EMC SERVICE ASSURANCE SUITE MOBILE PERFORMANCE REPORTING Leading edge solutions for Mobile Service Providers

SERVICE ASSURANCE SUITE–MOBILE EDITION

The marketplace for today’s Mobile Service Providers poses an unprecedented number of challenges. The landscape, in which Service Providers operate, is fiercely competitive and constantly changing. The technological environment is very dynamic while the industry as a whole is under regulatory pressures. Mobile operators find themselves in a constant race to deliver more capacity, coverage and services to an ever growing number of users. All of this against a backdrop of customers who expect the highest levels of service, availability, flexibility and choice. In its quest to meet these challenges, EMC has introduced the Mobile Edition of its Service Assurance Suite. With this edition, Service Providers can benefit from carrier grade performance and service quality management tools required to holistically monitor their entire mobile network environment: from Radio Access, through Backhaul, and into the Data Center where application, compute, and storage provide rich services to subscribers.

SERVICE PROVIDER LANDSCAPE

The ever changing nature of technology and the business pressures it exerts on how Service Providers conduct their day to day operations, creates an environment in which the performance management tools used and the strategies employed are constantly being evaluated. For Mobile Service Providers specifically, the challenges are numerous and require special focus to address the specific needs of the industry as a whole.

CHALLENGES - Heterogeneous Networks (multi-vendor/multi-technology): Mobile

Networks are comprised of a diverse set of technologies and architectures, each with their own set of unique advantages and challenges. Due in part to the exponential capacity requirements and improvements in IP networks; RAN & Backhaul architectures are moving away from traditional Circuit Switched technologies such as ATM to IP/MPLS and Carrier Ethernet. Of course, these changes aren’t occurring with the flip of a switch and certainly not in a “LTE Only” bubble. The reality is that the changes will take several iterations before legacy technologies are completely abandoned. Mobile Service Providers are then left with a multitude of technologies for Backhaul Access, Aggregation, and Core Transport.

Although LTE has helped to standardize and flatten networks, there remains a multitude of technologies to manage, ranging from ATM and TDM to IP based technologies on top of Ethernet such as Packet Microwave, Gigabit Passive Optical

ESSENTIALS Challenges For Mobile Service Providers there are numerous challenges that require special attention to address specific focus areas inherent to this industry segment.

They are as follows:

• Heterogeneous Networks

• Scalability

• Virtualized Infrastructure

• Disparate Data Sources

Solution The Service Assurance Suite Mobile Edition

Benefits The following benefits are reaped when using the Mobile Edition to monitor the performance of Mobile Networks. • Unified Visibility

• Superior Reporting Engine

• Highly Integrated Suite for RCA, Impact Analysis for Physical & Virtualized environments

SOLUTION OVERVIEW

Networks (GPON), and Ethernet over SDH (EoSDH). Additionally, geographically disperse IP/MPLS networks are needed to link all of the components together. Although the complexities of mobile networks” are generally well hidden from the subscriber, they can manifest themselves in ways that affect the subscriber directly and negatively; dropped calls, reduced accessibility, reductions in service integrity, poor handover, and long call setup times are just some of the ways in which these complexities can manifest themselves as poor performance.

- Scalability: Large networks can have tens of thousands of cells sites, with each site containing a number of elements such as transmitters and switching equipment. Compound this with nation-wide IP/MPLS networks, access aggregation routers, and high density core switching equipment and Service Providers are left with the huge task of not only collecting enormous amounts of data, but to make sense of the data in order to provide value.

- Virtualized Infrastructure: One of the ways in which Service Providers themselves are dealing with complex large-scale services is to virtualize the underlying infrastructure. Service Providers are starting to take a page from their IT brethren when it comes to provisioning. To cope with the ever-increasing capacity demands on both the user and data planes, Service Providers are moving away from the traditional “physical black box” to virtualized network functions residing on top of an abstraction layer such as a hypervisor.

- Disparate Data sources: As part of the consolidation effort, there is a strong requirement for Service Providers to leverage existing data-sources such as Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs), Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM), and ticketing systems to enrich the collected data and provide value by uncovering not only the relationships among the incoming collected data and the external systems but amongst the external data sources themselves. Hence the challenge to deliver a whole solution that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

SA SUITE MOBILE EDITION – SOLUTION DETAILS

Considerable traction has been gained among Service Providers over the past couple of years by software vendors offering performance management products architected specifically to adapt to dynamic conditions and data sources in the managed environment while facilitating quicker deployments. The growing demand for cost-effective solutions that provide visibility across all of the interconnected technologies and layers required to deliver an application or service to subscribers, customers or partners has evolved into a Performance Manager of Manager (PMoM) strategy. The SA Suite is that; based upon a single tightly integrated platform that has been optimized for the purpose of gathering data from multiple sources (i.e., Subscriber Edge, Access, Core, and the physical and virtualized Data Center), bringing them together and reconciling them within a central common system to provide a service centric view.

As shown in Figure 1, the SA Suite is made up of 3 separate, but complimentary editions: SA Suite Standard, SA Suite Advanced, and SA Suite Mobile Edition, all built on top of the same carrier-class and proven EMC M&R framework.

Both the Standard and Advanced Editions focus on real-time fault and performance of IP routing & switching devices and virtualized environments, while the Advanced Edition includes additional advanced networking capabilities typically deployed in Service Provider (ex. MPLS and Optical networking) environments. Their primary focus

is the physical and virtualized infrastructure underlying the transport of user and data plane of “mobile” user data and signaling from Subscriber Edge to the Data Center.

Figure 1 – Complimentary Relationship between Service Assurance Editions Advanced, “Best in class” features such as Root-Cause-Analysis, Impact Analysis, and Automated Network Discovery make Service Assurance Standard and Advanced the most advanced service assurance product in the market.

The Mobile Edition’s primary focus is performance reporting of the 3GPP interfaces and network functions distributed among the RAN, Circuit & Packet Core, and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks through key 3GPP and vendor defined KPIs and counters. These KPIs can be classified in one of several performance indicator categories as defined by the 3GPP standards group.

Figure 2 below shows the defined categories of Accessibility, Retainability, Mobility, Availability, and Integrity. Though the 3GPP group includes the Latency & Delay KPIs within the “Integrity” group, many vendors choose to break these out on their own. A small subset of KPIs for each category is shown underneath.

Figure 2 – The Key Performance Indicators as defined by the 3GPP.

REPORTING

The computation of KPIs is a challenge for many Element Management Systems (EMS) due to the large number of objects and their associated performance counters. Many of these solutions require offline post-processing of data involving “overnight” number crunching in order to produce refined reports that give value to the user. The Mobile Edition removes this constraint by calculating the KPIs, where possible, in real-time. That is to say, the KPIs are calculated directly during the collection without the need for any scheduled post-processing.

If, for any reason, there are KPIs that are not or cannot be computed directly during the collection, they will be computed “on-the-fly” when the report is selected. Either way, users will always have their reports available in real-time.

Figure 3 illustrates a set of Accessibility reports for an Ericsson Radio Network Controller (RNC). On the left, we see the list of KPIs that fall under this category such as Call Setup Success Rate (both per cell and per RNC), PS Setup Success Rate, Paging Failures, etc.

On the right, we see a summary table of the objects such as Cells and RNCs and their associated values. Finally, at the bottom, we can view the KPI(s), for that object over time.

Figure 3 – SolutionPack for Ericsson RNC (Ex. Accessibility Reports)

This allows a user to breakdown, analyze, and track Accessibility issues and to understand the contributing factors to failures. In the case of Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), a user can view the contributions of both the RRC and RAB connections to the overall CSSR %.

As shown in Figure 4, users can take advantage of the Mobile Edition’s advanced counter & KPI search to drill down and view the individual counters for a deeper analysis.

Figure 4 – Counter / KPI Inventory & Search

The Mobile Edition features a best-in-class, interactive, fully featured reporting portal which allows users to interact with many aspects of the report. Let’s explore a couple of different ways in which a user might want to interact with the report using a Retainability report as an example.

Figure 5 provides a graphical example of a Retainability report for the same Ericsson RNC, ELGRN04. The top most table, titled “Retainability”, provides the user a summarized view of all RNCs in the network as it pertains to retainability. In this table we see one RNC – ELGRN04 –and it’s associated summarized values for HSDPA, RAB, and RRC Drop Rate.

There are multiple ways in which the Mobile Edition can present the summarized table information. As shown in Figure 5, the summarized data is quickly assessed over time through the use of a Sparkline (circled in red). Sparklines show the KPI as a function of time directly within the table cell, removing the need to drill down unless detailed information is required.

Figure 5 – Report Detail Examples

If more detailed information is required, a user can select the row containing the RNC (see #1 in Figure 5) and the “per cell” table (see #2) is populated with the RNC’s associated cells which provide a breakdown of the RNC level KPIs at the cell level. Users can continue to drill down by selecting a specific cell (see #2), LG0815J in this example, and view the retainability KPIs for that cell over time in a time-series graph (see #3).

This graph, like all graphs in the Service Assurance Suite can display real-time, hourly, daily, and weekly aggregates over a selectable range of time. Additionally, users can zoom in to defined boundaries along both axes by drawing a “box” around the area of interest as well as select and de-select KPIs from the legend so as to include or exclude it from view as seen in Figure 6.

Finally, a user can decide to process this data “on-the-fly” to add summary statistics such as min, max, average, and 95th percentile or to extrapolate data to show how that KPI is trending over time.

Figure 6 – Toggle KPI Visibility

Figure 7 shows that over an approximate 12 hour period the RRC Drop Rate Speech (%) is trending downwards to well below the current average.

Figure 7 – Summary Statistics and Trending Analysis

Earlier it was shown how Sparklines can be used to summarize table data. However, data can be formatted in multiple ways depending on users’ needs or preferences. Some of the many ways in which table data can be formatted is seen in Figure 8 (left).

In addition to viewing data as a function of time (such as Sparklines), colors can be used to define KPI thresholds so that the thresholds can be tracked over time. This is the purpose of a Status Sparkline and is visible in the RRC Drop Rate Speech (%) column in the figure below. Green indicates “Normal” whereas Orange or Red shading indicates passing a “Major” or “Critical” threshold level, respectively.

Furthermore, both the data values and threshold can be combined as functions of time in a Bar Chart Sparkline. The relative amplitude (height) of the bar is an indication of the value whereas the color of the bar denotes the threshold to which this value is associated. As an example, see the RAB Drop Rate (%) column in Figure 9.

Figure 8 – Table Cell Value Formatting

Values can also be formatted to show the current value relative to all other values in the table as well as the threshold associated to that value, as shown in the HSDPA Drop Rate (%) column. This format is called a Performance Sparkline.

Figure Z –

Figure 9 – Performance, Bar Chart, and Status Sparklines

Filtering table objects is made easy with indexed column search (auto-complete as you type) and through the use of wildcards, as shown in Figure 10. By selecting the funnel, a user can start typing the name of an object and use the auto-complete to see a list of possibilities. By using a wildcard operator, a user can use simple expressions to filter table objects.

Figure 10 – Sorting and Filtering Table Columns

So far, we’ve discussed “Table” and “Graph” report types however, there are many types of graphs that can be used with the suite that can be used to either customize existing reports or create your own. Figure 11 provides the full list of available report types available for the Service Assurance Suite, including the Mobile Edition:

F Figure 11 – Available Report Types

Expanding on two of the more important report types used in the Mobile Edition: Topology and GeoMaps.

GEOMAPS Mobility is inherent to the services that Mobile Service Providers

provide, thus, it is important that the service assurance solution be able to effectively incorporate this added dimension in its reporting.

With support for Bing, Google, and OpenStreetMap (OSM) the Mobile Edition makes it possible to plot multiple forms (see legend on the right) on the geo map. In Figure 12, a sector is used to define a cell. With a sector it is possible to define the Azimuth, Radius, Beam Width, and of course location.

It is also possible to define and customize an unlimited number of thresholds (and their associated colors) in Geomap reports to help in identifying “hot spots” and regional issues. The color of the form will change to the associated threshold color. In the example of Figure 12, orange has been used to denote a “Major” threshold has been breached. The attributes for any object represented by a form can be customized and enriched to meet the specific needs of the solution. In the example below, the cell information has been enriched to show the Site Name, Site Type, etc.

Geomap Reporting is currently available “out-of-box” in the SolutionPack for Huawei iManager M2000 and can be added as a custom report in any other of the available SolutionPacks or as a standalone report.

Figure 12 – Sectorized View of a Cell and its Attributes

TOPOLOGY Topology is automatically discovered during the performance file collection process. This “hands-off” approach reduces maintenance and error. Relationships between elements are built and made available through topology reports and, for Radio Access, available initially in the SolutionPack for Huawei iManager M2000. Topology on the physical underlying network (i.e. IP/MPLS) is available as part of the Advanced Edition.

Figure 13 provides an example of a topology report for the RM190 Base Station which shows 4 cells (RM190A1, RM190A2, RM190B1, RM190B2) connected to single base-station, (RM190), which is in turn connected to an RNC aptly named “RNC”.

FFigure 13 – Topology Report for Huawei iManager M2000 EMS

ARCHITECTURE / SCALABILITY Service Assurance Mobile Edition is built on a proven, carrier-class architecture that has been deployed for years across large Service Providers and Enterprises and is the same technology platform used in EMCs other products such as ViPR SRM.

The solution is built on 3 main layers:

Collection

Storage & Analysis

Presentation

Each layer is completely independent and can be expanded horizontally as required, making it easy to size for new implementations or to expand existing implementations as needs grow. For example, the Collection Layer is made up of multiple collecting modules each with a specific collecting interface. Identical modules can be deployed to increase capacity and different collection modules can be deployed to increase the scope of technologies being reported on. A series of filters at this level allow the collection to be highly customizable in almost every way.

In much the same way, multiple portals can be deployed behind a load-balancer to provide a highly available, high capacity Portal. Existing reports can be modified and new reports can be created based on data collected at the Collection Layer.

NORTHBOUND INTERFACE In addition to its powerful Southbound Collectors; Service Assurance provides a strong Northbound Interface for tight integration as part of a larger ecosystem. The requests are made through the SOAP/XML interface to the Web-Service’s daemon. Data can be accessed in a raw format, directly from the database, or in a more refined manner through existing reports.

DATA ENRICHMENT Service Assurance provides multiple advanced methods for enriching collected data, all of them real-time, so there’s never a moment to wait. Enrichment is provided at the Collection Layer via a collecting filter called the “Property-Tagging” Filter. This filter can match one or more keys against the value of incoming attributes using regex, wildcards, or full string match in order to add new, custom attributes. It can also fetch keys and custom attributes from external databases using SQL like expressions to build and update key-value pairs automatically; without the need for user intervention.

SA SUITE MOBILE EDITION SOLUTIONPACKS

As mentioned earlier, the Service Assurance Suite is available as 3 Editions:

Mobile Edition

Standard Edition

Advanced Edition

The Mobile Edition focuses on providing detailed performance reports and alerts based on 3GPP defined standards and KPIs. These reports are highly concentrated around the performance reporting categories and network functions, as defined by the 3GPP. This is accomplished through a series of configurable SolutionPacks:

Radio Access Network (RAN)

SolutionPack for Ericsson eNodeB

SolutionPack for Ericsson RNC

SolutionPack for ip.access nano3G

Support for Huawei RAN via SolutionPack for Huawei iManager M2000

Mobile Core

SolutionPack for Ericsson MGW

SolutionPack for Ericsson SGSN

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)

SolutionPack for Ericsson CSCF

SolutionPack for Ericsson HSS/SLF

And more…

However, reporting can be further enhanced to include the underlying physical transport network and its associated technologies by purchasing Service Assurance Standard or Advanced Suite which include:

SolutionPack for MPLS

SolutionPack for Synthetic Transactions

SolutionPack for Traffic Flows (i.e. Netflow)

SolutionPack for Cisco IP SLA

SolutionPack for Cisco QoS

And many more…

SOLUTION BENEFITS

The Service Assurance Suite and its 3 Editions: Standard, Advanced, and Mobile Edition provide unparalleled visibility into Mobile Core, RAN, IMS, Backhaul and Aggregation networks, and the data center enabling Operators to seamlessly monitor Services from End-to-End as shown in Figure 14.

The Mobile Edition specializes in performance of 3GPP defined interfaces and standards whereas the Standard and Advanced editions focus on the underlying IP and Optical layers while also providing best-in-class Root-Cause and Impact Analysis.

All 3 Editions use the same world-class reporting platform to provide a Unified View (i.e. “Single Pane of Glass”) for nearly all network types: Across IP/MPLS, Carrier Ethernet, Broadband, Mobile Core & RAN, IMS, as well as the Physical and Virtualized Data Center.

Figure 14 – End to End Monitoring with Service Assurance Suite Standard, Advanced, and Mobile Edition.

With reference to Figure 14, SA Suite’s unified view combined with its ability to leverage existing OSS and BSS tools such as Ticketing systems, Customer Management, and CMDBs through strong South and Northbound interfaces (see Figure 15), makes SA Suite the right tool for Service Centric views across multiple domains, from Subscriber Edge to the Virtualized Data Center.

Figure 15 – Leverage existing BSS/OSS Tools

EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. © Copyright 2015 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. 01/15 Solution Overview H13710.1 EMC believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

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SOLUTION OVERVIEW