Home North AmericaNorth America 2011 CSPs dealing with the network

CSPs dealing with the network

by david.nunes
Thibaut BechetoilleIssue:North America 2011
Article no.:11
Topic:CSPs dealing with the network
Author:Thibaut Bechetoille
Title:CEO
Organisation:Qosmos
PDF size:252KB

About author

Thibaut Bechetoille is the CEO, Qosmos a company specialised in network intelligence technology. Prior to Qosmos, Mr Bechetoille founded Maiaah! a VPN Provider, where he served as CEO until the company was acquired by Easynet. Previously, Mr Bechetoille was General Manager of Wellfleet/Bay Networks France; Director, EMEA Channels, for Nortel Enterprise Solutions, and Product Manager, for Bridge Communications. After Bridge Communications merged with 3Com, he became Marketing Director, Southern Europe. Mr Bechetoille started his career in the Silicon Valley as a Software Engineer.

Article abstract

The world economy is well on its way to becoming a true ‘network economy’. The growth of network data due to the accelerating adoption of mobile and cloud computing by business and consumers requires networks and their underlying technologies to meet new demands. Advanced forms of DPI enable CSPs to optimize the massive volume of data crossing networks, secure data in transit, track data for regulatory and business purposes, and help content providers to monetize data through new service offerings

Full Article

CSPs dealing with the network by Thibaut Bechetoille, CEO, Qosmos The world economy is well on its way to becoming a true ‘network economy’. From business computing to consumer services to social networking, ‘there’s an app for that’ and more on the way. CSPs (communications service providers), especially telcos and MNOs (mobile network operators), face challenges and opportunities to provide the infrastructure that can support the volume, diversity of applications and future innovation the new network economy presents. At the forefront of resolving issues surrounding traffic management, network security, convergent billing, and enabling evolution into new types of services are major enhancements to a familiar technology – deep packet inspection (DPI). As networks evolve, so must their underlying technologies and advanced forms of DPI are the true enablers of the new network economy. DPI is being sped up to operate in real-time at 4G network data rates and to capture data as it cross networks with much greater granularity. A transition from ‘inspecting’ network traffic to technology for mining traffic in real-time for ‘intelligence’ is already well underway by leading telcos and their network equipment vendors. CSPs need network intelligence for real-time visibility into network usage to meet their evolving operational and business demands. They will increasingly use it to improve their own business agility as well as to accommodate the new innovations of partnering vendors and content providers. In this regard, CSPs will leverage advanced DPI with network intelligence both internally and as an enabler for other companies participating in the network economy. For example, a CSP should and will be able to tell a content provider how often their app is used; by what type of subscriber demographic; how often during a day, week or any requested time period; on what type of device; and more. This enables the provider to adjust, create and target content or a service for maximum customer appeal and provider value, as well as implement pricing tiers based on content or service and usage. Through their CSP, content providers will be able to implement better parental controls and even parental alerts on what applications their children use, when, how often and where. Businesses will be able to prioritize availability of services and content to higher-value customers, and gain the insight to cross-sell and up-sell more effectively to targeted audiences. Internally, CSPs with network intelligence will be much better equipped to migrate their OSS/BSS from segregated systems based on subscriber location to convergent, location-agnostic, services and billing. They will have the network visibility to manage traffic and absorb the coming explosion in data volume caused by the growing acceptance and innovation of social networking; cloud computing; and consumers working, shopping, paying bills, watching videos, playing games, reading books, and who knows what else, from their smartphones and tablets anywhere, anytime. Today, one can begin watching a movie on a TV or computer and continue viewing using a computer or smartphone while en route to an airport, at the airport or even in the air. We’re not that far away from seeing credit and debit cards follow the path into obsolescence that CDs and DVDs are taking today. We’ll use our smartphones to pay for purchases at checkout, in stores and online. In fact, everything in our wallet today will someday be accessible from a smartphone. Advanced DPI with network intelligence is the only way CSPs will be able to manage, track and monetize the massive increases in business and consumer network data transactions. It will also be the only way to comply with government mandates for data retention and to work with law enforcement agencies to police the network economy through lawful interception. Surely, as the network becomes even more indispensable for business and personal transactions, detecting dark Web and criminal activity will be even more important to protecting the public. Advanced forms of DPI with network intelligence will also lead to the innovation of new applications previously unaddressed by traditional DPI, such as AppStore analytics that detect conversion and revenue rates of music downloads across music genres, demographics and age groups. Just as enterprises today operate ‘smarter’ and more productively with business intelligence by monitoring and analyzing data extracted from their various management systems, CSPs will increasingly use network intelligence based on the real-time decoding of protocols and extraction of data crossing their networks. In the same way that business intelligence relies on metadata to correlate and analyze information extracted from enterprise applications, network intelligence uses metadata and content extracted from the data in motion on a network. It is the real-time protocol decoding and metadata extraction with network intelligence that enables advanced forms of DPI, which have been called ‘DPI on steroids’, and what CSPs need to remain relevant in the network economy. Network intelligence is a new technology unto itself, created by DPI experts as a back-end to upgrade and expand the capabilities of known DPI applications and to fuel the innovation of the new solutions desperately needed to manage, protect and help monetize a rapidly growing and evolving industry. CSPs and equipment vendors once had the time and resources – and no other alternative – to develop their own DPI for specific vertical solutions, but the speed of industry change today and the new skill sets required for advanced DPI with network intelligence strongly favours reliance on third-party specialists. The tools, expertise and ongoing support for network intelligence already exist for CSPs and vendors to enhance their existing solutions and build entirely new ones. The offerings available from third-party network intelligence specialist companies are not plug-and-play, nor can they be, but they clearly reduce time to market for advanced DPI solutions from years to months. They also eliminate most of the development risks, costs and post-deployment support, such as for keeping protocol and metadata libraries updated. Third-party DPI also allows CSPs and vendors to focus on their core expertise, rather than divert resources and staff to developing technology that in all likelihood would be extremely difficult to match, let alone keep pace with, ongoing network intelligence innovation. There is already a formal ecosystem in place, the Network Intelligence Alliance (www.nialliance.org), for developers and vendors to accelerate advanced DPI solutions for CSP customers. Members include companies that already specialize in equipment and software for CSP infrastructure, network intelligence technology, high-speed packet capture and processing, and processing platforms. Through collaboration, technology integration, and raising the awareness of companies in the network data value chain, the Network Intelligence Alliance is delivering the technology for managing, securing and monetizing 4G networks. This benefits CSPs, content providers and device vendors with infrastructure solutions to support their innovations, and virtually eliminates strategic decisions to build network intelligence versus buying pre-developed tools and complete applications that already integrate Advanced DPI. Adoption of third-party network intelligence technology has been growing from developers of high-performance semiconductors, multi-core microprocessors, multi-port network adapters, and solutions for policy control, traffic management, and network monitoring to solve the capacity challenges of mobile broadband. Other areas where Advanced DPI with network intelligence is making an impact include cyber security, market research, data retention and lawful interception. The unabated growth of network data due to the accelerating adoption of mobile and cloud computing and the changing demands on CSPs by the emerging network economy will make 2011 the ‘year of network intelligence’ – to optimize data transport over networks, secure data in transit, track data for regulatory and business purposes, and monetize data through new service offerings. The world economy is well on its way to becoming a true ‘network economy’. The growth of network data due to the accelerating adoption of mobile and cloud computing by business and consumers requires networks and their underlying technologies to meet new demands. Advanced forms of DPI enable CSPs to optimize the massive volume of data crossing networks, secure data in transit, track data for regulatory and business purposes, and help content providers to monetize data through new service offerings

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