Mobile AssurancePassive Monitoring Solutions and Professional Services for GSM, GPRS, UMTS, MSS, CDMA, CDMA 2000, and LTE Networks

2 Mobile Assurance

Enabling Outstanding Service Quality, and Lower Operating Costs

Proactive monitoring and real-time troubleshooting for problem management, diagnosis, and planning of mobile voice and data networks

2 Mobile Assurance

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Assurance Solutions for Today’s Mobile Challenges The dramatic increase in smart devices and data-intensive applications has resulted in an unprecedented demand for higher bandwidth within mobile networks. Network capacity is being driven to Gigabit levels with predicted average data growth rates of 120 percent a year. Coupling this with a dramatic reduction in revenue-per-bit, service providers need to find a way to profitably deliver the quality of service their customers expect.

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a wireless multi-service technology that has gained broad industry acceptance. It offers greatly increased data rates (and decreased latency) delivered over a simplified/flattened IP network infrastructure at a lower cost. LTE intensifies the challenge of how to manage customer satisfaction in an environment of CapEx and OpEx constraints, high data-traffic rates, and complex devices and applications. This calls for efficiency and automation—benefits that require service-assurance solutions that are intelligent, integrated, easy-to-use, and cost-effective.

Viavi Solutions Mobile Assurance solutions already manage some of the largest mobile data networks in the world, handling traffic rates of over 20 G. Our ongoing investment continues to drive down the cost of monitoring and troubleshooting mobile networks and now includes LTE support, ensuring that projected 4G mobile benefits are realized.

Passive Probe-Based Monitoring and TroubleshootingUsing high-capacity probes located at points of traffic concentration in the core network, passive monitoring solutions copy signaling and user data, typically for all subscriber calls/sessions, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Analysis of the captured data allows network and service volume and quality measurements to be generated for all subscribers, a specified sub-group of subscribers, or an individual subscriber. Detailed transactional analysis of an individual call/session is also available to diagnose even complex problems. Different applications provide different types of analysis including real-time event monitoring, detailed troubleshooting, and historical reporting.

The Viavi portfolio includes the following passive monitoring solutions:

y acceSS7 For assuring GSM, GPRS, UMTS, MSS, and CDMA networks and services

y accessLTE For assuring LTE networks and services

y accessCDMA2K For assuring CDMA 2000 networks and services

These solutions are supported by the broadest and most-effective range of pre- and post-sales professional services, ensuring that the ROI from your investment in a Viavi Mobile Assurance solution is maximized.

Unmatched Value Driving Real Business SuccessDeployment and use of Viavi Mobile Assurance solutions significantly reduces by up to 80 percent the time taken to detect and diagnose service-impacting faults. They also provide accurate and detailed statistical information such as volumes, success rates, failure causes, and durations for the following:

y Subscriber calls/sessions

y Network equipment traffic levels

y Roaming/interconnect partner calls/sessions

y Subscriber usage of devices/bandwidth/applications

Viavi solutions provide insight into the mobile-service-transport layer (for example, HTTP and WAP) as well as the individual services carried over these service-transport layers. Any individual service that can be uniquely identified using any combination of attributes such as APN, IP address, port number, or partial URL/UR can be analyzed, including services such as picture downloads and BlackBerry® services.

Compared to similar probe-based passive monitoring solutions, the Viavi portfolio offers faster fault resolution via integrated applications (so you are typically never more than three mouse-clicks away from diagnosing any problem), more powerful automatic correlation of data, and greater scalability.

Viavi Mobile Assurance solutions deliver the following benefits to mobile operators:

y Minimal network/service downtime (including during modifications to an existing technology or service) and maximized service revenues

y Increased customer satisfaction via the delivery of higher service quality and lowered churn

y Increased effectiveness of support personnel in maintaining networks and services and reduced operating costs

y More effective network capacity planning via the reporting of traffic capacity levels and minimized capital costs

y Accurate billing of roaming and interconnect partners and minimized “lost” revenues

y “Monetizing of bandwidth” via the delivery of premium-price services based on the measurement and reporting of SLA parameter performance

y “Monetizing of bandwidth” via the definition of new services (or marketing promotions) from detailed insight into subscriber usage of devices/bandwidth/applications

Viavi solutions increase a mobile operator’s business profitability, maximize their efficiency, and deliver outstanding levels of customer service.

4 Mobile Assurance

Powerful ApplicationsThe Viavi Mobile Assurance portfolio includes the following:

Real-time Monitoring Applications

Based on measured network and service key performance indicators (KPIs), these applications generate alarms when any KPI exceeds set thresholds. This enables the fast identification and prioritization of service-affecting problems.

y QoS Analyzer (QoSA) — real-time monitoring of GSM, GPRS, UMTS, MSS, LTE, CDMA, and CDMA 2000 networks and services

y QoS Analyzer for SIGTRAN (QoSA SIGTRAN) — real-time monitoring of SIGTRAN (SS7 over IP) networks. Includes SIGTRAN “Link Status” monitoring to immediately identify IP link issues

y Centralized Roaming Management System (CRMS) — real-time monitoring plus historical reporting of high-value GSM, GPRS, UMTS, and LTE inbound and outbound roaming services

Real-Time and Historical Troubleshooting Applications

Providing detailed transactional analysis and protocol decoding, these applications enable the fast diagnosis of problems to reduce their impact.

y Session Trace (ST) — automatically correlating data associated with each call or session, Session Trace provides a pictorial representation of signaling procedures from start to end, highlighting any abnormal occurrences. Supports troubleshooting of GSM, GPRS, UMTS, MSS, LTE, CDMA, and CDMA 2000 networks and services.

y Protocol Analysis (PA) — a flexible message-capture and protocol-decode tool for troubleshooting non-call or session-related problems. With configurable capture triggers and filters, Protocol Analysis rapidly captures the messages of interest and decodes the contents to diagnose problems. Protocol Analysis supports troubleshooting of GSM, GPRS, UMTS, and CDMA networks.

Historical Reporting Application Including Multi-Dimensional Analysis

This application historically profiles KPIs across multiple dimensions. For example, it can detail the activation success for a specific service by device type and cell location. Such analysis can reveal difficult-to-detect service problems limited to particular dimensions and/or profile subscriber use of applications, devices, bandwidth, and such.

Data Mining Toolkit (DMT) — analysis and reporting of key network and service transactional procedures for GSM and GPRS networks.

AccessInsight Data Feeds Export

AccessInsight Data Feeds Export is not a user application, but rather a mediation solution that allows the information-rich data collected by Viavi passive monitoring probes to be quickly and easily fed to third-party applications. Data relating to services, devices, location, mobility, and failed calls/sessions are examples of information only available from passive probes. accessInsight Data Feeds Export supports the supply of probe data from GSM, GPRS, UMTS, LTE and CDMA networks and services.

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QoS Analyzer (QoSA)

Enabling Proactive or Real-Time Detection of Mobile-Network and Service-Quality Issues

The QoSA covers all aspects of mobile network and service performance, monitoring in real-time the delivered quality of GPRS, UMTS, and LTE services. QoSA continuously calculates a series of KPIs relating to the network and carried services which compared to pre-set thresholds with alarms generated when thresholds are crossed. The KPI data can also be retrieved and analyzed for istorical trending of the network and service performance, analysis useful to network operations, network planning, and SLA management.

Benefits

y Maximize Revenues

– Detect network and service problems in real time, minimizing outage times and their impact

y Raise Satisfaction Levels

– Proactive and real-time indications of customer-service performance and quality issues

y Lower Operational Costs

– Enables managing more complex networks and services with existing resources/OpEx

– Discover key trends with flexible historical reports for network-capacity planning and performance management to help optimize asset utilization and minimize capital spend

Features

y Network-Wide Coverage

– Provides visibility of service performance across the entire GPRS/UMTS/LTE network via a single, high-level, performance view

y Easy to Use

– Get unmatched performance insight via an exceptionally-flexible KPI service model

– Set flexible alarm thresholds for selected KPIs including base-lining thresholds—for example, a variable threshold based on the typical KPI measured profile

– Allocate service definitions via a combination of APN, IP address, port, and URL/URI

– Simplify service-performance management via the use of composite KPIs: a few composite (procedure-based) KPIs replaces tens or hundreds of transaction KPIs

– Generate reports for the last 24 hours (or longer period) down to 5-minute segments

y Workflow Improvements

– Integrated troubleshooting drill-down with Session Trace application to deliver the fastest fault detection-to-resolution time in the industry (as few as three mouse clicks)

– Export collected performance data to third-party applications or e-mail to colleagues

QoSA OperationQoSA lets users configure GPRS/UMTS/LTE measurements for their specific network and service requirements and view results in an easy-to-use display. GPRS/UMTS/LTE measurements and associated nodes (network elements or services) are defined in hierarchical tree structures and represented by icons which change color to indicate when threshold boundarieshave been crossed and the violation severity. These color changes appear at the top level of the service model, letting users quickly identify issues.

6 Mobile Assurance

QoS Analyzer for SIGTRAN

Enabling Proactive and Real-Time Detection of SIGTRAN Network/Service Issues

SIGTRAN is a new architecture and protocol family developed to support the transport of SS7-based signaling over IP networks. It is being adopted worldwide to handle increasing signaling traffic capacity, replacing costly time domain multiplexer (TDM) links and signal transfer points (STPs) with lower-cost IP links and NEs in VoIP and mobile soft switch (MSS) networks. To realize the full benefits of SIGTRAN, it is essential that service uptime and quality be maintained after the migration. Achieving this requires effective SIGTRAN monitoring and troubleshooting tools.

QoS Analyzer for SIGTRAN is a comprehensive real-time monitoring tool that identifies problems in SIGTRAN networks and associated services. By recording and storing a series of key performance metrics relating to SIGTRAN and the carried services, users are immediately alerted to current or impending SIGTRAN-related quality issues such as:

y SIGTRAN link and NE failure and overload conditions

y Interworking problems as messages traverse from TDM to IP and vice versa

y Load-balancing or bottleneck issues caused by incorrect routing algorithms

SIGTRANProtocols

TCAP

SUA

SCTP

IP

ISUP

MTP3

M2UA M2PAM3UA

SCCP

Benefits

y Maximize Revenues

– Detect network and service problems in real time, minimizing outage times and their impact

y Raise Satisfaction Levels

– Proactive and real-time indications of customer-service performance and quality issues

y Lower Operational Costs

– Enables managing more complex SIGTRAN networks with existing resources/OpEx

Features

y Network-Wide Coverage

– Measures KPIs for IP logical links and SIGTRAN-based NEs/procedures

– Measures voice and SMS service quality carried over SIGTRAN

y Easy to Use

– Unique, real-time IP Link status indication

– Single, high-level, performance view of the entire SIGTRAN domain

– Exceptionally comprehensive and easy-to-use KPI service model including icon color highlighting to indicate SIGTRAN or service health

– Sets flexible thresholds, including base-line, for any specific KPI measurement

– Generates performance reports down to one-minute segments

y Workflow Improvements

– Easily share collected performance data with third parties

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Centralized Roaming Management System (CRMS)

Protecting high-value roaming services/customers

Successful roaming depends on the reliable operation of multiple mobile networks. Without appropriate tools, it typically takes a long time to detect, localize, and troubleshoot roaming problems. And, with roaming services typically contributing 15 to 20 percent of total revenues, quality-of-service remains a top priority for all mobile operators.

By monitoring signaling and user data at interconnect points, the CRMS solution delivers an objective and honest view of service performance as experienced by roaming subscribers. It lets operators detect problems quickly and reduces mean-time-to-repair (MTTR). By fixing problems before roaming subscribers are aware of any issues, CRMS helps operators reduce their churn rates and maximize revenues.

Benefits

y Maximize Revenues

– Detect roaming problems in real time, minimizing outages and revenue impact

y Raise Satisfaction Levels

– Resolve issues before subscribers become aware of them

y Lower Operational Costs

– Enable managing more roaming subscribers/partners with existing resources/OpEx

Features

y Network-Wide Coverage

– Monitoring of all key inbound and outbound roaming procedures

y Easy to Use

– Real-time alarms detect all roaming faults wherever they happen

– Unique Alarmogram screen ranks faults through color coding

– Time Series charts describe faults and the subscribers affected

– Advanced reporting platform for historical trending and analysis

y Workflow Improvements

– Easily share collected performance data with third parties

– Integrates with the Session Trace troubleshooting application

8 Mobile Assurance

Session Trace (ST)

Fast Call- or Data-Session Fault Diagnosis via Insightful End-to-End Transaction Tracing

Session Trace is an easy-to-use yet powerful network and service-troubleshooting tool. It provides a pictorial sequence diagram of subscriber’s sessions and lets the user perform detailed analyses of signaling procedures. The application provides near-real-time and historical analysis of each subscribers’ interaction with a mobile network. Historically, troubleshooting has been a niche area occupied by only a handful of highly-skilled network experts. The Session Trace user interface simplifies network and service information, letting less-skilled Tier 2 users effectively diagnose problems and allowing your scarce and expensive Tier 3 resources to focus on more complex problems. Session Trace significantly improves operational efficiency in the fault-management lifecycle and has been proven to reduce the time taken to diagnose problems from an average of 45 to 5 minutes.

Benefits

y Maximize Revenues

– Pinpoints call/session failures to minimize service outages and their revenue impact

y Raise Satisfaction Levels

– Real-time and historical fault-cause information without the need to involve subscribers in the problem-resolution process

– Provides an accurate record of subscriber transactions for fast customer trouble-ticket closure

y Lower Operational Costs

– Enables managing more complex networks and services with existing resources/OpEx

Features

y Network-Wide Coverage

– Historic or near-real-time advanced troubleshooting

– Effective troubleshooting in multi-vendor environments, independent of vendor network elements

– Supports IP service troubleshooting including LTE

– Automatic data correlation across all supported network interfaces

– Traces subscribers’ IMSI, MS-IDSN, APN, IP addresses, transactions and cause codes, and calling and called party number

y Easy to Use

– One-line display option shows each captured message in the trace

– Phase Graphics quickly indicate the progress of a call/session, allowing identification of specific events including failures

– Problem drill-through from session failure to where failure occurred

– Shows network transactions in pictorial sequence diagrams

– Summarized quality metrics per data session such as throughput and packet loss to help with diagnostics

– Detailed decode displays every bit and byte in the signaling message

– Color coding enables fast identification of protocols

– Color highlighting draws attention to abnormal sequences

– Intuitive online filtering for a guided approach to problem analysis

– Search criteria let operators quickly zoom in on problems

y Workflow Improvements

– In-context integration with Viavi Mobile Assurance real-time monitoring applications means that you are typically never more than three mouse-clicks away from fault detection to fault diagnosis

– Diagnostic information can be forwarded as a web page to other groups or vendors to rapidly improve problem-resolution time

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Session Trace OperationSession Trace generates subscriber call or session records which are stored in a distributed database at the monitoring sites—typically in proximity to the SGW-P-GW, MME, MSC servers, SGSNs, or GGSNs. The records are organized in the database by searchable fields, delivering high user-initiated query performance. And, with data being held at the monitoring sites, this dramatically reduces the required WAN bandwidth back to the user sites.

The duration of data storage is configurable and is typically 5 days. The availability of historic records lets operators resolve a significantly higher proportion of subscriber-initiated trouble tickets without the need to recreate the problem or involve the subscriber in the troubleshooting process. As a result, trouble tickets are resolved and closed quicker, and MTTR is reduced, leading to greater customer satisfaction. The output from Session Trace can be used to provide a full audit trail of problem resolution, a feature that is particularly important for corporate SLA management.

When using Session Trace, users set up a search criteria for subscriber records using a simple field- and time-entry menu. The search can be based on subscriber identifiers like MSISDN, which would automatically pull back and correlate all information captured for that subscriber, signaling, and user plane. More complex filtering containing multiple criteria can also be constructed to narrow a search, helping reduce the time to troubleshoot.

Protocol Analysis (PA)

Fully Flexible Packet Capture and Decode for General Fault Investigation

The Protocol Analysis application lets a user capture messages from any supported link in the network and provides powerful analytical functionality that lets messages be decoded down to individual octets, if required. Flexible packet-capture triggers and filters capture and display only messages of interest. PA sessions can be run in real time or pre-captured data can be analyzed off line.

Benefits

y Maximize Revenues

– Pinpoints non-call/session related network failures to minimize their service impact

y Raise Satisfaction Levels

– Resolves issues before subscribers become aware of them

y Lower Operational Costs

– Enables managing more complex networks and services with existing resources/OpEx

Features

y Network-Wide Coverage

– Supports packet capture on GSM, GPRS, UMTS, and CDMA networks

y Easy to Use

– Filters can be quickly and easily set up by selecting key fields and applied values; filters can be saved for future recall and use

– Color coding differentiates message types

– The single-line display format can be user customized to show only the fields of interest within captured messages

– From a list of captured messages, a user can tag only those of interest for subsequent display or export

y Workflow Improvements

– PA includes an API for data export of captured data

10 Mobile Assurance

Data Mining Toolkit (DMT)

Multi-Dimensional Analysis of Network, Service, Device, and Application Performance

With the introduction of larger network bandwidths and smartphones, mobile subscriber usage patterns have become more varied and complex. This trend provides operators with opportunities for new services, but also introduces more obscure, revenue-impacting problems. Key to positively exploiting this trend is a thorough understanding of new network, device, and application use patterns.

The DMT offers a set of packaged application modules (PAMs) that provide multi-dimensional analysis of probe-collected data. Using online analytical processing (OLAP) technology, DMT users can quickly find the answers they need. Unlike fixed reports that may require hours of analysis, DMT PAMs let users slice, dice, and combine data in a variety of ways. Example analyses available from the DMT includes roaming performance, handset performance, and application usage.

Benefits

y Maximize Revenues

– Detect more obscure revenue-impacting problems

y Raise Satisfaction Levels

– Define and market better-targeted services

y Lower Operational Costs

– Enable managing more varied devices and applications with existing resources/OpEx

Features

y Network-Wide Coverage

– PAMs are available for analyzing ISUP (voice), GPRS signaling, GPRS user plane, GSM MAP, and UMTS

y Easy to Use

– Each DMT PAM comes pre-equipped with sample visualizations that can be customized and/or expanded as needed by the user

– A consulting service is available to support creating further visualizations

y Workflow Improvements

– Easily share collected analyses with third parties

– In-context integration with the Session Trace troubleshooting application

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PA

Remote Site Processing

ProbingProbing

QoSASIGTRAN

QoSA ST DMT Applications

Remote Site 1Remote Site n

Central Site

Remote Sites

KPI Storage

xDR Storage

CRMS

xDR/MSUData

MSUData

MSUData

xDRData

xDRData

MSUData

MSUData

KPIData

KPIData

KPIData

KPIData

Central Server

Mobile Network

Scalable Architecture Viavi Mobile Assurance solutions have a distributed architecture. Data is collected, initially processed, and then the raw and processed data is stored at remote sites. Applications located at a central site then request specific data which is then delivered from the remote sites.

Mobile Assurance architecture has the following major components at remote sites:

y Probes to passively copy service data from messages on tapped links

y Remote site processors to generate xDRs and KPIs from collected data and organize storage of xDRs and associated messages

y TDR-Store, the Viavi-designed database used to store xDRs and associated messages

Components at the central site include:

y A central server collects the xDRs and associated messages from remote sites and delivers them to the applications

y Application servers, the workstations used by users to launch the application GUIs for selecting required analysis and viewing results

© 2015 Viavi Solutions, Inc. Product specifications and descriptions in this document are subject to change without notice. passivemonitoringbr-nsd-tm-ae30173241 903 0414

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Associated Professional Services — Viavi PLUS At Viavi, we recognize that our mobile customers are increasingly looking to external industry experts to help them in a world of rapidly changing technology. And, that their business success depends on maximizing the value they get from their investments. The Viavi PLUS Portfolio offers a complete suite of services aimed at advancing your adoption of new technologies and processes to resolve your operational challenges and improve your effectiveness and efficiency. These changes will help you provide more value to your customers and stakeholders.

The PLUS portfolio offers a comprehensive combination of services that addresses your deployment and support, consulting, customization, and managed-services needs. Your solution is tailored to meet your exact requirements, maximizing your investment and the effectiveness of your operations team.

Associated Literature

Mobile Assurance Solutions

Solution Brief — acceSS7 for MSS Assurance

Solution Brief — accessLTE for LTE Assurance

Mobile Assurance Applications

Data Sheet — QoS Analyzer

Data Sheet — QoS Analyzer for SIGTRAN

Data Sheet — Centralized Roaming Management System (CRMS)

Data Sheet — Session Trace

Data Sheet — accessInsight Data Feeds Export

Mobile Assurance Services

Brochure — Mobile Assurance Support Services

Brochure — Mobile Assurance Operational Assistance Support Service

Consulting Service Brief — Assurance Solution Health Reporting

To access any of the Viavi Mobile Assurance collateral, including application notes and white papers, please visit www.viavisolutions.com.