By
Tim Young
There are dozens upon dozens of cutting-edge, sexy buzzwords floating around the communications industry these days. “Network Monitoring”? That’s not really one of them. However, it’s at the heart of so many promises of improved service and increased visibility. The ability to monitor networks and inspect the packets flowing across them is the key to improved service assurance, security, and, by extension, higher levels of customer satisfaction, maximization of existing infrastructure, rescuing of stranded bandwidth, and overall proactivity with regards to network health and customer care.
The question of monitoring, however, is complicated by the fact that networks are changing. “In the classic SS7 environment, a network monitoring and troubleshooting tool enabled service providers to react quickly to alarms in the network operations center (NOC), or to customer complaints,” said Todd Biddle, General Manager for Agilent Networks’ Assurance Division. “They would examine trace information, find the problem and fix it.” That’s an important step, and one that is essential for maintaining a healthy network. However, as Biddle pointed out, it isn’t perfect. “It represents a purely reactive approach to network management, and this approach is only part of the solution required in today’s market.”
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“In today's world, there is no cookie cutter approach.” |
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number of opportunities that these SPs are missing out on due to that lack of visibility. “There is so much useful information out there just waiting to be collected,” Cullen continued, “Information that can be readily turned into revenue and increase QoE for subscribers at the same time.”
Cullen is not alone in accusing vendors of a sort of myopia. “CSPs often find their technical sweet spot and subsequently develop "service tunnel vision," focusing their service offering on a particular brand or domain of communications technology,” said Paul Wiggins, Product Manager for Tone Software Corporation, which offers network monitoring and management
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What’s Wrong Here?
And, ultimately, there are a number of things that many service providers aren’t doing when it comes to network monitoring. “Most CSPs still do not have the whole picture,” said Cam Cullen, Director of Product Management, Americas for Allot Communications, a vendor dedicated to network monitoring and deep packet inspection. “They are relying on home grown or antiquated tools that do not give them anywhere near as accurate a picture as some of their competitors have.” This means, of course, that there are a great
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solutions. “In today's world, there is no cookie cutter approach—each business has unique communications needs and network challenges.” In order to become more competitive and, ultimately, more profitable, service providers must be able to deliver a range of service offerings that is both broad and deep. “CSPs must have the flexibility,” Wiggins continued, “to deliver service offerings that will manage a wide range of clients' communications applications, configurations and gear-including legacy TDM devices that have yet to be transitioned to the IP network.”
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