High Performance Stream-to-Disk Architecture
LTE Control and User Plane Analysis
Visibility to Subscriber Mobility Issues
Visibility to Bearer Issues
Visibility to Session
Voice Call and other SIP Procedures
NetScout Network Time Machine for Service Providers Series
Network Time Machine is a troubleshooting appliance designed for quick deployment and for traffic and packet level visibility in 20Gbps carrier environments. It provides extensive network and application visibility as well as the forensic details you need to solve signaling or data performance problems. It's also available as a portable or rackmount unit.
High Performance Stream-to-Disk Architecture
Network Time Machine offers industry leading 20Gbps sustained stream-to-disk packet capture performance in a small footprint that ensures service providers can quickly gain visibility where and when it is needed. In today’s IP based network, the ability to capture every packet without filtering or packet loss is important to ensure visibility of all the events that occur on the network. Network Time Machine is available as a portable or a rackmount unit. Portable units are ideal for filling gaps in network visibility, whether in the data center or in the field, such as between an eNodeB and the EPS. The rackmount version, with its higher performance and scalable storage capacity up to 576 Terabyte, is designed to monitor critical links for long-term forensic needs. Both portable and rackmount platforms support 1 and/or 10G interfaces.
LTE Control and User Plane Analysis
Today’s subscribers of 3G/4G services expect to be connected anywhere, any time. Their service should be “Always ON” and ready to send/receive voice, video and data communication with reliable performance. Subscribers need to be able to connect, authenticate and attach to the network and data service provider(s) effectively and reliably.
3G/4G handover, circuit-switch fall back and S1/X2 handover must happen seamlessly to update the bearer and service connection as subscribers move from place to place to ensure reliable voice and data service anytime, anywhere. When the interoperability of the control plane and user plane management elements break, engineers need visibility to the c-plane and u-plane transactions with details that traverse the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) to get to the root cause.
Network Time Machine can capture traffic from any interfaces in the 4G Evolved Packet Core (EPC). It is therefore able to analyze, organize, and extract relevant information relating to both control, and user plane, procedures from multi-terabytes of information to identify network element.
*Track default bearers status and IPv4 & IPv6 address assignment during packet capture
Visibility to Subscriber Mobility Issues
Network Time Machine can process in real-time, control plane traffic to identify LTE subscribers' EMM and EMS sessions. Subscribers with procedure issues under an eNodeB, or a TAI or APN, are easily reviewed from the Atlas statistics view. Troubleshoot specific subscriber issues by generating an analysis of the UE that shows EMM and EMS status and issues. Additionally, troubleshoot issues with bearer and u-plane traffic statistics by specifying UE-ID such as IMSI or phone number to show mobility status of an UE. Custom reports, created from a template, can be exported and saved with a click of a button. Control plane and user plane packets associated with a subscriber can be easily extracted for detailed flow and session analysis in the integrated decode engine.
Visibility to Bearer Issues
To ensure good user experience, provisioning the correct bearers with the proper QoS setup for carrying the various types of IP traffics is pivotal. Network Time Machine with the LTE Analysis option, provides visibility for the status of bearers that a subscriber has by simply typing in the subscriber’s phone number or IMSI. Issues related to bearer setup procedures are shown and users are able to drill down to the session view or decode with just a few clicks.
Visibility to End-to-end Session
Users can select the c-plane and u-plane application of interest to construct a session view. Flows with issue(s) are highlighted in yellow and shown in a ladder view with timing information. Various filter conditions are available to extract just the packets required to review payload information for quick root cause identification.
VoLTE/VoIP Analysis
Getting Audio/Video over IP work is very important to service providers. Not only is it a revenue generating application within which subscribers can easily identify a degrade in network performance. This is especially true for VoLTE deployment as it needs to interoperate with IMS for seamless communication with subscribers on 3G/4G and PSTN networks. Key visibility requirements include:
- Registration with IMS and Bearer provisioning
- Voice Call and other SIP procedures
- End-to-end QoS and Codec analysis
Voice Call and other SIP Procedures
Network Time Machine analyzes all SIP traffic and offers KPI such as failure rate and latency of SIP procedures. SIP procedures that result in failure will be shown with the detail error code. The user is able to drill down to see a trend, as well as the subscriber who issued the call or experienced the failure. The packet relating to the procedure, such as IMS register failure, can be quickly extracted for detail analysis.
End-to-End Call Analysis
Network Time Machine automatically correlates signaling and media IP flows during analysis for quick visibility and packet extraction. It provides QoS analysis on voice and video over IP traffic for call centers and LTE networks. Even without visibility of the setup traffic, Network Time Machine can sniff out the RTP stream to generate assessment of the video/voice stream quality. The user can group calls by QoS parameters, such as MOS call quality or call type, by selecting subscriber phone number, MOS range, setup time range and call types. With the LTE option, Network Time Machine can group based on eNodeB, TAI or APN connected. Its high performance capture and analysis architecture make it an ideal quick-to-deploy analysis solution for VoIP/VoLTE in carrier grade operations.
Voice Call Session Analysis
For call sessions captured, the integrated decode engine automatically correlates SIP and RTP flows that belong to the same call and shows the call session view in a time-correlated multiple segments ladder view. SIP call flow segments with setup issues will be highlighted in yellow with issues framed in the ladder view. Statistical analysis of the call QoS metrics, such as MOS, Jitter and Packet Loss are shown and reported.
Video and Voice Call Playback
Network Time Machine supports many video and voice codecs, that are commonly used in mobile networks, including G.711, AMR-WB, EVRC, MPEG, and H.264. Audio and video can be replayed on its integrated player or exported to an external player so that engineers can replicate the user experience for forensic analysis.
Visibility to Data Traffic Issue
Performance Bottleneck Analysis
Network Time Machine automatically discovers applications and reports performance trending metrics by server, network and client site. The unique Performance Bottleneck Analysis (PBA) displays server, network and client site time for each TCP flow. PBA metrics show where application time is spent and immediately identifies the root cause of application performance complaints.
Integrated Application Performance Analysis
Network Time Machine has embedded analysis capabilities that automatically align and assess all IP flows. User plane traffic throughput, servers involved and impairment are highlighted. It has built-in support for voice and video traffic analysis and playback. An optional LTE control signal analyzer is available and offers detailed LTE control signaling message analysis on c-plane and u-plane by LTE interface.
Multi-Segment and Multi-Tier Analysis
Multi-tier and multi-segment analysis quickly correlates IP flows across network elements/segments with trace files collected from various data sources or through aggregation switches. Flow and packets with transport issues are highlighted for quick root cause detection and isolation. Ladder Views can be exported to a PDF file for documentation.
The proliferation of IP-based video and data application on fix-line and mobile service provider’s network has posted great opportunities and challenges at the same time. Network Time Machine’s versatile analysis capability and high performance stream-to-disk capture makes it the ultimate root cause analysis solution for today’s high speed service provider’s network. When it comes to maintaining networks for LTE, carrier, triple play and data center, Network Time Machine will make the responsible performance engineers and technicians feel fast and smart.