Iris Traffic Analyzer

Iris Traffic Analyzer (ITA) is a new traffic analyzer tool within the Iris Suite of Products that is used for traffic analysis of mobile and IP data services. ITA utilizes data from the G10 probing platform. ITA allows users to view and analyze transport layer issues, router/firewall issues and application performance issues within their network.

Your challenges

Mobile operators are experiencing an exponential increase in data traffic. An increasing amount of this traffic is unknown, making it difficult to determine whether it represents unauthorized or unoptimized network use. Operators need to characterize this traffic in order to avoid engaging in unnecessary or misguided CAPEX spending. At the same time, operators need to proactively identify and isolate the cause of network bottlenecks and errors that may be impacting customer experience. The impact of new services on the network infrastructure must be monitored to ensure their success. Operators also need to validate the effectiveness of the network design. For example, it’s important to ensure that the utilization of network resources is as expected when incorporating pooled network elements, such as MME/SGW pooling in LTE networks. It’s important to monitor how network performance is affected by changes such as adding new elements or element software upgrades. If an error occurs during the change process, immediate visibility can prevent a widespread outage.

How we can help

Iris Traffic Analyzer (ITA) enables users to view and analyze transport layer, router/firewall and application performance issues. ITA helps identify, classify and monitor unknown protocols so carriers can clearly understand the traffic patterns in their network. Network intelligence provided by ITA enables operators to more efficiently utilize their existing infrastructure and delay or eliminate the need to deploy more capacity. ITA allows operators to proactively monitor the network with thresholds and alarms for key performance indicators (KPIs). Proactive service analysis in ITA provides drill down paths to quickly characterize the impact of new services on the network infrastructure. Detailed traffic volume/rate measurements and transaction-based performance indicators are displayed for each network element in the pool for swift visual comparison of load sharing. ITA enables users to perform selective real time data analysis with 5 second granularity. Historical data is stored with 1 minute granularity. This timely data makes it possible to quickly identify and correct configuration errors and other problems before they lead to widespread network and service outages.

 Features and Benefits

  • Traffic characterization helps carriers clearly understand the traffic generated by specific protocols and applications on their network infrastructure.
  • Real time flow analysis provides a rich set of data flow analysis tools with 5-second granularity to assist carriers in quickly and accurately isolating emerging problems for faster resolution.
  • Proactive network and infrastructure performance analysis makes it possible to create thresholds for policy violations with actionable drilldown paths that enable users to quickly isolate network and infrastructure performance issues due to network configuration errors, congestion and routing anomalies. Top N contributing links/applications/nodes enable operators to quickly prioritize where scarce service dollars and time should be focused.
  • Application performance analysis enables operators to closely monitor the introduction of the new services from a network infrastructure vantage point. Network intelligence helps identify applications that consume significant amounts of network resources to avoid misguided CAPEX spending.

Applications

  • Identifying, classifying and monitoring unknown protocols
  • Real-time data analysis
  • Detect misconfigured network devices
  • Analyze network element performance.

Identifying, Classifying And Monitoring Unknown Protocols
The increasing volume of unknown protocol traffic has helped drive the exponential growth in mobile data traffic. ITA uses G10 probes with rich protocol identification rules to provide L2-L7 traffic characterization that correctly identifies the types of traffic that are consuming the resources. Carrier’s network ops and engineering teams can create better traffic policies. Ultimately this activity can reduce wasted and misguided spending on additional capacity.

Real-time Data Analysis
Problems that are reported on a specific segment of the network can be investigated by examining the bandwidth and link utilization KPIs on the relevant infrastructure element.  Using ITA, the network ops engineer troubleshooting this problem can get 5 second samples from infrastructure elements and diagnose the problem in real time. After the problem is fixed, the engineer can look at the real time data provided by ITA to confirm the resolution.

Detect Misconfigured Network Devices
ITA pinpoints routing anomalies and corrects improper load balances to resolve network-wide throughput issues caused by misconfigured network devices. By enabling your network ops engineers to swiftly resolve issues and improve network efficiency, ITA helps optimize network infrastructure and defer CAPEX investment.

Analyze Network Element Performance.
Network element performance issues such as delayed DNS and RADIUS server responses and overloaded or slow HTTP/WAP servers directly affect the customer experience. ITA enables network ops engineers to identify these issues upfront so that targeted capacity investments can be made to ensure uninterrupted QoS and minimize customer churn.

Related Solutions

  • Service Performance Management - Tektronix Communications’ Service Performance Management solution can help mobile operators ensure that new services deliver the level of performance needed to meet or exceed customer expectations and increase average revenue per user. The more positive a subscriber’s experience is with a particular service the more he or she will be inclined to use it ...Read More