IMS Service Monitoring

2 Will Brouwer Business Development Converged Tool Set End-to-End Phased Analysis Converge Platform Management Challenges Key Lessons

3 End-to-End Visibility P-CSCF PDF P-CSCF PDF HSS Node B BTS UTRAN GSM Cable/xDSL/WiFi SGSN GGSN GPRS MGW MSC Server MSC Server Access Node B-RAS IP IMS VoIP Signaling SS7 HLR MSC STP I-CSCF S-CSCF BGCF MGCF SIG G/W MRFP MRFC App Servers IPTV & VoD Content & Services Interconnect Access GPRS IP SS7 GPRS IP SS7 IMS VoIP GPRS IP SS7 IMS VoIP Content SS7 IMS VoIP Media/MOS IPTV, VoIP

4 Sample Agilent IMS trace from SIP-based combined wireless/wireline device Interpret.. Analyze.. Guide.. Reactive Proactive ImplementationLab & TrialEngineering Operations & NOC Customers Phased Analysis Converged Network & Services GSM GPRS UMTS WiFi VoIP P-CSCF PDF P-CSCF PDF HSS I-CSCF S-CSCF BGCF MGCF SIG G/W MRFP MRFC App Servers

5 Convergent Platform Data Gathering Probes Correlation & xDR Generation Measurement Framework xDR Store xDR enrichment Convergent Applications

6 IMS Management Challenges Significant amounts of inter-working with other protocols Interoperability (mobility, NEMs) Location & Presence Many elements involved in call setup path Services are easy to deploy but few tools to quantify impact on network Troubleshooting is complex Managing the end-to-end customer experience And…. Specs are evolving fast: significant extensions to signalling procedures IPSec with null encryption within IMS IPv6 Compressed SIP

7 Key Lessons New Paradigm for troubleshooting –Real-time and Historic view is essential Continuous Evolution –Services – i.e. signaling and service flows –Architectures – session border controllers –Equipment – e.g. handset firmware changes behavior –Protocol implementation/stacks - vary widely –User community dynamics What to measure? –KPIs need to be service-centric in addition to network –Element Capacity and Load – prediction and monitoring –Trunk planning on media gateway Performance? –Data retention, Transaction rate

8 Key Lessons IMS Monitoring Strategy Prioritize monitoring of nodes according to …. –Does the node inter-work with another protocol? –Does the node perform a critical service routing decision? Suggested order of priorities –I-CSCF => Gatekeeper to network –S-CSCF => Decides on admission to services and routes services –MGCF => Circuit inter-working. Access to media path QoS info –MRFC => Access to media QoS information –P-CSCF => Simple load balancer MGCF I-CSCF P-CSCF PDFMRFC S-CSCF BGCF

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