nGenius Service Assurance Solution

The intricate nature of service assurance in next-gen mobile networks boils down to IP visibility — what’s going on in your network, back to front, and how it looks to the customer. By using DPI (deep packet inspection) technology to monitor traffic as it flows across a network, NetScout’s nGenius Service Assurance Solution supplies real-time, pervasive visibility into both the control plane and the data plane in a way that can scale to meet the needs of most modern mobile networks.

The company’s flagship solution gives a complete historical analysis (incorporating deep-packet forensics), analyzes data as it crosses the wire and presents it in a single view that is wholly customizable. In the dashboard view CSPs can model their network however they choose, whether by market, handset manufacturer or virtually any other parameter. The nGenius solution delivers visibility from network layer 2 to layer 7 and from the data center to the subscriber, and the granularity of the solution extends to each device operating on the network by tracking individual IMSIs (international mobile subscriber identities).

CSPs can use the nGenius solution to move from a reactive troubleshooting framework — the traditional break/fix cycle — to a proactive, predictive service delivery management framework. For instance, its insight into the control and data planes means potential service outages can be identified and resolved long before they occur, and one of NetScout’s Tier 1 US customers recently used the nGenius solution to validate the effectiveness of each piece of its LTE network before it went live.

Visibility into data and control traffic

Managing and assuring service in the IP realm is much different than in traditional networks. What worked in legacy — monitoring signaling — will no longer suffice. Some CSPs have learned this the hard way by paying the price in negative publicity following major network and service outages. The press coverage of these outages, such as AT&T’s recent fumbles with U-verse and Verizon’s protracted troubles with LTE last year, has turned up the heat on customer satisfaction/experience as a service differentiator.

More and more carriers are moving to single converged networks, becoming further aligned with a service-delivery architecture as opposed to a traditional transport network. This requires the aforementioned visibility into the control and data planes. While control traffic is only 10 percent of the total mix, problems with “enablers” (DNS, authentication, etc.) that travel the control plane are the number one cause of failures and outages. Without that visibility, there is no way to become a proactive, predictive organization.