The complexity of next-generation networks is fundamentally changing the nature of testing and monitoring. Passive monitoring is no longer sufficient. CSPs need an active monitoring solution to ensure that their differentiated services perform to the required level continuously.

Today’s networks are complex, dynamic, software-defined, and virtualised. Services and network slices (as 5G Standalone continues to be deployed) are provisioned and retired as required, while capacity and scalability is elastic. Each service has its own metrics and parameters, which all need to be measured on a continuous basis to ensure QoE, and that network KPIs and customer SLAs are met. Put simply, it represents a completely new level of complexity over previous network generations.

Active monitoring for increasing network complexity

At the same time, the new network model enables a whole new range of differentiated services, which means that operators and CSPs continuously innovate, and remain agile and flexible to ensure competitiveness. This requires service providers to embrace a DevOps strategy that includes continuous development (CD), continuous integration (CI), and continuous testing (CT).

This growing network complexity, and the need to dynamically provision virtualised services and slices to meet customer demand, is having a significant impact on how network and service performance and QoE is tested and monitored on an on-going basis. Put simply, testing and monitoring is undergoing a paradigm shift.

Traditionally, in previous generations of networks, services were aligned with network topology, which meant that monitoring performance involved collecting detailed data with probes – such as byte and packet transport and receive – and monitoring the performance of the network (rather than the QoE for the user and QoS) and analysing it retrospectively.

Physical networks were static, not provisioned dynamically, and rarely changed. For many decades, passive monitoring was the preferred model. This involves monitoring (physically capturing data) and analysing historical real-life user traffic and data to understand how the network is (or, rather, was) performing.

Active monitoring supports DevOps strategies

However, a virtualised, dynamic 5G environment — in which customers (including businesses that demand network slicing or private networking) demand very high QoS and QoE and elastic scalability — requires active monitoring. While passive monitoring is still a useful part of a monitoring strategy (it provides in-depth insight into network metrics, but after the event), active monitoring has multiple benefits.

It's proactive and can identify potential issues before they impact the user, provide real-time visibility into network and service performance, eliminates blind spots, and can be used to analyse and predict user behaviour in real time.  

Active monitoring ‘injects’ realistic traffic into the live network on an on-going basis to monitor performance on a continuous basis. It emulates traffic at the UE level to find any issues or bottlenecks in the network in real-time. It can monitor essential KPIs, such as packet loss, jitter, HTTP response time, and be configured with different QoS settings, metrics, parameters (for example, for network slices), and so on.

Active monitoring is also essential for agility and flexibility as enabled by DevOps – the continuous upgrade and evolution of new and old software and services must be supported in a competitive multi-vendor 5G era. It ensures that once new or upgraded services have been tested and launched into the live network that they continue to perform to the required level and quality.

Emblasoft Evolver supports advanced and comprehensive active monitoring

Emblasoft Evolver is a comprehensive test and validation platform that supports all network generations, multiple protocols and codecs, and DevOps strategies. Importantly, it also supports advanced active monitoring capabilities to ensure that your services and network slices are operating at the required QoS, providing real-time, end-to-end visibility across multiple network domains (core, transport, and different cloud infrastructures (public, private, edge).

Evolver’s active monitoring functionality employs software-based agents in the live network, which inject real traffic sessions to continuously ensure that the network and services are performing to the required level. These distributed active monitoring agents can be installed – dynamically, on-demand – in any network domain to monitor QoS, QoE, network performance, specific KPIs such as dropped packets, and so on.

Emblasoft Evolver’s Active Monitoring functionality enables multiple capabilities:

• Precise KPI measurement – per service, per user for 5G (and also 4G, 3G and 2G) applications
• Dynamic agent activation, scalable to thousands
• Flexible scenario creation and libraries
• Reduced cost and footprint vs passive probes
• For encrypted traffic sessions
• Centralised management and control
• Integration with automation, workflows and third-party systems
• Real-time measurements and reporting

Emblasoft's Mikael Grill explains the fundamental differences between Active and Passive Monitoring in a short video introduction. Watch now to find out how Active Monitoring can deliver benefits and cost savings for your evolving network.

In short, active monitoring is imperative in today’s complex network environment. Passive monitoring still plays its part, but the nature of testing, validating, and monitoring has fundamentally changed with the deployment of next-generation networks. Active monitoring is not an option… it’s a necessity.

Contact us today to find out more about Emblasoft Evolver’s advanced, comprehensive active monitoring capabilities.