Using IP Visibility to Manage Network, Service, and ... - NetScout

January 2007
Using IP Visibility to Manage Network, Service, and
Customer Quality
An Executive Brief

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TABLE OF
CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary 4
Market Drivers Moving the Industry to Customer-Centric Operations 5
What is Customer Centric Service Assurance? 6
Where Does IP Visibility Fit In? 7
The NetScout Assurance Solution 10
A Case Example – Large Wireless Carrier 13
The Last Word 15
About Stratecast 16
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the current telecommunications environment, evolving network technologies, business
strategies, regulations, and competitive forces, are all converging with a focus on
delivering services that hold the greatest appeal to the end-customer. More than ever
before, competitive pressures are causing communications services providers to alter
their business strategies around the customer, not just the network. With multiple
services delivered over a single infrastructure, it is no longer valid to assume that the
quality of the service provided to an individual is good as long as the network
infrastructure looks good. In fact, knowing the health and status of any service is
insufficient in determining the quality of service received by an individual customer. Some
service providers are now focusing their efforts on managing customer-level service
quality, each time the customer accesses a service. Stratecast refers to this area of
quality management as customer-centric service assurance.
The interest in customer-centric service assurance is presently most prominent with
mobile network operators because they have already experienced the tribulations that
come from offering multiple services over a single access network and the difficulties of
moving that access network to an all-IP infrastructure. The 3G Partnership Program
(3GPP) is defining standards for the mobile sector, which involve the integration of
multiple services over IP over a wireless network – known as IP Multi-media Subsystem
(IMS). The IMS standards bring definition and structure to IP convergence. However, IMS
does not address customer-centric service assurance even though a vast majority of
wireless and wireline carriers are moving closer to large-scale IMS deployments.
Service providers are on their own when it comes to determining the quality of service
delivered to an individual customer. The difficulties they are facing lie mostly with
operations and management of both the network infrastructure and customer service
usage. As the number of customers and types of services supported by a single network
infrastructure increase, the complexity of managing the combination of customer issues,
service problems and network alerts/alarms exponentially increases. For example, a
mobile user with a handset configuration problem will not be detected by existing OSS
solutions as either a network or service failure, yet from the customer perspective
problems at the network, service or customer level are perceived the same way: “the
service doesn’t work.” Customer-centric service assurance is all about the collective
ability of a service provider to monitor the network and offered services, correlate
events, and identify affected users simultaneously. By reviewing network, service, and
customer data and applying intelligence to this data, service providers get a better picture
of how services are performing and ultimately the quality of service experienced by their
customers.
There are several ways that service providers and vendors are approaching the challenge
of delivering customer-centric service assurance. This executive brief explores one of
those aspects: IP visibility using deep packet inspection. A brief discussion of the need for
customer-centric service assurance is followed by a discussion of IP visibility and
examples of how one vendor, NetScout, is providing the market with such a solution.
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MARKET DRIVERS MOVING THE INDUSTRY TO CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
OPERATIONS
As service providers migrate toward converged IP-based services, the type of network
–circuit-switched or IP, wireless or wireline—is no longer a source of competitive
differentiation. Additionally, the services offered over these networks originate from a
variety of sources to deliver what customers want and are willing to pay for including:
Web access, music/video downloads, low-cost voice, and combined technical capabilities
that deliver a variety of new-generation “customer lifestyle improvement services.”
Assuring the availability and operability of each service to every customer every time is
recognized by the communications industry as a key to customer loyalty, profitability, and
long-term sustainability. In addition, the business focus is expanded beyond network
optimization to include service quality and customer satisfaction, especially for high value
customers.
Today’s most critical business drivers are causing service providers to redirect their
business strategies from a network-centric focus to a stronger emphasis on the customer
experience in all areas of their operations. From an assurance perspective, these drivers
include:
Network Technology Evolution – Network convergence between fixed and
mobile, along with architectures such as IMS, provide the capability to offer
customer-controlled mobile services. Such new services involve presence,
availability and billing-based or usage-based policy options. Addressing the
management needs of such services requires flexible customer-oriented
assurance processes that keep the customer experience in the spotlight and
network management in the background.
Wireless Customer Churn – Discussion with service providers globally has
shown that as wireless data services increase in both usage volumes and offering
types, so does the degree to which customers move from one provider to the
next in search of the best data quality experience. Some service providers have
documented that as much as 50% of their wireless data customers churn
regularly due mostly to unresolved service problems. Assuring the quality of the
customer experience, at the customer level, is essential for the success of these
and many other service offerings.
Increased Customer Support Calls – The time to address a mobile or fixed
line data services problem is presently three times greater than voice service
problems due to the number of offerings and the complexity built into today’s
mobile devices. As mobile data services continue to gain acceptance and as
more complexity is added, such as services involving fixed-mobile architectures,
understanding the customer experience will be critical to the isolation and
troubleshooting of problems that may only appear in one type of technology but
not another.
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New Service Capabilities – Appealing to customer demand, the availability of
mobile phones with video/TV capabilities is increasing dramatically to where the
volume will likely exceed that of regular TVs; all within the next 5-7 years. With
this change in how TV is viewed, integrated presence/location-based partner
advertising is changing both the way people watch TV and the way companies
advertise their products. From a wired perspective, IPTV has shown that
interactive services definitely hold customer appeal. Assuring that the customer
experience for both mobile and fixed-line TV services lives up to market
expectations is critical for customer interest to continue in both of these
fledgling technologies. Focusing only on the network is not enough.
New Niche Market Players – New niche market retailers are launching
wireless services via VNO agreements with wireless network operators. Wellknown
names such as Disney, Wal-Mart, and 7-11 know their customers and are
using customized wireless offerings to better meet customer need. The
convergence of network capabilities between wireless and wireline could bring
even more advanced service opportunities to this group of marketing-based
“services providers”. Assuring the customer experience, not just the network, is
essential for long-term consumer acceptance of the offerings made available by
these new communications services suppliers.
X-Factor Marketing Giants – Non-traditional IP-based competitors with
significant market attention, including Microsoft, Apple, Google,Yahoo, and the
largest consulting firms, are initiating various types of integrated services
packages that have different degrees of telecom focus. With the end-customer
in mind, it is not unreasonable to view such organizations as potential “services
suppliers” for either internal business needs or for developing external
competitive customer service offerings. Assuring such offerings from a
customer-perspective is again critical to the successful acceptance of services
from these organizations.
WHAT IS CUSTOMER CENTRIC SERVICE ASSURANCE?
Now that there is no longer a one-to-one correlation between a customer, a service, and
a set of network elements; monitoring the quality of service delivered to a customer
involves more than the traditional focus on assuring successful operation of a network.
Customer-Centric Service Assurance is an addition to the network and service
management functions that have been a central focus within the industry. We define each
of these functions as follows:
Network Assurance (internal focus around technology operability):
Monitor and report on network status by element, node, and location
Aggregate and prioritize for resolution (by policy) network alarms/alerts.
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Service Assurance (internal focus around capability offerings to end-user
customers):
Analyze the effectiveness of a service for its target customers
Acknowledge level of uptake with target audience
Aggregate and correlate network information at a service level such as Voice,
VPN, e-mail, SMS/MMS, IM, Internet, WAP, or others
Target network changes to improve service reliability/performance.
Customer-Centric Service Assurance (involves both an internal and
external focus):
An internal focus on:
Isolating and resolving chronic customer service problems
Analyzing the effectiveness of a service with its target customers
Controlling the value-delivery chain to the customer (internal and 3rd party
partners)
Acknowledging the level of uptake a service has with its target audience.
An external focus on:
Providing, in understandable terms for the end-user, aggregated and correlated
data from multiple processes, systems and databases including direct
measurements of the end-to-end customer experience and information from
third party sources where applicable
Quantifying how service capabilities are meeting end-user expectations.
WHERE DOES IP VISIBILITY FIT IN?
As new competitive threats from advanced enabling technologies provide end-users with
more service capabilities, business change is critical for longer-term survival. Today’s
business environment requires service providers—traditional and new entrants alike—to
have a way to gauge the customer experience for delivering the levels of service quality
that they and their customers have grown to expect. One approach to determining the
level of service quality delivered to each individual customer is to apply deep packet
examination to IP traffic as it traverses the network.
Deep packet examination requires that each packet be monitored using a probe
connected to the network at critical junction points in an IP traffic stream. Network
probes have been used for years by both mobile and wireline service providers to
monitor SS7 signaling voice traffic and to meet the most recent North American E-911
requirements. They have also been used by wireless carriers to support, via signaling link
monitoring, the service quality needs of the more recently installed mobile GPRS, UMTS,
and CDMA data networks. Probes for monitoring the payload portion of an IP packet
stream are a more recent offering in the telecom space although they have been used
extensively by enterprise customers over the last several years. In this configuration,
network data probes see every call, packet, or frame that traverses an IP-based network.
According to the design architecture of any organization using this approach, deep packet
examination probes can be placed in strategic locations for obtaining a real-time view of
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network traffic data. In addition to real-time analysis and examination, the collected data
may be aggregated (or not) and stored for subsequent analysis and trending.
The deep packet data is mined using pre-defined or user-defined rules and policies to
determine service quality or to troubleshoot a specific user problem. When done in realtime,
the inspection can reveal individual customer problems or pending service issues.
When used in aggregate, the data provides a view of service behavior that supports
subsequent network capacity planning or other essential network or business
management efforts. The detail provided by deep packet examination not only helps
network operators monitor quality for specific customers, but also helps to identify
intermittent problems, application problems that may be associated with a third party
provider, and/or to detect server/host problems.
To be effective in a real-time operational environment, the probe analysis must be
integrated with supporting OSS and BSS data and systems for correlating quality metrics,
problems, and resolutions with both individual customers and service level agreements
(SLAs). That data can then be made available to a number of different work groups such
as marketing teams, customer support groups, network operations personnel, and, in
some cases, the customer. Advantages to a deep packet inspection approach include:
Precise Performance Metrics – Performance and quality metrics can be
calculated for individual users, services, applications, and network components
as well as grouped metrics for enterprise customers, service partners, and
network segments. Any amount and detail of data can be collected and
correlated in whatever manner the service provider prefers.
Traffic Monitoring – In addition to performance and quality, the flow of
traffic, potential bottlenecks, trends, and security problems can be detected and
avoided.
Improved Troubleshooting – Knowing the exact time and contents of a
transaction or series of transactions can enable a network operator to
determine the root cause of a problem or failure to better respond more
quickly and accurately.
While viewing every data packet, for every customer, regarding every service that
traverses the network, may be desirable for guaranteeing customer service quality and
responsiveness to a problem situation when it occurs, there are a number of issues that
service providers must take into consideration when implementing such as strategy.
These include the following:
Scalability – Scalability reflects on the size of the network to be instrumented,
management of the probe connections and correlation of the collected data. A
scalable architecture should be designed for large networks and the quantity of
data that will be collected. The quality metrics defined by the service provider
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determine the frequency and types of collected data which must then be
programmed into the probes monitoring each IP packet data stream. Solutions
fail the scalability test when they either cannot sample the data at the required
rate or cannot correlate the collected data into a useful format at a rate that
stays in pace with the collection process.
Volume – Network probes can generate tremendous volumes of data that must
be acted on in real-time for monitoring, stored for analysis, and mined for value.
Service providers implement several approaches to manage volume including;
carefully identifying the metrics that require real-time correlation, limiting the
depth of packet examination, limiting the volume of packets examined, and
limiting the frequency of data collection.
Reliability – If a service provider relies on a vendor solution to determine the
quality of service delivered across its infrastructure and ultimately to each end
user, the system must be reliable and operate without the need for extensive
operator intervention. It must be stable enough to eliminate the need for
frequent updates that require end-to-end integration and regression testing, and
it should run on a platform that is tested, survivable and secure.
Multiple Interface Standards – The data flows accessed by the network
probes utilizes a variety of formatting approaches for data monitoring.
Traditional signaling, including SS7 and frame relay monitoring, are accomplished
using vendor probes that collect data in a proprietary format, aggregate and
correlate all message parts through a vendor-specific management tool. Output
is presented generally in an open, user-friendly format or by using a vendorsupplied
report writing tool.
IP deep packet examination first used an IP standard approach called Remote
Monitoring (RMON), which was originally implemented by computer and
network equipment vendors for packet monitoring over a decade ago. More
recently, NetFlow was developed by Cisco as a vendor-based standard (across all
Cisco IP products). This has been followed by other vendors creating a similar
structure, e.g. Juniper with its cflowd and Huawei with its NetStream data
collection definitions.
Just like the SS7 monitoring vendors, deep packet examination can also be
accomplished using vendor-specific probes placed at strategic locations in a
network. These devices then monitor IP packet data, often using proprietary
data collection, analysis, and reporting tools. For probe-based solutions, updates
in technology will require probe updates or modifications, e.g. transition by the
industry from IPv4 to IPv6.
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THE NETSCOUT ASSURANCE SOLUTION
One example of a deep packet inspection probe-based solution is NetScout’s nGenius
Performance Management System, including its intelligent nGenius Probes. These probes
are set at critical junction points in the network using passive taps that monitor and
analyze key information concerning network applications, hosts, conversations, utilization,
and errors. The probes feed network data to the nGenius Performance Manager, which
uses the collected data to provide real-time and historical views, trending analysis, and
performance reports on the monitored network segment. Figure 1 below is an overview
of the nGenius System architecture.
Figure 1 – NetScout nGenius System Architecture
Source: NetScout
The nGenius Solution allows service providers to have global visibility into IP-based
services running over a number of different network architectures. Relative to a mobile
GSM/UMTS network for example, the nGenius Solution can monitor traffic in each
segment of the network including:
Core – IP/MPLS/QOS both physical and virtual
Tunnel – Gn KPIs including response time, errors, and utilization
Internet – Gi KPIs including flows and packets
Roaming – Gp KPIs including response time, errors, and utilization
Service Area – Diameter/AAA, DNS, DHCP, HTTP, and IM
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NetScout described for Stratecast how it has designed and implemented its nGenius
Solution to address a number of operational and architectural needs including the
following:
Scalability – The NetScout solution is architected to accommodate scale by
implementing a distributed architecture that pushes processing functionality out
to the probe platforms for the initial, real-time data correlation and then to
distributed Performance Manager platforms that accomplish the next level of
correlation across the entire network in real time. Current implementations
are deployed on Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, as well as optical network
links ranging in size from OC-3c – OC-48c, with OC-192c interfaces currently
being tested.
Reliability – The NetScout solution is purpose-built for high speed networks
and high reliability with stand-by and fail-over capabilities, as well as dual hot
swappable components to ensure reliability and minimize mean time to repair
(MTTR). Other carrier grade features include: multiple hyper-threading CPUs, 4-
8 Gig of on-board memory, multiple buses for channel rate separation and a
separate express bus for disk storage, separate operating system and data
storage (each with backup), packet recording for deeper data mining and
redundancy, and a 1% failure rate in over 100,000 units shipped. There is also a
high availability configuration option for the Performance Manager server(s), via
the nGenius Performance Manager Standby Server.
Distributed Architecture – The nGenius Solution consists of intelligent
probes and the NetScout Performance Manger. Each Performance Manager can
handle 50 probe interfaces operating on network links up to OC-48 or 10G
Ethernet. Multiple copies of Performance Manger can be deployed in a
hierarchical fashion to localize data collection and polling. Under this
arrangement, the nGenius Solution provides virtually unlimited scalability.
Additionally, all probe data is pre-analyzed and compressed at the device level,
so only appropriate data is forwarded to the Performance Manger. Finally,
central configuration supports intelligent instrumentation management including
self-monitoring capabilities that allow all parts of the nGenius Solution to be
automatically observed from a central location for health and status.
Data Granularity – The NetScout Performance Manager correlates data from
multiple probes to determine packet flow and service metrics. Flow data is
retained in memory and the Performance Manager harvests the data every 15
minutes (or 15 seconds during direct real-time viewing), including the worst 1
second for each minute’s worth of metrics measured by each probe. The
amount of packet capture and depth of packet inspection is determined by the
type of service monitored and the corresponding metrics that a service
provider needs to identify.
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Large Customer Deployments – A large mobile operator has over 100
probes currently installed for its MPLS core backhaul network and the roll out
is continuing. Large customers typically instrument key aggregation points for
their core and distribution network, sometimes deploying hundreds of
instrumentation devices and dozens of Performance Manager Servers. For
example, some large financial institutions have achieved complete coverage by
deploying probes in national and international networks. Due to the strategic
placement of these probes in each network configuration, a small number
(relative to total network links) is able to monitor substantially all network
traffic via critical confluence points.
Intelligent Probes – Eliminate the need to exhaustively instrument the
network. Probes are placed where there is a confluence of traffic rather than
deploying further out into the network. Most large operations groups
implement NetScout’s products for Gigabit and 10G Ethernet and/or OC-3c
through OC-48c infrastructure.
Lightweight Design – NetScout manufactures its own probe platform and the
kernel is designed to be lightweight and fast. A custom kernel has also been
developed to standardize the software platform and reduce costs, using dual
core processors and dual capture techniques to streamline data collection and
analysis. One processor is used for data capture and the other is used for
statistical surveying and analyzing.
Vendor Integrity – NetScout was established in 1984 and began to be publicly
traded on the NASDAQ in 1999. NetScout’s solutions have been deployed at
more than 3200 customers worldwide and estimates that they currently monitor
over 80,000 network segments. The nGenius Solution was launched in 2002 and
has been installed in both service provider and enterprise networks since. Yearover-year
earnings per share have increased 40% and 75% sequentially, with 2006
revenue of $97.9 million.
The nGenius Solution offers a scalable and distributed probe-based approach that meets
the transaction monitoring requirements of a wide variety of customers. The probe and
performance manager architecture offers significant scalability for addressing virtually any
network configuration. Due to the nature of the data collection process, the nGenius
Solution is very economical when compared with alternative solutions that monitor out
to the far ends of the network. There are a wide number of uses for the nGenius Solution
as demonstrated by the large amount of enterprise and communications service provider
installations. Stratecast believes that NetScout clearly delivers a solution that addresses
not only the deep packet monitoring needs of an IP network, but also provides a powerful
ability to address the up and coming customer service assurance requirements of new
convergence-based customer services.
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A CASE EXAMPLE – LARGE WIRELESS CARRIER
A large mobile operator selected NetScout’s nGenius Performance Management System
for implementation in its 3G/UMTS network. To support this carrier’s move to broad
scale deployment of 3G triple play data services and a migration to an MPLS core
network, NetScout was selected to provide discrete visibility and insight into the IP
portions of its operations network. The insight and intelligence collected with the
nGenius Solution is used to troubleshoot both network and service issues in its packetbased
infrastructure.
Initial deployments began in late 2004, and to date this operator has deployed over 100
nGenius Probes to monitor the company’s IP backhaul infrastructure. The majority of the
probes monitor OC-48c, OC-12c, and OC-3c links on the IP/MPLS core bearer network.
This mobile operator has also deployed Gigabit Ethernet nGenius Probes for monitoring
Gi and Gn interfaces as well as the OA&M network. Figure 2 below shows the general
NetScout solution that was implemented.
Figure 2 – NetScout Implementation Architecture – Large Mobile Customer
The implemented NetScout solution for this service provider provides:
Source: NetScout
IP/MPLS Core Bearer Network Visibility – The ability to understand and
track all flows of service and non-service data, as well as understand the mix of
demands placed on the network. Quantitative views of the total volume of data
versus voice traffic provide input for capacity planning and monitoring of
response times. By monitoring the various traffic flows, this service provider has
an early indicator of potential service problems. This viewpoint also provides
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the starting point for troubleshooting service performance degradations as the
service threads traverse the core network.
Gi Visibility – Gi visibility provides the operator detailed insight into which
external sites are being accessed, response times for internet services, and
general traffic management KPIs including volume, utilization, and errors.
Operations Network Monitoring and Visibility – Operations enterprise
network monitoring and visibility provides definitive intelligence for monitoring,
reporting against, and troubleshooting the flows of applications and activities on
this critical internal operations resource.
This service provider chose to use the NetScout solution to monitor IP over its backhaul
and optical core networks in addition to the IP network used for OSS/BSS. By placing a
strategic set of intelligent probes into the network, this service provider is able to quickly
and accurately monitor the IP traffic through the core. This implementation initially
required the aggregation of traffic and monitoring data at a higher level and recently
includes the ability to drill down to an individual customer level. This first step of
monitoring core IP traffic puts this service provider in a position to evolve its service
assurance capabilities to a customer-centric view in the future.
14

Stratecast
The Last Word
As the telecommunications industry continues to undergo its massive transition to IP and IMS;
absorb mergers and acquisitions; and shift to a multi-service environment; the success or failure
of a service provider will be tied to how quickly/accurately customer services are launched and,
more importantly, how well these services live up to customer expectations. Customer-level
service quality, measured as a function of the customer experience as they use a service, is
what service providers must implement to remain competitive and to reduce churn. Rigidly
maintaining the reliability and quality of the network, while still absolutely critical, is no longer
enough to ensure that a customer’s service usage experience meets expectations.
The network and service assurance data required to generate a customer-centric view of
service quality exists, however service providers require additional tools and integration to take
advantage of it. In addition, service providers must implement processes and organizational
changes that enable a service assurance focus in general and a customer-centric service
assurance focus in particular. That could mean a dedicated assurance organization operating in
concert with a network operations centre. This would involve a different set of processes and
procedures for detecting and handling network/service/customer events, and very likely a new
set of tools.
Vendors such as NetScout provide access to and correlation of IP transaction data at both the
network and service level. As service providers continue to organize their customer data and
migrate their OSS/BSS solutions to an integrated, open architecture; network and service data
can finally be correlated with customer data. Service providers and vendors are just beginning
to explore the possibilities of using the wealth of data available from the network, the services
running across it, and the customers that are using it. By focusing on the metrics and measures
that are important to the quality of the total customer experience, service providers can
extend their network and service assurance competencies closer to the customer.
Karl Whitelock Nancee Ruzicka
Senior Consulting Analyst – OSS Competitive Strategies Senior Research Analyst – OSSCS
kwhitelock@stratecast.com nruzicka@stratecast.com
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