I have recently had several interesting discussions with solution vendors who are faced with the serious challenge of making their systems work at multi-Gbps line rates. To break this “high-speed barrier”, they can either 1) spend considerable time and resources redeveloping their products to work at higher speeds, or 2) optimize their solutions with the help of
Network Intelligence.The challenge is especially acute for vendors in the mobile data environment, where bandwidth is growing at an exponential rate. Vendors who sell (for example) mobile service quality monitoring need to continue offering the same level of functionality at speeds in excess of 1
Gbps. However, it is not as easy to do well at high speeds what they used to do well at lower speeds… Of course, some vendors may be tempted to reduce functionality in order to handle the increased bandwidth, but this is not an option : it is clearly not an acceptable solution for mobile operators and their clients.
So how can Network Intelligence accelerate existing mobile solutions?
As we all know, mobile data traffic is literally exploding, due to the combination of new iPhone-type handsets, new broadband infrastructure (
3G,
HSDPA,
HSUPA) and attractive pricing schemes. At the same time,
video streaming,
P2P, and
social networking applications consume a large percentage of this traffic, pushing bandwidth at the core of mobile networks to multi-Gbps. This creates a need to generate useful data at workable bandwidths, and only retain essential information (e.g.
IP metadata or
IPDRs) for lower priority services (P2P, etc.).
Example 1: TroubleShootingIn order for customer service to respond to customer complaints, mobile operators often need to check service quality for certain subscribers. In this case, a
Qosmos probe can filter selected
IMSIs and forward only relevant traffic to an existing troubleshooting solution, at manageable speeds. No change is necessary to the existing solution.
Example 2: Subscriber KnowledgeMobile operators carry massive amounts of data traffic from services outside their walled-gardens. This traffic can represent more than 90% of total traffic (see this
Webcast for a concrete example). To optimize networks and service offerings,
MNOs require better network intelligence to answer questions like: what mobile devices are being used (PC/handheld)? Which applications drive data growth? What are user the behavior patterns? All these questions can be answered with Qosmos Network Intelligence technology.
Example 3: Lawful InterceptBeyond mobile solutions, similar challenges exist in the area of
Lawful Intercept, where many intercept probes have not been designed to handle very high bandwidth. Here again, Network Intelligence technology saves the day by processing the high-bandwidth raw traffic and carrying out optimized dispatching of information to an existing lawful intercept system that can continue to process efficiently.
In summary, Network Intelligence technology can be used to enable existing solutions to continue performing efficiently even at very high speeds! Even though total bandwidth exceeds several Gbps, the traffic selected for forwarding can be handled easily by existing applications. The benefit for solution vendors: by adding a layer of Network Intelligence, they can avoid costly development and continue to sell existing solutions even as bandwidth grows exponentially!
I should also point out that our approach is different from “load balancing” provided by some suppliers, since Network Intelligence implements smart traffic filtering based on deeply embedded criteria (e.g. IMSI, MIME type, email sender, etc.), and can generate
CDRs even for discarded traffic.
Jerome
Jérôme is responsible for research, development and innovation at Qosmos, a leading supplier of Network Intelligence technology.
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