Tektronix Communications is rolling out a new set of enhancements for its IP network monitoring products, designed to help operators further the development of converged services and networks toward IP.
Fixed, mobile and converged network operators can use Tek’s GeoProbe monitoring system and Unified Assurance for Converged Networks (UACN) suite of products to monitor key protocols in IP signaling and transport networks.
The three new enhancements announced today address signaling, converged and mobile networks and will enable operators to have the ability to monitor across a broader range of technologies as they migrate from legacy to next-generation networks, Tek explained.
Signaling Networks: Operators now relying on the SS7 family of protocols are migrating to SIGTRAN; GeoProbe now supports SCTP, a transport-layer protocol beginning to be favored because of its advantages as compared with H.248 over UDP in such migrations.
Converged Networks: Tek’s Advanced Performance Monitoring (APM) product now supports the BICC protocol, which represents a migration path from circuit-switched TDM networks to broadband multimedia networks. With an APM-supported BICC, fixed, mobile and converged network operators have the ability to monitor all legacy narrowband ISDN services and ISUP, Tek said.
Mobile Networks: GeoProbe’s historical and real-time call trace capabilities have been enhanced to give mobile operators deeper visibility into GRPS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) User Plane traffic, allowing them to better analyze and troubleshoot customer-impacting performance problems based on User Plane statistics, according to the company.
Tek says the GeoProbe and UACN product suite provide network operators with actionable information that allows them to get the highest return on their investments by enabling better network utilization, improved network and service quality, and faster resolution of customer-impacting network issues.
Mark Driedger, vice president and general manager of network management for Tektronix Communications, said: “As operators make this transition, there is a clear need to show [return on investment] at every step. They also must address the tremendous amount of complexity with this shift to all IP, and having the visibility across the network and over multiple protocols is critical.”
