By supporting role-oriented views with specially tailored reporting templates, an end-to-end network performance view can help multiple departments to collaborate and overcome internal silos, while also receiving a view of the network that fits their respective needs. Proper lifecycle-aware visibility can, in short, drive collaboration and reduce significantly mean time to repair (MTTR).
Through this sort of collaboration, a unified performance visibility solution can promote significant OPEX and CAPEX savings. Existing monitoring solutions can be consolidated into a single, central tool, reducing CAPEX, while increased operational efficiency and reduced churn drive OPEX costs down. In short, Ethernet backhaul and the complexity it brings with it, if successfully and strategically managed, can become a competitive advantage.
Step-by-Step
Let’s take the basic lifecycle steps we mentioned before one by one, and examine specific needs at each step.
Deployment: The first step in deploying a network is having a real-time view of the connections you’re provisioning. Network operations needs a central, visual display of all physical and virtual network resources and connections if they are to proactively identify and troubleshoot any connectivity problems that may exist. A lifecycle-aware assurance solution can help here by providing crucial tools like automatic discovery of physical and virtual assets, drilldown-capable displays and connectivity maps, intelligent engines for real-time alarms, real time reports on service availability, with off-the-shelf support across major equipment vendors.
Assurance: Once everything is up and running, service providers need a single platform that consolidates various service quality management silos into a unified view of the network. Once again, leveraging real-time data collection, consolidation as well as reporting of out-the-box multi-vendor KPIs and KQIs is critical for CSPs looking to obtain an agnostic view of the quality, performance and utilization of this next generation transport layer.
Maintenance: Engineers working to maintain and optimize the network want to be able to view relevant usage trends so they can prime the network for not only today’s traffic, but tomorrow’s as well. For this, they need a consolidated view of utilization statistics for all Carrier Ethernet backhaul interfaces and devices. In addition, they need high-level, actionable KQIs, including interface saturation and classes of service (CoS) loading and performance. In addition, they need trending and baseline reports, as well as drilldown capable reports.
Our Solutions
At InfoVista, we offer a proven carrier-grade Lifecycle-Aware Performance Assurance platform designed to provide MNOs’ functional groups with actionable, real-time service visibility tailored to their roles. It is aligned with MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum) standards, ensuring seamless integration with today’s and tomorrow’s Ethernet infrastructure developments. The platform drives ROI with uniquely tailored and pre-packaged KPI and KQI-rich reports and dashboards, out of the box support for multiple equipment vendors and network technologies, and easy customization of service performance alerts.
While InfoVista’s Lifecycle-Aware Performance Assurance solution is an ideal fit for assuring performance in the Carrier Ethernet Layer 2 and IP/MPLS L3 VPN backhaul network domain, it is by design a multiple domain solution. Its features and capabilities can be leveraged to assure performance of the radio access, mobile core and packet core networks.
As mobile data continues to grow at tremendous rates, backhaul is a necessity. With incredible cost-per-bit savings over TDM and a clear alignment with the next generation of wireless technologies, Ethernet is a clear choice for backhaul. The pieces are all there. All that’s left is finding the right performance assurance solution to help you take advantage of the immense possibilities of Ethernet backhaul. At InfoVista, we understand that, and want to help you harness the promise of Ethernet backhaul through Lifecycle-Aware Performance Assurance.
