- Monitors service quality, performance, and availability 24x7 from the network core to customers
- Validates installation of services with turn-up tests and reports
- Improves MTTR by segmenting the network to quickly isolate problems
Scalable Software That Verifies The Quality of Next-Generation Networks
The network core is the heart of the service delivery network and where successful providers' service assurance strategies start. To effectively guarantee end-to-end service level agreements (SLAs) and meet customers' requirements, providers must implement a service assurance solution throughout next-generation IP/MPLS core networks with visibility to the provider edge and end-users. Without this necessary visibility, providers are at serious risk for crippling service degradations and outages, which lead directly to escalations in customer care costs, eroding profit margins, increased customer churn, and severly damaged reputations.
The Operational Lifecycle Approach
With the BrixNGN software module, providers can continuously collect,
correlate, analyze, and visualize critical quality of service (QoS) and
quality of experience (QoE) data from the network core to the customer endpoint
for capacity planning, service turn-up verification, and to identify, diagnose,
and quickly resolve network and service issues before customers
are impacted — thereby guaranteeing performance and quality.
End-to-End Network and Service Performance Visibility
BrixNGN performs continuous, proactive monitoring of the network core, extended Ethernet and IP networks between partners and customers, and data services, including E-mail, web-based applications, file transfers, and more. With BrixNGN, providers have the required visibility into their network and service performance to prove service level objectives. BrixNGN evolves network monitoring and engineering functions from a break/fix reactionary method to a proactive approach, enabling early detection and quick resolution of service-impacting issues.
Troubleshooting and Problem Isolation
Providers deploy BrixNGN to establish strategic points of demarcation
to quickly identify and isolate problems. By continually monitoring critical
key performance indicators (KPIs), such as availability, latency, packet
loss, and jitter, providers can set thresholds and alarms to alert them
of potential service degradations and where in the network they are occurring.
BrixNGN collects this information from a variety of monitoring
sources (Brix Verifiers, Brix software agents, third-party devices,
and standard interfaces) to isolate problems through network segmentation — significantly improving mean time to repair (MTTR), reducing trouble tickets,
and providing more effective and efficient customer care.
Network Capacity Planning and Turn-Up Verification
BrixNGN enables providers to proactively monitor and baseline network
traffic patterns, throughput, and link paths to ensure new services can
be properly supported over next-generation networks. BrixNGN can also be
used to conduct on-demand and scheduled tests to generate instant "birth
certificate" reports for turn-up validation and detailed troubleshooting
results when a problem is identified. This affords providers the assurance
that the service(s) worked as promised from the onset and provides a benchmark
for future potential service issues.
For example, BrixNGN gives providers of Carrier Ethernet services scalable management of service turn-up initiatives, network and customer SLAs, and visibility across multiple networks to help in their transition from legacy infrastructures to next-generation networks.
The BrixNGN software module also allows providers that are focused on cellular backhaul and managed services to conduct automated and on-demand testing, service performance monitoring, and trouble-shooting of their bandwidth-intensive offerings, including inter-carrier peering, wholesale backbone services, private line over Ethernet, and VoIP backhaul.
Service Level Management Reporting and Visualization
When providers leverage best-effort data delivery systems (such as Ethernet)
for their services, real-time SLAs are a requirement. The BrixNGN module
feeds the BrixWorx correlation and analysis
software engine with performance and quality information to produce the
advanced analytics and visualization (real-time dashboards, historical reports,
and customer portals) needed to manage and continually prove SLAs. Brix
reports address the needs of a broad audience from technical to executive
levels to provide the business intelligence required for the organization
to be successful.
BrixNGN also supports the draft IEEE 802.1ag and ITU-T Y.1731 standards, which allow for end-to-end Ethernet Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM). OAM is a set of network management functions that provide for network fault and performance monitoring, diagnostics, and fault isolation that help ensure the dependable delivery of triple-play voice, video, and data services.