NI (Network Intelligence) – the next BI (Business Intelligence)?

If you have been involved in data processing, this probably sounds familiar to you. Remember the 1980’s when the guys from the financial department had to ask database managers to program specific SQL queries into the DB2 accounting systems, and how difficult it was to get the right information, and how long it took? The result was that you had to wait for reports, or wait for program changes etc.

Why was it so difficult?

1) Programs and reports where hard-coded, build for only ONE type of use. Any other request was just impossible.

2) There was no way to access and use a database from outside the IT organization.

3) The financial controller could not program in SQL and the database manager did not know finance.

And this is why Business Intelligence has been so successful: it enabled non-programmers to access the information they need and create the report they want in a minute when it took weeks or months before… if even possible.

Now, people involved in the network world face the exactly same problem. Take the product manager from a Telco; he needs to gather detailed subscriber information to efficiently manage the portfolio of services and estimate future demand. The network can provide this information at a very high level of granularity, but how can our product manager get this information? He will go to the network administrator and ask him for the info. And the network administrator will go search for the answer inside the network equipment logs … and he will probably spend more time than he thought, ending up with partial results, because:

1) logs are complicated to use for anything else than troubleshooting, and they are not easily readable

2) logs only provide a partial view of events

3) logs have different formats when they come from different systems

4) how do you manage the huge amount of information???

And just like business intelligence opened up the world of databases to finance people, the network intelligence technology provides an actionable access to the enormous amount of information transiting through networks or computed by the network

1) Network intelligence probes are passive; they do not impact the production equipment in the network and can be access independently, without risk

2) Network Intelligence probes are not built for a specific use, and thus provide a simple access to all the data of the network, whatever the need

3) Network intelligence probes do not use logs, they scan the traffic in real time, providing the same data structure whatever the diversity of network equipments brand and models, making consolidation easy.

3) Network Intelligence probes allow users to select only the information they need, making data easily actionable

4) Network Intelligence probes feed reporting tools and enables non-programmers to access information, without going through the technical department.

The result: easy and fast access to the valuable information provided by traffic analysis. In the same way that business software solutions (e.g. ERP, CRM) today provide business intelligence (BI) capabilities, network solutions will provide Network Intelligence (NI) capabilities very soon!

Jerome

The Convergence of Network Intelligence and Business Intelligence

Believe it or not, I am not the only one to blog on the topic of Network Intelligence (NI). Several analysts at Yankee Group have posted entries on this topic: see http://blogs.yankeegroup.com/category/network-intelligence. As a matter of fact, Yankee have been pioneering the concept of Network Intelligence in the telco space and I have had some good discussions with them. They just published an interesting report entitled “The Convergence of Network Intelligence and Business Intelligence”, with Jon Paisner as the main author, and co-authors David Vorhaus and Sheryl Kingstone. The document describes the similarities and synergies between Network Intelligence and Business Intelligence; I highly recommend it to all those interested in Network Intelligence technology as an enabler of smart pipe solutions. It also confirms the key role played by Network Intelligence-gathering technologies such as deep packet inspection and its various evolutions for protection, optimizing and monetizing network information.

Jerome

Network Intelligence for Audience Measurement

Today I'd like to say a few words about information extraction for audience measurement. The diversity of IP-based media (Web, Mobile Web and IPTV, etc.) makes for fragmented audiences, for which traditional measurement approaches like user panels prove inadequate. Network Intelligence technology, on the other hand, can complement existing user-centric tools with network-centric data across a wide range of applications and devices, offering a unified vision of network usages and trends.

Network Intelligence technology does this by successfully extracting information like Website visited, Website itinerary, page content, duration, referent, mobile ID, IPTV viewer behavior, channel zapping, etc. which translates into faster reporting, more accurate information, and the ability to correlate user behavior across the Internet, IPTV, and mobile terminals. All while ensuring subscriber privacy through anonymous data collection. And this information generates new revenue possibilities. Market research providers can use this approach to gain competitive advantage, by providing valuable information to ISPs (who benefit from higher ARPU), while advertisers benefit from increased effectiveness by targeting ads to genuinely interested consumers.

In the end, users win out, through enhanced user experience, more adapted services, and the final choice to opt-in or not. If you'd like more information on how Network Intelligence can be used to leverage business intelligence, join our Business Intelligence Webinar:

http://www.telestrategies.com/ISS_WEBINARS/Deep_Packet_Inspection.htm

Jerome