BIG DATA ENABLEMENT
Gain insights into network and subscriber intelligence
in real-time for advanced analytics and decisioning
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USES CASES FOR PROCERA’S BIG DATA INTELLIGENCE
Procera’s unique combination of
business and subscriber experience
metrics enables advanced Big Data
use cases:
Subscriber Experience:
Monitor the subscriber experience
and ensure high value customers are
receiving a high QoE
Real-Time Offers and Alerts:
Alert on subscriber and network
events that can be monetized or need
immediate attention.
Pre-emptive Customer Care:
Proactively determine when a bad
experience occurs for a subscriber and
offer rebates and rectify root cause.
Service Creation:
Identify the trending applications and
offer special rates and programs to
enhance customer loyalty.
Network Planning:
Predict network congestion and CAPEX needs based upon potential revenue loss from high value subscribers.
Churn Prediction:
Predict churn based on combinations of
Perspectives, i.e. Bad QoE and customer
care contact.
Targeted Data Wholesaling:
Monetize network and subscriber
intelligence with enterprises, retailers,
and data brokers with valuable
aggregated subscriber data.
Introduction
Network operators worldwide are looking to gain insights into the experience that they are
delivering to their subscribers. Many operators are turning to Big Data solutions to gather
more intelligence on what is happening on their networks. They are looking to increase
revenue, reduce OPEX, increase customer loyalty through targeted offerings, enhance the
overall customer experience, simplify business operations, reduce churn, reduce time to
market for new services, and accelerate the creation of personalized services.
The linchpin of Big Data is having access to good data, especially data that is focused around
the subscriber and not just the network. The challenge that operators face is collecting
intelligence that is both actionable and is subscriber experience related. Monitoring the data
in real-time and being able to utilize it improve the experience immediately for subscribers is
the goal. Procera’s Big Data enablement solution focuses on extracting the most meaningful
intelligence to enable a wide variety of high value Big Data analytics use cases.
Solution Overview
The eVolution data collection probe is deployed on COTS hardware in a fully virtualized
environment supporting common virtualization and NFV technologies. The collection can
take place anywhere in the network, at the edge of the network, in the core, or at the peering
point, depending on the goal of the analytics. The performance of the individual systems can
range from a few megabits to hundreds of gigabits, meeting the needs of the smallest and the
largest networks in world. The solution is managed with Procera’s VNF Manager, which can
dynamically instantiate instances wherever and whenever needed from a pool of licenses that
delivers just-in-time bandwidth and optimizes CAPEX and OPEX spending.
Procera’s Perspectives technology differentiates our solution from traditional probe-based
solutions by having a providing structured data on the overall subscriber experience that
includes traffic (i.e. applications), subscriber, device, topology, routing, score (quality of
experience), RAN, and content - all placed in context with each subscriber data flow on the
network. Each Perspective is a software license that can be unlocked as needed to provide
more visibility into the subscriber experience.
With this structured data, Big Data systems can more easily correlate the subscriber
experience for integration into Customer Care, Engineering, Marketing, and Executive-level
dashboards and analytics offerings. The use of IPFix to stream intelligence in real-time
ensures that the data provided to Big Data systems can be acted upon in real-time, solving
problems before subscribers know that they exist. Data can also be stored in the Insights
Storage database and access via ODBC.
Solutions Components
Mandatory
eVolution VNF
Traffic Perspective
Optional
Subscriber Perspective
Topology Perspective
RAN Perspective
Content Perspective
Route Perspective
Device Perspective
Score Perspective
Data Export (IPFix or ODBC)
Insights Storage
Solution Components
The Big Data Enablement Solution is composed of several mandatory and optional
components that add value to the overall solution.
EVOLUTION SOFTWARE
The eVolution VNF is empowered by PacketLogic technology and acts as the collection engine
for the network and subscriber intelligence. eVolution runs as a VNF on COTS hardware and
standard hypervisor systems. Deployed in a passive mode on the network, eVolution will
inspect all of the traffic on the network and stream the data using IPFix to a Big Data system,
or store it in the Insights database where it can be exported via ODBC.
Traffic Perspective
Traffic Perspective is based on Procera’s industry-leading Datastream Recognition Definition
Language (DRDL) DPI engine and provides visibility into the applications and traffic running
on the operators network. Over 2500 unique applications are support (as of May 2015), and
includes Messaging, Voice, Video Streaming, Audio Streaming, File Sharing, Gaming, and
many other categories of applications. This data is important when building subscriber
profiles, customer care, and for new service planning.
Subscriber Perspective
Subscriber Perspective is the integration point with the BSS/OSS to glean subscriber-specific
information to associate with each flow on the network. With Subscriber Perspective, each
subscriber is associated with their IP address, service plan, location, device, and other
information available in the operator’s OSS and BSS. This data is crucial to Big Data analytics
that are subscriber and revenue oriented.
Figure 1
Big Data integration options with
eVolution. IPFix for real-time and
ODBC for historical data export.
Procera’s unique Perspectives-
based intelligence provides deep
insights into the subscriber
experience delivered to your
subscribers. All intelligence is
placed in context with Traffic,
Subscriber, RAN, Topology,
Content, Device, Video, and
Quality for each subscriber.
Using IPFix and ODBC, Data
can be easily accessed by
any Big Data solution.
33%
OF TELCO BIG DATA
SPENDING WILL BE ON
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
ENHANCEMENT BY 2020
DATA EXPORT ACTION
The Data Export License is required to export data from the solution. This can be via IPFix
directly from the eVolution VNF via the IPFix configuration templates, or through ODBC from
the Insights database. This license allows the operator to choose their preferred integration
API to connect to the Procera offerings.
TOPOLOGY PERSPECTIVE
Topology Perspective integrates the subscribers location with their traffic. For mobile
subscribers, this can include the cell, SGSN, GGSN, Gateway, and APN, as well as any
other logical geographic grouping. In Fixed networks this can include the CMTS port and/or
channel, DSLAM and/or BRAS Port. In WiFi networks it can include the Access Point name
and location. Location is extremely important for capacity planning and QoE monitoring.
RAN PERSPECTIVE
RAN Perspective adds the exact cell location in real-time for a mobile subscriber as well as
the RAN Signal Strength and Quality for the subscriber’s device. This information is extremely
powerful for some of the more advanced use cases like real-time offers, customer care
interaction, and network planning/congestion management.
CONTENT PERSPECTIVE
Content Perspective categorizes web traffic into over 100 different categories, including
social networking streaming video, sports, entertainment, etc. This is commonly used to offer
Parental control services to subscribers, but is extremely useful to understand the types of
content that different subscriber groups consume on your network.
ROUTE PERSPECTIVE
Route Perspective integrates with Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing to associate each
flow with its routing path through the Internet. Using Route Perspective enables an operator
to see the Quality of Experience achieved with each peering connection as well as the traffic
types that are consuming each peering link. This information is important when planning
CAPEX and OPEX for peering links, as well as diagnosing if specific application flows are
experiencing issues due to peering connections and not the access network.
DEVICE PERSPECTIVE
Device Perspective is a mobile-centric perspective that adds device-specific information
for each subscriber. In addition to the device manufacturer and type, the database includes
screen size, resolution, access type, and many other metrics that can identify if a subscriber
is receiving the level of service that matches the expectation for the device that they have
purchased and is part of their service plan. Service and Network analytics based on the
device type give insights into the perceived quality of the subscriber’s experience.
ENGINEERING INSIGHTS AND INSIGHTS STORAGE
Engineering Insights is the local repository for network and subscriber data storage, and can
be accessed via ODBC by Big Data solutions. Engineering Insights is designed specifically for
visualization for Engineering and Network Operations as the target audience, and visualizes
the subscriber experience intelligence collected by the eVolution VNF. Each Perspective is
represented as a different view of network activity, so each additional Perspective purchased
adds to the overall value of the data.
Procera Networks delivers a
unique solution for Big Data
Integration by combining the
best available subscriber
experience intelligence with
real-time access to that data.
PROCERA’S UNIQUE SOLUTION VALUE
GRANULAR STRUCTURED NETWORK AND SUBSCRIBER INTELLIGENCE
Procera’s Perspectives combine to deliver more intelligence on the subscriber experience
than any other solution. Network probes often focus on signaling intelligence, and may add
a small amount of “DPI” to detect the most common applications, but lack the breadth of
integration into the OSS/BSS for complete subscriber visibility offered by Procera’s offering.
Routers and Gateways can provide raw traffic information via IPFix, but lack subscriber and
application visibility. Procera combines all of our Perspectives and enables Big Data solutions
to shine for subscriber analytics.
DRASTICALLY IMPROVE SERVICE AGILITY
Since the intelligence collected is made available to Big Data systems in real-time through
IPFix, decisions can be made in near real-time to enhance the subscriber experience.
Subscriber offers and service plan upsell can be made based on the subscriber’s usage
patterns in real time. Popular new applications or content sources can be detected and used
to increase customer loyalty by combining location, device, and service plan analytics for
offers made before the popularity fades for the hot new applications.
PROACTIVE CUSTOMER CARE VISIBILITY
Procera’s monitoring of not only the usage for each customer, but the latency and quality
of experience for applications and RAN quality of experience provides a unique metric not
available from other probe options. Customer problems can be isolated to specific locations
for poor performing applications due to network congestion.
HIGH PERFORMANCE, ORCHESTRATION & VIRTUALIZATION
The eVolution VNF delivers up to 155Gbps on a standard COTS server, requiring no dedicated
hardware no matter where deployed in the network. The solution integrates with Procera’s
VNF Manager, and instances can be dynamically created as needed.
Contact your Procera sales
representative to find out
more about this solution
and how it can help you
transform your business.
CONCLUSION
Procera’s Big Data Enablement solution offers a unique combination of visibility across
network and subscriber intelligence. Our focus on the Subscriber Experience delivers Big
Data systems intelligence that they cannot get from other probe systems that are deployed
in the network or even on the device for subscribers. This intelligence enables the Big Data
systems to make better recommendations to the network operator, and enhances the value
and profitability of any broadband deployment.