Promote an enhanced subscriber experience with deep packet inspection for network service assurance
In a latency-sensitive world, a slight drop in packet speeds can lead to a complete disruption of the underlying service, often with dire consequences for the end user. Network service assurance needs to guarantee an optimal customer experience. It is responsible for meeting a set of internal criteria – such as performance, reliability and availability – and external criteria – namely service-level agreements (SLA), i.e., the commercial terms agreed by the customer and provider. Only when all networks and service assurance processes work together smoothly and function well, it is possible to ensure the alignment of the different layers (network layer, service laver and customer layer). This type of complex deep analysis requires comprehensive information and traffic insights.
Take remote surgery and autonomous driving applications, for instance – some of the most touted use cases for 5G networks require the underlying virtual network instances to be continuously monitored, controlled and optimized to meet strict SLA and quality of service (QoS) requirements.
As applications that depend on terabit speeds and microsecond latencies continue to multiply, service assurance tools tasked with steering the network within predefined performance boundaries need detailed information on network performance. These analyses and processes require deep packet inspection (DPI) for real-time traffic insights and metadata on every inch of the network. Armed with DPI’s advanced traffic inspection capabilities, including cutting-edge techniques, such as machine learning and deep learning, you can assess the impact of network policies and decisions. Furthermore, you can also uncover events that could lead to degradation of the network and deterioration of service quality.
Application awareness for real-time QoS and QoE management
ipoque’s renowned DPI engines, R&S®PACE 2 and R&S®vPACE, greatly augment service assurance solutions with application awareness and superior threat monitoring. By leveraging advanced traffic classification techniques and ML/DL-based methodologies, DPI solutions from ipoque enable you to identify protocols, applications and services navigating operator networks, even across flows that are encrypted. Using deep packet inspection for your analysis, you can continuously measure and track changes in network quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE). You can utilize DPI’s analyses of traffic attributes, such as speed and latencies alongside user attributes, such as plan, device and cell site information, to establish subscriber experiences across different slices, applications and locations, as well as different services such as video streaming and messaging. On the network end, you can assess the performance of operators’ cloud, edge, transport, RAN, core and Wi-Fi networks with fine-grained analyses of packets and flows transiting each domain. You can also identify traffic that is malicious, suspicious and anomalous, enabling the detection of compromised applications, network nodes and endpoints that could be undermining the overall QoS.
A DPI-enabled network service assurance solution with application
visibility can:
- Monitor and report QoS and QoE across different subscribers, applications and networks (e.g. LTE/5G)
- Facilitate the orchestration and scaling of network functions based on traffic needs
- Facilitate the implementation of application-aware network policies in real time
- Support the dynamic instantiation of virtual networks (e.g. 5G network slicing)
- Enable continuous optimization of slices and networks for higher network efficiencies
- Support AI-based intelligent, autonomous networking via DPI-powered automated assurance
- Enhance the detection of performance and security issues such as traffic bottlenecks and DDoS attacks
- Enable real-time customer alerts and pro-active CX management
- Support operator network-as-a-service (NaaS) offerings
- Enhance the operations, performance and efficiency of private 5G networks
- Improve monetization with QoS-based plans
R&S®PACE 2 features and capabilities for
service assurance
- Highly accurate, real-time traffic insights for any traffic volume
- A comprehensive signature library updated for existing and emerging applications such as AR/VR and XR
- Encrypted traffic intelligence for visibility into encrypted, obfuscated and anonymized traffic flows
- Deployable as a CNF or VNF to support virtualized and cloud architectures
- Seamless integration with R&S®GSRM for subscriber-aware and application-aware intelligent networking
- VPP-native DPI implementation for cloud-based computing-intensive networks
- Reporting and analyses customized to operator network and traffic profile
- R&S®PACE 2 flow data exporter plug-in for integration with IPFIX-based monitoring environments
Benefits of OEM DPI for service assurance
Avoid the cost and complexities of developing and managing in-house deep packet inspection. Leverage our experience and expertise gained through over 15 years in the telecom industry. Resolve quality issues faster and stay ahead of the competition with DPI-powered features and capabilities for service assurance solutions.
Bring your service assurance solution to the next level with OEM deep packet inspection software from ipoque – developed and optimized to reliably meet your needs.
