapters to provide rich, real-time input for big data analysis of mobile network data".

Deepflow provides real time IP flow analysis beyond 20 Gbps per box, and is offered in a range of probes with specialized products to answer the specific requirements of each telecom use case - for Subscriber Analytics, QoE, or Application Component Suite (see chart below) 

"Qosmos software can recognize 1100 protocols and extract 6000 metadata types including applications that often try to avoid detection. Regular updates to this library ensure that users can stay ahead of the game".

See "Qosmos and Napatech Provide Rich, Real-time Input for Mobile Analytics and Service Assurance" - here.

Napatech Looks Inside Mobile Tunnels (w/IPv6 Support)

Napatech announced " .. new tunneling protocol support that provides increased visibility for monitoring and management of mobile networks .. The new tunneling protocol support will perform flow identification and intelligent distribution based on the contents of tunnels rather than on the tunnel itself. Mobile subscriber traffic is transported in tunnels, such as GTP, through the core network. It is therefore important to monitor and analyze the contents of tunnels and base management decisions on this information .. Napatech will provide support for GPLS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) and IP-in-IP tunneling for both IPv4 and IPv6 networks .. The tunneling support features will be available in April 2013".

Erik Norup (pictured), President and CMO, Napatech said: “Our equipment vendor customers need to analyze all data on the mobile network to build a picture of what is happening .. IP-in-IP will become increasingly important as we make the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 .. There is therefore a need to transport IPv4 over IPv6 and vice versa. There will even be a need for IPv4 tunneling via IPv4 networks where only a limited number of IPv4 addresses are available. With our tunneling support we can ensure that the same picture is provided no matter the type of network you are using”.

See "Napatech Boosts Visibility in Mobile Networks" - here.

Telefonica Launches Smart M2M; W/RT Monitoring

 
Telefónica Digital unveils ".. Smart M2M, a best-in-class web-based platform for the connectivity, management and control of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications .. Smart M2M Solution incorporates new advanced features such as real time monitoring of traffic type, volume and current consumption, technical supervision of lines (maps of connected devices, advanced diagnostics) and localization. It also offers innovative fraud detection functionalities, including the ability to restrict communications between a list of given devices or the possibility to establish traffic caps".

"Smart M2M Solution is already commercially available for Telefónica customers in Brazil and Spain and will soon be expanded to other countries, starting with Chile, Argentina and Czech Republic".

See "Telefónica launches its new Smart M2M Solution" - here.

NI Deployments [200]: Digicel Haiti Uses Astellia to Monitor 2G and 3G Networks

  

Astellia announced it has renewed its ".. commitment to the Digicel Group by empowering them with the means to provide a quality mobile broadband service to all of its 4 million Haitian subscribers .. Astellia's solution gives Digicel Haiti a comprehensive end-to-end visibility into their 2G and 3G mobile network performance, from RAN to Core network. The solution pinpoints subscribers experiencing poor service quality and identifies precisely network instability root cause by using relevant performance indicators and advanced troubleshooting capabilities. This results in improved quality of service (fewer dropped or silent calls, improved web browsing, etc), greater customer loyalty and increased subscriber base".

"Astellia’s network assurance solution correlates data coming from Astellia’s probes and network equipment (OMC)"

See "Digicel Haiti to renew its confidence in Astellia by signing 3G network assurance contract" - here.

WildPackets Enhances Analysis Platform with 40GE Support

WildPackets announced the "..Omni Distributed Analysis Platform 7.0 with 40G support .. The Omni Distributed Analysis Platform covers all network analysis functions, from overall, distributed network monitoring and reporting to detailed troubleshooting based on network forensics and deep packet inspection. In addition to the 40G network analysis support, the latest Omni Distributed Analysis Platform release includes the ability to trace network performance across multiple network hops, correlate detailed analytical results with the Compass dashboard, and gain easy access to network data from end users for complete analysis of the end-user experience to more efficiently understand problems on today’s highly distributed, cloud-based architectures"

VoIP Monitoring

See "WildPackets Announces 40G Support with Omni Distributed Analysis Platform 7.0" - here.

Universities Research Mobile Video Quality Measurement

   

Fredric Paul reported to ReadWriteWeb that "Intel, Cisco and Verizon are pouring $3.3 million into research at five prominent universities to improve video delivery over wireless networks. The first goal of the Video Aware Wireless Networks (VAWN) program? Find a good way to measure mobile video quality .. The research is important to finding ways to deliver the best video experience to the most people when the networks get overloaded; that is, minimize the problems that annoy people most"
 
"Because viewers perceive quality differently depending on what they're watching - sports versus talking heads, for example - quality isn't about throughput but experience .. Measuring subjective video quality is only the first step toward the larger goal of delivering high-quality video while boosting network capacity to handle the ever-increasing flood of data. The issue can’t be ignored: In 5 years an estimated 90% of Net traffic will be video, and 66% of mobile traffic will be video"
 
"The project is now in year two of its three-year, $1.1 million-per-year plan. By then end of the program, the VAWN team hopes to have a good method to measure perceived video quality, as well as algorithms and software tools to use that measurement to make network decisions".

 

 See "Engineers Struggle to Move Mobile Video Without Ruining It" - here.

sFlow Vs. NetFlow - Which is Better?

  

A post by Adam Powers (pictured) compares the two dominant traffic monitoring protocols - NetFlow/IPFIX (based on IEFT RFCs 3954, 5101 and 5102) and sFlow.

"The only people that ever say 'sFlow is better than NetFlow' are those that haven’t used both and seen the difference for themselves".

"If all you have are sFlow-enabled devices you should still look into turning on sFlow exports. It’ll give you traffic stats and other bits of info that are better than nothing at all .. The NetFlow vs. sFlow war is over. Someone should let them know. Perhaps this will help"

See "NetFlow vs. sFlow for Network Monitoring and Security: The Final Say" - here.

Optimization Deployments [157]: 3 Austria Uses Astellia for Core Network Monitoring

Astellia announced it ".. was named by Austria’s fastest growing mobile operator Hutchison 3G (H3G) as a unique supplier for its E2E mobile broadband network monitoring and optimization .. Over the last 10 years Astellia has been providing H3G with performance intelligence to optimize its UTRAN network. With this new contract, Astellia will extend its monitoring to H3G’s core network. This will hereby give H3G a holistic view of its 3G network efficiency and play a key part in ensuring seamless premium service quality delivery .. Astellia’s non-intrusive, vendor-independent Core PS monitoring solution provides H3G advanced E2E service analysis and fast troubleshooting of QoE issues".

At the end of 2011, 3 Austria had 1.4M subscribers. Following some recent M&A transactions (acquired a 100% interest in Orange Austria and a subsequent onward sale of the Yesss! brand and certain other assets to Telekom Austria Group) it will have a combined customer base of 2.8 million customers.

See "Astellia bags Austria's H3G network monitoring and optimization deal" - here.