SOLUTIONS BRIEF
Brocade and Procera
Detailed Insights for
OTT Application Traffic
Brocade Packet Broker together with Procera’s PacketLogicTM Deep Packet Inspection
(DPI) engine is targeted towards mobile service provider networks, to provide clear
visibility into Over-The-Top (OTT) application traffic.. The benefits include:
l Clear
visibility into Over-The-Top (OTT) application traffic within mobile service provider networks.
KEY BENEFITS
l Addition
Brocade Packet Broker, when integrated
with Procera’s PacketLogic DPI engine,
provides the following important benefits:
l DPI
• Addition of real-time network and
subscriber intelligence to make network
data much more relevant and actionable.
• Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capability
to identify all application traffic, allowing
operators to provide differentiated
offerings that cooperate with OTT
applications.
• Quick and valuable insights into customer
usage behavior.
of real-time network and subscriber intelligence to make network data much more
relevant and actionable.
capability to identify all application traffic, allowing operators to provide differentiated
offerings that cooperate with OTT applications.
l Quick
and valuable insights into customer usage behavior.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Consumers are reliant on fixed and mobile broadband networks more than ever. Quality
problems on those networks often result in dissatisfaction, customer support calls, and
subscriber churn. An intelligent network can ensure that high-value applications and real-time
traffic meet the subscriber’s quality expectations—without requiring unlimited bandwidth. In
today’s business environment, knowing your customers, their interests, and how they interact
with their networks and applications is essential to serving them better. For service providers,
the challenge is finding a way to cost-effectively gain greater real-time business insights and
offer tighter controls, enhanced services, and multiple classes of service on fixed and mobile
broadband networks.
SOLUTION: BROCADE ENVISION FABRIC AND PROCERA DPI PLATFORM
Brocade provides a full suite of network packet broker solutions that can integrate with
Procera’s PacketLogic DPI technology via the open APIs available on both platforms.
A network packet broker is a device that sits between the traffic extraction point in the
network (TAP or span/mirror port) and the analytics tools (such as security devices, roaming
analytics, usage/billing analytics, video, VoLTE), and manages the traffic to get the maximum
performance from all the various analytics tools.
Live data is streamed out of a mobile service provider network, typically using optical Test
Access Points (TAPs). From that network, this streaming data moves to a separate out-of-band
packet broker network. Brocade® Packet Brokers can be physical or virtual as required, and
they all work together in a single Brocade Envision fabric. From the packet broker, the data then
travels to a variety of analytics tools, depending on the kind of visibility and reporting desired.
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SOLUTIONS BRIEF
The packet broker network is managed by a software visibility manager. A single visibility manager
can manage multiple packet brokers, even across disparate locations. The visibility manager
exposes a REST API that the analytics tools can use to control the data flow toward them.
Figure 1
BROCADE ENVISION FABRIC NETWORK PACKET BROKER SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE.
Mobile Data Center Network
Packet Broker
Analytics Tools
API Interface
PCRF
Roaming
HSS
Security
Congestion
User 2
MME
MME
MME
OCS
Usage/Billing
OFCS
Marketing
User 1
Diameter
Video
User n
SGW
VoLTE
PGW
If a hardware (physical) packet broker is used in the solution, its capabilities can be expanded
using Brocade Session Director. This clustered scalable software solution provides expert
features, such as GTP correlation, packet- and flow-level deduplication, and SmartMatch
filtering (filtering with regular expressions). Figure 1 illustrates the Brocade Envision fabric
network packet broker solution architecture. This architecture differentiates itself by combining
the flexibility and scale of software functionality with the high performance of switching and
routing hardware to provide maximum visibility at minimum cost.
When Brocade Packet Broker is used with the Procera PacketLogic DPI platform, the packet
broker front-ends network traffic aggregation and optimizes Procera’s packet inspection
capability with its SmartMatch filtering capabilities, available via the REST API in Brocade
Session Director.
SOLUTION DETAILS
Brocade Packet Broker, together with Procera’s PacketLogic DPI engine, monitors application
usage on mobile service provider, fixed broadband, and enterprise networks, and provides
realtime notifications that can be used by third-party systems to block, throttle, or prioritize
network traffic by application and subscriber, as required. This combined solution enables
organizations to monitor more than 2,000 applications, thanks to the power of Procera’s
PacketLogic DPI engine. Examples of these applications include:
l
Communication applications: Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Line.
l Video
applications: YouTube, Netflix, Hulu.
l Email:
Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL.
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SOLUTIONS
CASE STUDY
BRIEF
Monitoring application usage provides businesses with key insights for improving security,
customer service, and revenue streams. For instance, trend monitoring of OTT applications
can expose threats to existing voice, video, or other data revenues. While troubleshooting
real-time data traffic can help organizations more quickly resolve customer support issues.
Brocade Packet Broker is out of band to the production network, thus eliminating both the
possibility of introducing latency into that network as well as any potential disruptions to
production traffic. The traffic flow is as follows:
1 A copy of network traffic is made at the TAP. This data comes to Brocade Packet Broker (including
Brocade Visibility Manager and Brocade Session Director) at its network (ingress) ports.
2 Brocade Packet Broker applies smart filters based on the requirements programmed by
the Procera PacketLogic DPI system. It has a rich suite of functions, including packet data
masking for sensitive data, data deduplication, packet timestamping, replication, packet
modifications like header stripping, pattern matching, and many others essential for efficient
functioning of the analytics tools.
3 Now the data is in the format most consumable by the Procera tools. This traffic is then sent
by Brocade Packet Broker to the Procera PacketLogic DPI engine from its tool (egress) ports.
The traffic can also be load-balanced across these ports for a clustered scale-out system.
USE CASE: MONITORING MOBILE RAN AND CORE NETWORKS
Figure 2 shows the topology for monitoring a mobile Radio Access Network (RAN) and core
network. The system monitors traffic at various points in the RAN and core network, and can
send notifications in real time to the external network’s firewall in order to block or throttle
application or subscriber traffic.
Figure 2
MONITORING MOBILE RAN AND CORE NETWORKS
Radio Access Network (RAN)
Core Network (EPC)
External Network
Mobile User
SGW
PGW
MME
PCRF
TAP Aggregation Packet Brokers
(Brocade)
DPI Application Monitor
(Procera)
TAP’d Traffic
Customer Care
Configure Restricted
Applications
Block IP Notification
TAP’d Traffic
Subscriber & IP Mapping
(Procera)
AAA or DHCP
Database
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SOLUTIONS
CASE STUDY
BRIEF
USE CASE: MONITORING FIXED BROADBAND NETWORKS
Figure 3 shows how the same solution can be used to monitor a fixed broadband network. In
this case, traffic is TAP’d at the transport or ISP networks, and the access control notifications
are sent to the router that connects the ISP to the Internet.
Figure 3
Subscriber
Premises
Subscriber line
(xDSL)
xDSL
router
Transport Network
(ATM or ethernet)
DSLAM
TAP Aggregation Packet Brokers
(Brocade)
ISP Network (IP)
Internet
Internet
Router
BRAS
Customer Care
Configure Restricted
Applications
DPI Application Monitor
(Procera)
Block IP Notification
MONITORING
ENTERPRISE NETWORKS
Subscriber & IP Mapping
(Procera)
AAA or DHCP
Database
Passive TAP
USE CASE: MONITORING ENTERPRISE NETWORKS
This solution also can be used to monitor an enterprise network. As shown in Figure 4, the
network traffic is obtained from the enterprise LAN, and the access control is then applied at the
remote access servers and the gateway router, which provides access to the enterprise ISP.
Figure 4
MONITORING
ENTERPRISE NETWORKS
File
Servers
Telecommuters
Server Farm
Internet
Local ISP
Remote Access
Server
L2 Switch
Gateway
Router
TAP Aggregation Packet Brokers
(Brocade)
DPI Application Monitor
(Procera)
Subscriber & IP Mapping
(Procera)
AAA or DHCP
Database
Customer Care
Configure Restricted
Applications
Passive TAP
In addition to monitoring application usage (as described in the three use cases), this solution
also can be used for bandwidth, network and marketing analytics, and tool traffic optimization.
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SOLUTIONS BRIEF
LEARN MORE
Brocade partners with companies of all sizes to deliver innovative solutions that help
organizations maximize the value of their most critical information.
To learn more, visit www.brocade.com.
ABOUT BROCADE
Brocade networking solutions help organizations achieve their critical business initiatives
as they transition to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. Today,
Brocade is extending its proven data center expertise across the entire network with open,
virtual, and efficient solutions built for consolidation, virtualization, and cloud computing.
Learn more at www.brocade.com.
ABOUT PROCERA
Procera Networks, the global Subscriber Experience company, is revolutionizing the
way operators and vendors monitor, manage, and monetize their network traffic. Elevate
your business value and improve customer experience with Procera’s sophisticated
intelligence solutions.
For more information, visit proceranetworks.com or follow Procera on Twitter at
@ProceraNetworks.
Contact your Procera sales representative to find
out more about this solution and how it can help
you transform your business.
v20161215
ABOUT PROCERA NETWORKS
Procera Networks, the global Subscriber Experience company, is revolutionizing the way operators and vendors monitor, manage and monetize their
network traffic. Elevate your business value and improve customer experience with Procera’s sophisticated intelligence solutions.
For more information, visit proceranetworks.com or follow Procera on Twitter at @ProceraNetworks.
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Procera Networks, Inc.
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CORPORATE OFFICES
Procera Networks
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P. +46 (0)340.48 38 00
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