Accanto Systems has a large collection of quality assurance solutions and resources in the form of data sheets, white papers, applications notes and case studies. Browse the items below for the information best tailored to your needs.
Recent advances in wireless access and application technologies, combined with increased customer expectations from Mobile Service Providers (MSPs) have rapidly fueled the demand for mobile data services. While mobile data services may be an attractive goal for the MSP, implementing and managing them is fraught with complexity and challenge.
A key element of Accanto’s new, enhanced X-Ray application is the ability to do real-time grouping and analysis of terabytes of aggregated network, service and customer data. By grouping aggregated xDR information into a wide range of relevant groups, trends and thresholds can be monitored and real-time service quality dashboards and alerts can be generated for each group. In addition, business and VIP customers can be compared in real-time to each group for fast insights into specific customer service quality issues.
Featuring a powerful Oracle® central database, the Traffic Analysis and Monitoring System (TAMS) is one of the most advanced multi-protocol network monitoring systems available. TAMS features a multitude of monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities that provide network fault alarming and traffic statistics, as well as an easy-to-use toolkit for rapid problem isolation, analysis and resolution.
Pantera, a vital component of Accanto’s new Extreme iCSA Solution, is a real-time all-in-one probe and protocol analyzer family designed to meet the complex needs of operators trying to migrate to high-performance, converged IP networks. Pantera builds on the success of Accanto’s acclaimed 3GMaster and NeTracker families, improving on several important elements and making it ideal for mixed-technology environments.
A key challenge in this migration has been how to ensure high service quality for both legacy voice and new data services, especially since “service quality” is measured in different ways for each. Two major problems: monitoring and troubleshooting systems that worked well for voice do not work well for IP-based data services; and, the complexities of IP-based core migration have been much higher than anticipated, especially in converged wireless/wireline networks.
The introduction of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) into legacy telecommunication architectures based on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is creating a wide range of problems that both Service Operators and Carriers must deal with. The TCP/IP protocol, and packet-switched networks in general, have been historically designed to carry packet-based data very accurately, but with very little attention given to packet delay. Unfortunately, voice and real-time multimedia traffic is highly delay-sensitive, and as many operators are learning, it is very difficult to maintain "legacy voice" QoS with VoIP.
With demand for high-speed mobile services skyrocketing, service providers have been searching for a unified network architecture that offers users high speed connectivity, and at the same time allows for a phased transition of their current 2G networks. Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) has been generally adopted as this new 3G network architecture, whose main goal it is to unify the different standards used by current second-generation wireless networks and provide a wide range of services including telephony, messaging, paging, Internet access and broadband data services.
Mobile operators are in the midst of a migration of their traditional voice services to include multimedia data services such as presence, mobile gaming and podcasting...the demand for which is skyrocketing. These new data services require migration to an all-over-IP architecture, which presents serious challenges for operators transitioning from a legacy SS#7-based architecture.
"Voice over IP" includes a wide number of architectures that enable voice transmission over IP data networks. In a converged voice/data network model, voice now shares the same IP network as legacy data traffic, providing both businesses and home users with scale efficiencies and cost reductions never before possible. This new architecture with IP-based packet switched networks as the core architecture offers many obvious advantages, though it has one significant disadvantage: it is complex to manage.
The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a standardized Next Generation Networking (NGN) architecture for telecom operators that provides mobile and fixed multimedia services. IMS allows operators to introduce enhanced IP-based multimedia services such as presence, push-to-talk and combined circuit/packet services. A key objective of IMS is not only to provide these new services, but also to provide all of the current services.
The SIP Simulation suite is a solution for verifying and testing next-generation networks based on SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) over UDP. The suite provides complete coverage of RFC 3261, and allows simulation of:
SS7 is a globally adopted protocol for out-of-band signaling systems, and supports critical applications such as: * Interaction with network databases * Network maintenance and administration * Advanced call features such as call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling, congestion and priority management, toll-free applications and toll services
The migration of traditional PSTN networks and wireless networks towards all-over-IP core architectures is changing the service landscape for Service Providers (SPs). A particular challenge lies in addressing new quality of service (QoS) issues presented by these new packet-based architectures. On the positive side, the adoption of packet-switched technology for the core allows SPs to focus on a single network instead of different networks for voice and data services.
Mobile data services such as e-mail, video clips and video blogging, multimedia messaging and high-speed Internet access are quickly gaining popularity amongst end users. As a result, service providers across the globe are seeking ways to enhance their access networks to offer these new bandwidth-intensive IP-based services. For GSM-based operators, the advent of GPRS and EDGE has provided exactly this type of IP-savvy access platform.
It is common for Railway companies to deploy and manage their own communication networks to facilitate communications between personnel onboard the trains, personnel at train stations and personnel working along the railway (e.g., shunting teams). These networks are also used to monitor and report on the positions of the trains at all times, and if necessary, to help manage critical events to keep operations running smoothly.
CDMA2000 is a 3G code division multiple-access version of the IMT-2000 standard which was developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2000. The first version of CDMA2000, known as CDMA1xRTT, was designed to support mobile data communications at speeds ranging from 144 Kbps to 2 Mbps. While CDMA2000 is capable of meeting the 3G data rate requirement of 2 Mbps, the EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) standard was developed for stationary applications requiring greater-than-2-Mbps downlink.
Very often in the core networks, the E1/T1 trunks are carried through a channelized SDH/Sonet physical connection; since the rate of such an optical interface is 155 Mbs, up to 63 E1/84 T1 links can be carried. In the past, Network operators wanting to monitor these E1/T1 had to purchase and deploy rather expensive de-multiplexers. Now the 3GMaster and NeTracker platforms allow to demux E1 links inside an STM-1 optical link based on VC-12 SDH scheme, as well as T1 links over STM1-OC3 with a VC11 scheme for decoding and monitoring purposes.
No service offering to business customers is more sensitive to Quality of Service (QoS) problems than the Call Center. Accanto Systems has a wealth of experience in environments such as this. Most recently, we partnered with a major U.S. Tier 1 operator to automate the monitoring, surveillance and troubleshooting of a 5,000-agent distributed, mixed circuit/packet technology Call Center. The results of this project, which serve as the reference case for this App Note, are a great illustration of real-world benefits derived from Accanto’s probing, analysis and performance monitoring capabilities. In the case of this customer, the primary objectives were to enhance the calling customer’s experience, and enable important optimizations in Call Center efficiency.
