Thursday, February 28, 2013

Procera: 19 Trials with Tier1 Operators


Some quotes from Procera's Q4 2012 earning call:
  • We now have 32 mobile operators as customers around the world, with 7 of these being Tier 1 customers
      
  • We have 19 direct trials with Tier 1 service providers that are currently underway or plan to begin in the next 60 days
     
  • Two service provider customers represented 10% of revenue in the fourth quarter, with these 2 customers combined representing 23% of revenue in Q4
     
  • We recently announced our acquisition of Vineyard Networks. Vineyard is an OEM supplier that provides DPI solutions to enterprises and has relationships with prominent enterprise network solutions providers. We believe we will be transformative with this combination in the network industry. We will further separate ourselves from the competition. This acquisition expands our total addressable market, strengthens our team with an over 40% increase to an R&D team, add a development center in the America and bring some amazing technology and features to the table .. we can now go beyond service providers and offer state-of-the-art DPI solutions to enterprises in just about every industry .. The operating cost of Vineyard are expected to be approximately $6 million in 2013
See "Procera Networks Management Discusses Q4 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript" - by Seeking Alpha, here.

DPI Market Grew by 19% in 2012 ($252M Revenues for Allot, Procera and Sandvine)


With the release of Procera Networks' results ($16.6M for Q4 - here), all 3 public DPI companies published their 2012 Q4 and full year reports.

All together, the 3 pure players of standalone DPI devices, Allot Communications, Procera and Sandvine generated $70.5M from products and services (not all targeting the fixed/mobile broadband market) during Q4, compared to 58.5M in Q4, 2011 (+20.5%)


This brings the 2012 revenues for the 3 to $252.5M, compared to $211.9 in 2011 (+19%).

A short comparison for Q4 results:

Q4, 2012
 (Nov 30)
Symbol
NASDAQ: ALLT
NASDAQ:PKT
TSX: SVC
Press release link
Q4-12 Revenues
$26.4M
$16.6M
$27.5M
Q4-11 to Q4-12 change
20%
6.4%
31%
Q3-12 to Q4-12 change
-5%
3.1%
26%
Q3-12 Net Income (GAAP)
-$15.1M
$1.2M
$6.5M
Gross margin
70%
65%
71%
2012 Revenues
$104.8M
$59.6M
$88M
2011 to 2012 Change
34.7%
34.5%
-1.8%
Market Cap (Feb 27)
$465M
$325M
$272M
Cash
$143M
$132M
$74.6
Enterprise Value
$322M
$193M
$197.4M

One year (to Feb 27, 2013) stock performance chart of Allot, Procera and Sandvine benchmarked against NASDAQ:







[ABI] CEM Market $1.3B; Needs Policy and DPI; HP, IBM, Amdocs Lead


A recent research by Aditya Kaul (pictured), practice director, ABI Research concludes that "..  it’s only recently that CEM has been applied in mobile .. sizes the CEM opportunity in 2013 at $1.3 billion across the network and IT domains, although roughly 80% of the market is dominated by the IT domain in areas like BSS/OSS, CRM, and SDP"

The Mobile CEM landscape today is dominated by IT vendors such as HP, Amdocs, and IBM which are leveraging strengths in IT combined with a heavy focus on customer analytics and data mining. However, for CEM to succeed, the network piece including network monitoring, optimization, DPI and policy, has to go hand-in-hand with the IT piece, which is where traditional network vendors come in .. Ultimately, CEM only becomes relevant if done end-to-end, with a single point of ownership within the carrier; something like a NASA mission control with a CEM commander at its helm, having multiple views across Network and IT domains.”

See "Customer Experience Management for Mobile Is a Billion Dollar Market Opportunity in 2013, Spanning Both Network and IT Domains" - here.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

NI Deployments [228]: Telus [Canada] Uses Avvasi for Video Analytics

Avvasi announced that "Telus as the latest wireless service provider to select Avvasi’s Q-VUE™ video analytics to measure its subscribers’ mobile video experience as 3G, 4G and LTE video demand continues to grow ..  Deploying Avvasi’s Q-VUE provides Telus with the industry’s best capability to understand video usage and QoE per service, location, device, subscriber and more. Avvasi’s Q-VUE also includes additional video analytics such as traffic demographics and in-depth analysis of usage trends. This information is crucial to service providers who wish to optimize their traffic, create service level agreements and build new services".

Telus sees continued growth in the number of wireless subscribers (7.6M at the end of 2012) and wireless ARPU (see charts).


Related post - "Majority of Netflix Traffic Uses its Free CDN" - here and "Telus Sees 2,700% Signaling Growth Y/Y" - here

See "Telus Selects Avvasi to Measure Mobile Video Quality on National Wireless Network" - here.

US "6 Strikes" Anti-Piracy Enforcement Begins!


Pay, Don't share !
After some delays (originally planed for July 2012 - see "US Anti-Piracy Delayed; ISPs will not Terminate Accounts" - here) Jill Lesser, Executive Director, Center for Copyright Information announced that Feb 25 marked ".. the beginning of the implementation phase of the Copyright Alert System (CAS). Implementation marks the culmination of many months of work on this groundbreaking and collaborative effort to curb online piracy and promote the lawful use of digital music, movies and TV shows".

The CAS marks a new way to reach consumers who may be engaging in peer-to-peer (P2P) piracy and I am excited that our new website features information on the CAS, the Independent Review Processcopyright, P2P networks, and numerous consumer oriented legal sources for music, movies and television shows". 

According to the press Comcast is the first ISP implementing the system followed by AT&T, Cablevision, Time Warner, and Verizon later (here - see the 2011 MOU below).

See "Copyright Alert System Set to Begin" - here.






 

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Openwave Increases Integra Throughput to 100 Gbps


Openwave Mobility announced the general availability of "Integra4, a newly designed mobile broadband value-added services (VAS) platform. Offering a throughput of 100Gbps of HTTP traffic on a 16-blade chassis, Integra4 is the most scalable and highest-performing mobile data VAS platforms available on the market. It has been designed with core software-defined networking (SDN) principles of separation of control plane and data plane traffic and is fully equipped to support mobile operator’s plans for SDN and network function virtualization (NFV)".



See "Openwave Mobility Launches Integra4, Establishes New Industry Performance Benchmark for Value-Added Services in LTE Mobile Broadband Networks" - here.

News [Part-2]: Aptilo, Stoke, Ixia, Ulticom, BTI Systems, Broadcom


MWC news report continues..
  • Aptilo Networks and Stoke have "partnered to deliver an end-to-end solution allowing cellular operators to provide a carrier-class Wi-Fi interworking service for subscribers .. The Aptilo Service Management Platform (SMP), through Web portal or automatic SIM- based authentication, can identify a subscriber and assign traffic policies according to highly specific customer or network attributes. The Aptilo SMP can also mediate charging functions for these subscribers so that the user experience and billing are similar to that of the cellular network .. The Stoke Wi-Fi eXchange can link tens of thousands of Wi-Fi access points from different manufacturers to the operator core network, and can identify traffic at a high level of granularity to allow selective routing of user session traffic. This level of control enables operators to deliver different service classes, provide mobile network services to Wi-Fi users, and balance core network element and Internet backhaul resources".

    See "Aptilo and Stoke Collaborate in Seamless Wi-Fi Access for Mobile Broadband Carriers" - here

  • Ixia promotes the "IxLoad solution, to provide greater insight and visibility into the performance of rapidly growing LTE networks .. The growth of smartphone use and the support of differentiated services, such as high-quality video, also mean a growth of difficult-to-predict signaling traffic. Signaling traffic involves the underlying communications that enable user authentication, mobility, monetization, billing, policy management and Quality of Service mechanisms .. Going beyond product data sheets to understand the true capabilities of any mobile infrastructure device including Home Subscriber Systems, Policy Servers, Billing Systems, Diameter Routing Agents, and Mobility Management Entities.".
     
  • See "Ixia Enables Mobile Application and Service Monetization Growth" - here.

  • Ulticom announced "Release 3.3 of the Ulticom DSC – a software product that optimizes Diameter Signaling in 4G and IMS networks .. Release 3.3 extends the DSC product with additional advanced routing capabilities. It provides enhanced network routing resilience and even greater flexibility for multi-AVP-based routing. Release 3.3 also provides advanced White Labeling support. This feature empowers OEM customers to rebrand the DSC product and supporting documentation, tailoring it to their own product portfolio".

    See "Ulticom DSC Release 3.3 – Diameter Signaling. Solved." - here.
      
  • BTI Systems announced an ".. industry-first cloud networking solution designed to significantly improve inter-data center connectivity. Intelligent Cloud Connect is an open software-rich platform that combines network intelligence and application awareness with significantly expanded capacity and scale. By doing so, it increases cloud connectivity performance - quadrupling capacity and scale, reducing latency by half, and increasing network applications performance by as much as 10 times - while significantly improving operational efficiencies, network control and service innovation compared to legacy solutions".

    See "BTI Systems Announces Intelligent Cloud Connect to Unblock the Performance Bottleneck of Inter-Data Center Connectivity" - here.
     
  • Broadcom announced a "scalable small cell development platform for multiple radio access technology (RAT). The platform integrates all the hardware and software components required to accelerate the development and deployment time of small cell base stations .. The platform is the first to combine the state-of-the-art XLP-208 multicore processor, which was engineered by NetLogic, acquired by Broadcom in February 2012 .. The advanced software included in the platform enables important new features such as content caching, interference monitoring, self-organizing networks (SON), DPI-based services and security to be quickly deployed while maintaining line speed performance as operators and content service providers add new network services. Other solutions available on the development platform include Broadcom's complete portfolio of backhaul devices for optimized traffic management, including x-DSL, x-PON and wireless.
       

    See
    "Broadcom Announces Advanced Development Platform for Small Cell Base Stations" - here.

Radware Adds Network DDoS Prevention Service; Helps ISP Maintain High SLA

 
Radware announced "DefensePipe, an integrated and comprehensive solution to help mitigate volumetric DDoS attacks which threaten to saturate a customer’s Internet pipe, or the ‘outside line’ that connects enterprises to the web .. Available to Radware customers that currently deploy an on-premise Attack Mitigation System (AMS), it is a scalable solution that automatically engages once the customer’s AMS detects that pipe saturation is imminent .. The organization’s suspicious Internet traffic is immediately diverted to the DefensePipe cloud based scrubbing center where it is distanced further from the protected network and its scalable resources can mitigate high volume attacks. Once the traffic is “cleaned” it is then sent to the organization and regular operations continue once the attack has ceased."


"Also included is access to Radware’s Emergency Response Team (ERT), a ‘round the clock’ staff of security experts who are knowledgeable and experienced with emerging cyber threats, their detection and mitigation .. integrated reporting system provides information both from the on-premise mitigation and in the cloud mitigation. This enables the customer to perform more efficient forensics, better understand the threats it is facing and to better plan its mitigation strategy for future threats"

Robert Proulx (pictured), president and founder of Xittel Télécommunications said: "Radware’s DefensePipe was a natural fit, as we’re very pleased with their attack mitigation system and its unmatched capability .. The combination of an on-premise AMS and DefensePipe in the cloud provides us with maximum security coverage and the ideal solution to ensure the availability of our customers' business. Furthermore, it allows us to maintain our high SLA with our hosted customers, providing a much greater value for them"

See "Radware Introduces its New Cloud Based Attack Mitigation Solution to Protect Customers Against Internet Pipe Saturation" - here.

News [Part-1]: Qwilt, Procera, Tilera, ipoque, BroadForward, Acme Packet, Tekelec, Roke, Smith Micro, Greenpacket

   
It seems that many consider the first day of MWC to be the best day for press releases. I am not sure about that. With the load of press releases in one day, the attention for each is naturally lower.

Here is the first part:
  • Qwilt announced that its "QB-Series Universal Video Delivery appliance supports the new Internet Protocol, IPv6. Qwilt's QB-Series is the industry's first fully integrated, purpose-built carrier-grade transparent caching platform that identifies, monitors, stores and delivers over-the-top (OTT) streaming video in fixed and mobile networks. With this feature update, the QB-Series enables carriers to transparently cache and deliver all types of video content traversing over both IPv4 and the emerging IPv6 protocols in their networks".

    See "Qwilt Unveils IPv6 Support For Its Transparent Caching And Video Delivery Solution" - here.

  • Procera Networks and Tilera announced they have "..achieved 200Gbps of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) performance deploying the Procera Network Application Visibility Library (NAVL) on TILExtreme-Gx™ Duo platform, utilizing approximately 70 percent of the TILE-Gx cores .. the solution can be deployed in a variety of networking scenarios including Network Security (IDS/IPS, DPI, DLP), Cyber Security, Network Monitoring, Data Forensics, Analytics and Big Data" processing.

    See "Procera Networks and Tilera Unleash 200Gbps Deep Packet Inspection Solution" - here.
       
  • ipoque announced [with BroadForward]  the ".. availability of advanced interfacing capabilities for its PRX Internet Traffic Management solution .. Gaining network visibility, intelligence and management has traditionally been a complex integration issue and long-term project within network operators. Multi-vendor environments and often proprietary protocols create challenging conditions which prohibit fast time to market, require additional resources and drive up cost. This new DPI advancement addresses these issues faced by network operators. Now, a traffic management solution and elements such as an online policy and charging function can be integrated reliably in a matter of days rather than weeks or months".

    See "ipoque & BroadForward partner to deliver advanced DPI interworking" - here.
     
  • Tekelec is expanding its "Policy Everywhere” partner ecosystem to help mobile operators deliver a superior subscriber experience. Tekelec is testing interoperability between its Mobile Policy Gateway (MPG) and solutions from Roke Manor Research Ltd. (SmartSwitch™), Greenpacket (Intouch Mobile Data Offload platform) and Smith Micro (NetWise Director™). This testing includes standards-compliant Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) capabilities, as well as advanced use cases that extend the reach of policy directly to mobile devices.

    See "Tekelec takes ‘policy everywhere’ with new partners" - here
     
  • Acme Packet announced the "..release of Palladion 3.0 .. a non-intrusive monitoring solution, consists of three new management options: Communications Operations Monitor to track network signaling and media in real-time and enable detailed troubleshooting capabilities; Fraud Detection and Prevention to discover and prevent voice fraud; and Control Plane Monitor to track and troubleshoot Diameter signaling traffic in IMS and LTE networks". 

    See "Acme Packet Announces Real-Time Monitoring Solution for Next-Generation Service Provider Networks" - here.


Monday, February 25, 2013

F5 Updates SDC; 25 Deployments in 2012

   
F5 Networks announced "..version 4.0 of the F5® Traffix™ Signaling Delivery Controller™ .. SDC 4.0 provides enriched functionality, including more efficient redundancy mechanisms that enable SDC sites to achieve higher performance rates, extended protocol support for RADIUS, LDAP, and other legacy protocols; a new graphical user interface with an improved dashboard [see below] ; more network-wide, real-time analytics and statistics that draw information from multi-SDC sites; support for new hardware architecture; and higher performance".




Ben Volkow, VP of Product Development, F5 told me that the "support for new hardware" refers to the "shipping of the SDC on HP platform .. We rolled out in the new version standalone geo redundancy/ provisioning system". Ben also said that “2012 was an exciting year as the Traffix SDC solution was deployed in more than 25 sites among tier 1, tier 2, and IP Exchange (IPX) carriers worldwide"

See "New release of F5 Traffix Signaling Delivery Controller" - here.

[Vendor Review] Comverse's New Analytics Supported Policy Creation


Just before they leave to MWC, I met two of Comverse's Mobile Internet marketing team - Inbal Ben Ami, Product Marketing Manager, and Haim Rapoport (pictured), AVP Product Marketing.

I used the opportunity for a short brief on Comverse mobile internet business, and to learn more on the new products Comverse will be presenting in Barcelona this year.

Comverse Data Management and Monetization business (formally MIH - Mobile Internet Hub), offers all components of traffic management - from a PCEF (figure 1) with DPI (by ipoque - here), filtering and optimization, through PCRF, to a convergent billing system (Comverse ONE), with full integration between all systems (see figure 2 - 3GPP Sy "and beyond" support for billing-policy management integration).

Figure 1


Figure 2
Comverse is financially strong - with revenues $675M  (Q4 '11-Q3 '12), $250M in cash and no debt. Comverse internet business is no longer focused on the mobile market only, but addresses the fixed market as well, with the PCEF/DPI and policy management offering.

Encouraged by Infonetics Research report, showing that the two most important selection criteria for policy management systems are "Flexibility of rules engine" (96%) and "performance scalability across complex use cases and session/subscriber growth" (88%), Comverse decided to increase the usability of its PCRF rules creation and editing.

On top of the existing graphical rule editing tools provided to the marketing people designing new products (here, figure 3), Comverse adds analytics to assists marketers in their work - "Analytics Supported Policy Creation", they call it. Now, when a new service plan is created, the analytics function may advice on the popularity of the rule defined (figures 4 & 5).

Comverse clarified that the analytics function is not yet commercially available.

Figure 3
Figure 4
 
Figure 5







Rumors: NSN's Liquid Applications Uses Saguna's Technology

 
Nokia Siemens Networks announced the "Biggest transformation in the role of the base station since launch of GSM 22 years ago .. Rather than being just part of a commoditized data bit-pipe, Nokia Siemens Networks is turning the base station into a place where any type of content and data can not only be stored but also take advantage of knowing where and why people are using their smartphones and tablets. By placing useful information right at the edge of their networks, at the point where people connect, operators can deliver a far better service and increase the efficiency of their network .. The new innovation from Nokia Siemens Networks is called Liquid Applications.

Rumors are that NSN embedded Saguna's caching and optimization technology in the new product. This seems to be the 4th OEM Saguna's CEO mentioned earlier this month (see "Saguna CEO: "We have 4 New OEM licensees for our Mobile Caching Technology"; Going Live on Q2" - here) after the 3 partners I've covered so far: ADVAFibroLANand Ubiquisys.

Rumors are also that the integrated solution is already in trials by Vodafone and T-Mobile USA (NSN also announced that "SK Telecom, Nokia Siemens Networks collaborate on Liquid Applications" - here).

".. Liquid Broadband provides capabilities to intelligently deliver personalized services to subscribers. End-to-end QoS Differentiation enables operators to prioritize mobile broadband traffic and fine-tune services according to user profiles and applications. With the operator CDN, operators can allocate network resources whenever and wherever required to control the delivery of content right down to the user device. This ensures that the content is delivered with the right priority, in the right format and at the right time.

See "Nokia Siemens Networks revolutionizes the mobile base station" - here.

[Guest Post]: Transforming Subscriber Data into Business Opportunities – Part 2

By Stephane Honore*, Chief Technologist, Openwave Mobility

In the previous post, we described the importance of driving clear ownership and accountability of user data policy and management within the operator organization to truly achieve SDM new monetization opportunities. In this second part, we will see how the trend of centralizing user data from an organizational and political perspective is being reflected in the realms of technology.

Challenged of federated models

Many operators have taken the “quick fix” approach of data federation to provide a virtual logical view of user data and to hide the fact that data is actually stored in a multitude of separate back-ends. The main driver for this implementation is to provide the least disruptive path for achieving logical user data consolidation across the network.

However when such solutions are considered permanent, they jeopardize the long-term ability of the mobile broadband operator to truly transform their user data into monetization opportunities. Hybrid or federated consolidation models have the following fundamental short-comings: 
  • They do not solve the root cause of the data everywhere problem: operators have simply added plumbing software layer on top of their silo’ed services and back-ends. Under the hood no consolidation has actually taken place, neither in the infrastructure nor at the organizational level.
     
  • Dealing with multiple data backends who have different data models requires complex data processing capabilities to be built in the federation middle-ware; in addition data provisioning and retrieval flows have to take into account failure conditions through challenging roll-back procedures prone to leaving dirty data in the midst
     
  • Provisioning complexity and lack of true consolidation eventually leads to increased latency as a single request might end up being forked into multiple sub-requests to distinct back-ends before all the replies get compiled into a single response
     
  • It is not possible to guarantee the overall performance of the solution since the weakest element of a federated infrastructure becomes the weakness of the entire system
3GPP originally advocated the federated SDM models through the GUP server standardization that provided a middle-ware layer responsible for the implementation of data retrieval logic (to determine which back-end a request should be routed to) and access-control definition (to determine who can get which data). Luckily SDM solutions went through a maturation process over 5 years to arrive at the conclusion: true data centralization cannot be realized logically and requires abstraction between the applications and the data store.
  
Towards User Data Convergence
  
After having tackled the user “data everywhere challenge” for a number of years, 3GPP eventually settled on a simple architecture known as User Data Convergence (UDC) with the introduction of the User Data Repository component (UDR) and the definition of the Ud reference point towards external application front-ends. The work started in 2009 with the definition of the service requirements (3GPP TR22.985) supported by major Tier1 carriers and reached completion in Rel10 with the UDC technical specification (3GPP TS-29.335) standarizing the UDC architecture. Since then only minor improvements have been added to the now solid and stable UDC foundation, including: 
  • 3GPP TS-32.182 started the definition of objects and relationship (end-user, subscription, servce profile, identifier) towards a Common Baseline Information Model (CBIM)
     
  • 3GPP TR-32.901 studied the UDC information model handling and provisioning to develop understanding, guidelines, and preliminary requirements for the BSS provisioning capabilities and information model handling when new applications and related services are implemented in the operator’s UDR
As Diameter is becoming a popular transport protocol in mobile broadband architectures, operators also have the option to use a Diameter based interface against the UDR with the 3GPP Sh interface (3GPP 29.329) which initially was used to exchange user profile, location information, and charging function addresses in the IMS realm (between SIP AS and HSS).
Compared to the federated models, the 3GPP User Data Convergence model provides an efficient, mature and standardized way for achieving user convergence without any middle-ware layer as long as front-ends and the UDR back-end talk the same Ud/Sh protocol, something any mobile broadband operator willing to adhere to the UDC deployment model should enforce on vendors. Given the duality between LDAP and Diameter, it is important to takes a best of breed approach with a UDR capable of supporting both stacks on the same software component to avoid the need for deploying new software or even new hardware when the operator wants to make use of the Sh interface in the future. 

Think “push” rather than “pull”
   
It is often overlooked that the 3GPP UD interface specifications give operators more than a simple data storage and retrieval mechanism. While the main purpose of the interface is to allow any front-end (service or application platform) to query, create or update the user data information over a standard LDAPv3 interface, 3GPP also defined a new synchronization and replication mechanism by permitting front-ends to subscribe to any user data changes happening in the UDR and being notified over a standard HTTP/SOAP interface.
  
This is an important aspect of the UDC architecture as it goes beyond the traditional pull mechanism for getting updated user data information. This notification mechanism based on a subscription/push model is a game changer as it provides a simple, yet efficient, way to keep local caches/stores synchronized with the centralized UDR master. It provides the possibility of easily implementing new use cases that require a real time view of the subscriber data. As immediacy and instant gratification becomes the standard of Internet services (1-Click real-time experience), mobile operators need to look at new ways to provide real-time self-care capabilities where user self-care interactions immediately take effect on their traffic management or charging infrastructure. Examples of such services include roaming plan sign-up or application-based charging top-up scenarios where service activation immediacy is required.
  
With 3GPP push-based architectures operators can now consider launching new services that have strong real-time requirements between user interactions and network infrastructure.
   
Conclusion
   
Making user data convergence part of the network modernization agenda and executing organizational adjustments to clarify ownership and responsibility of data across the organization are key commitments operators need to make to fully benefit from SDM solutions. Failing to do this they won’t be able to set the growth for the future without solid subscriber data management foundations.



___________
*Stephane Honore is Chief Technologist for Openwave Mobility with over 15 years’ experience in the telecommunication industry, responsible for contributing to the technology and product strategy of Openwave Mobility’s mobile internet products. He is also responsible for the SDM product management. Prior to his current role, Stephane held a wide range of leadership roles within the Sales, Engineering and Product Management organizations

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Cavium's New TurboDPI Scans Data Only Once

     
Cavium introduced "TurboDPI™ II, the next generation of its production-ready TurboDPI family [see "Cavium Now Offers DPI s/w" - hereof software, that now incorporates up to nine major DPI functional modules integrated into a holistic toolkit that have been optimized for OCTEON® II processors. TurboDPI II’s Uniscan™ technology ensures that data is only scanned once by the OCTEON’s built-in hardware HFA DPI engines, and then the results are passed to the appropriate module".

"TurboDPI II has already been ported and deployed on many OCTEON Platforms including Cavium Evaluation Boards (EVBs), Cavium small form factor (SFF) evaluation boards, Intelligent Network Interface Cards (NICs), AMC boards and high performance ATCA blades capable of up to 80Gbps of Application Recognition that utilize dual 32 core Cavium OCTEON CN6880 processors. Major vendors including Advantech, Emerson, Kontron and Radisys all offer equipment that supports TurboDPI II"
 
See "Cavium Introduces TurboDPI™ II for OCTEON® Processors – Takes Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) To the Next Level" - here.

Diametriq Packages LTE Roaming for IPX Providers


Diametriq announced a suite of products and tools, targeting the IPX market, enabling LTE roaming. The new offering includes:
  • Diametriq Edge Appliance -  a cost-effective network element that enables LTE network operators to concentrate their roaming signaling traffic on an edge device without requiring a fully functional and expensive Diameter Signaling Controller

  • Diameter Roaming Visibility - offers operators a view of their roaming subscribers and their behavior. It includes map-based graphics that show the number of roamers and where they are located, data usage and duration of data sessions

Diameter Roaming Visibility
  • Diameter Traffic Calculator (see "Diametriq Presents: LTE Diameter Traffic Calculator" - here) - has been added with  LTE roaming scenarios
     
  • Diametriq Roaming Simulator - a suite of network element simulators that allows IPX providers to test various real life roaming scenarios as well as interoperability before going live. The service is hosted in Diametriq’s lab and can be accessed remotely by operators and IPX services.
See "Diametriq Announces its Diameter Edge Appliance™ to Support LTE Roaming" - here.

[Gartner]: "High-bandwidth DDoS attacks are becoming the new norm"


A new report by Avivah Litan (pictured), VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner, predicts that "..Twenty-five percent of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that occur in 2013 will be application-based .. attackers send out targeted commands to applications to tax the central processing unit (CPU) and memory and make the application unavailable .. High-bandwidth DDoS attacks are becoming the new norm and will continue wreaking havoc on unprepared enterprises in 2013".
  
"A new class of damaging DDoS attacks was launched against U.S. banks in the second half of 2012, sometimes adding up to 70 Gbps of noisy network traffic blasting at the banks through their Internet pipes. Until this recent spate of attacks, most network-level DDoS attacks consumed only five Gbps of bandwidth, but more recent levels made it impossible for bank customers and others using the same pipes to get to their websites .. To combat this risk, enterprises need to revisit their network configurations, and rearchitect them to minimize the damage that can be done. Organizations that have a critical Web presence and cannot afford relatively lengthy disruptions in online service should employ a layered approach that combines multiple DOS defenses".
  
See "Gartner Says 25 Percent of Distributed Denial of Services Attacks in 2013 Will Be Application-Based" - here.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Sandvine CTO: "Sandvine achieves the required top-line performance in fewer rack units"


Don Bowman (pictured), Sandvine's CTO, sent me a comment on my coverage of Sandvine's recent product announcement ("Sandvine - New High-End DPI"- here), referring to the way performance numbers should be considered:
  
"With communications service providers worldwide under pressure to rein in operations costs, performance density is as important a consideration as top-line performance. Fortunately for operators, Sandvine’s PTS offers the best of both worlds without sacrificing either: industry-leading port and performance density combined with clustering technology that efficiently delivers massive scale.  For instance, the PTS 24700 delivers 30 Gbps of inspection throughput per RU under real-world business intelligence, real-time charging and management policy load.  As a direct consequence, Sandvine achieves the required top-line performance in fewer rack units than our competitors, providing considerable operational savings versus alternatives". 
  
See the DPI Product comparison (here) for rack units, port density and vendor's throughput numbers.  

Cisco: PCRF Performance Improved


 Murali Nemani (pictured), Sr. Director, Service Provider Mobility Marketing, Cisco updates in a blog post about a recent performance test for its (ex. BroadHopQuantum policy manager.

The test, performed by EANTC (see "How did EANTC Test Comverse PCRF?" - here), shows the system has a "linear scale-out to 250K transactions-per-second with 75M concurrent sessions" (see report below).

Cisco UCS 5108
A "system" in this case was up to 6 UCS 5108 chassis, each taking 6RU with 8 UCS B200 blades, with fabric interconnect. For the table below I took the numbers for a single chassis with 6 blades ("initial load") in order to try to compare with the other vendors. Previous test results by BroadHop (here) "Demonstrated support for 28,000 TPS with 16 blades in a single 10U chassis"

See below a short comparison of all tests published so far. Test scenarios, hardware configuration, size and cost are not the same in all tests. Probably even the definitions of TPS (or PDP contexts setups by some vendors) are not equal as well. Please refer to vendor's documentation for more specific information.

Vendor
Date
Published
Tester
System Performance (TPS/Chassis)
Subscribers/
System
Blade Performance
Blog Post
Cisco
Feb 22, 2013
EANTC
34,000
10.2M


Openet
Jan 9, 2013
Internal
200,000

25,000
Comverse
Jan 9, 2013
EANTC
200,000
31.5M
15,000
Tango Telecom
Feb 6, 2012
Internal
192,000

12,000
Amdocs (Bridgewater)
Sep  15, 2010
EANTC






See "A Quantum Leap Forward for Policy" - here.