Quality experience requires holistic network management

With wireless networks becoming increasingly IP-based, it is critical to assure the mobile network infrastructure together with IP infrastructure, and provide one view for doing that. Traditionally, one set of tools is used for operating the mobile infrastructure while another set is used for engineering the IP infrastructure, and these two different tool sets are operated by two different teams. Particularly when it comes to delivery of mobile data services, there is inherent inefficiency in two interdependent teams using separate solutions to manage different domains.

The ability of these two groups to confer with each other benefits service quality and troubleshooting. Having the visibility to report on end-to-end service quality parameters with a historical as well as current view helps answer key questions related to service quality. In terms of troubleshooting, productive hours can be lost, for example, if internal teams are going back and forth before eventually discovering causes of problems.

Another key aspect of visibility is that mobile service providers are achieving significant revenue from partnerships and wholesale subscriptions. By offering a dashboard for corporations that purchase enterprise data services, service providers can enable these corporations to view the performance of the respective private data service they have purchased from the carrier.

Another aspect of this involves offering a high-level view of packet core performance to mobile virtual network operators. These abilities provide an additional offering for high-value customers, in addition to helping build trust among these critical customers.

Traditionally, mobile carriers have tried to manage mobile data services by extending existing performance management solutions — a strategy that is no longer sufficient due to the increasing volume and complexity of today’s mobile data environment. Today, holistic management tools are required to equip service providers with the intelligence and service topology awareness needed to proactively manage mobile data network infrastructures and to assure the performance and quality of data services.

While commitment to QoE must be genuine, ultimately it must also be cost effective. This requires holistic engineering perspectives to plan and size supporting network infrastructure. This will become even more critical over the next several years as LTE technology is deployed.

Ranga Thittai is product manager for InfoVista