Swisscom is putting the ‘world-first’ tech to work in its newly deployed 5G network, Ericsson said
Ericsson on Tuesday announced a collaboration with network performance app developer Netscout and Swiss telco Swisscom, to produce a new cloud-based solution aimed at “dramatically increasing” 5G service assurance, analytics and cybersecurity. The solution offers Communication Service Providers (CSPs) with automatic access to packet data, as well as the ability to analyze raw packet data in the cloud. Ericsson claims the cloud-based packet data processing solution as the first such offering in the world.
“With the established approach to data collection being unsustainable, the updated network solution will overhaul the traditional virtualized mobile network function (where data traffic is routed from the cloud and processed physically in a conventional manner),” said Ericsson.
Swisscom is using the new solution in a newly deployed 5G network that integrates Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G core with built-in software probes, and Netscout’s vStream, a network monitoring virtual appliance that offers visibility into hybrid cloud, data centers, and virtualized environments.
Ericsson describes its software probe tech as “a built-in virtual network probe solution for cloud native architecture that’s specifically designed to enable the monitoring and troubleshooting of cloud native functions (CNFs) and provide data streams for analytics.” Ericsson’s software probe provides event reporting and virtual Terminal Access Points (vTAPs). A network TAP historically has been a physical device that listens to network traffic, either sending copies of those network data packets to another system, or storing them directly using local storage. vTAPs extend the concept to the cloud, software that performs the same function, providing network visibility for troubleshooting and security monitoring.
The data generated by Ericsson’s software is, in turn, made available to Netscout’s vStream, which, in Ericsson’s words, “turns the packet data into smart data extensible to service assurance, analytics and cybersecurity — providing actionable intelligence for operations and engineering.” The event reporting managed by Ericsson’s stack provides metadata content regarding signaling procedures, vital for monitoring and troubleshooting.
In August, Netscout reported year-over-year revenue gains of nearly 10% for the quarter ending June 30. President and CEO Anil Singhal told analysts on the company quarterly call that the revenue growth was driven primarily by 20% product revenue growth and about 2% growth in service revenue. Specifically, service provider revenue in the quarter was up by nearly 30%, Singhal added, driven by revenue from Netscout’s solutions in radio frequency propagation modeling. “We continue to see carriers invest in the 5G deployment, as evidenced by the number of radio frequency propagation modeling projects we are working on,” he went on.
And in September, Netscout announced that botnets “continue to evolve at a frightening pace” following geopolitical tensions involving Russia and Ukraine. Drawing on the anonymized data on Dedicated Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks from its Netscout Arbor DDoS attack protection solutions that are deployed in major networks across more than 190 countries, Netscout said that DDos attacks “ramped up against Ukrainian assets just prior to and after Russia launched ground troops. Then we see a decline in attacks against Ukrainian assets as infrastructure is destroyed or moved out of Ukraine; meanwhile, there’s a significant increase in attacks against Ireland, where much of those Ukrainian assets were moved. Likewise, we see a surge of retaliatory attacks against Russia — attacks that go all the way back to 2021 beginning with national elections and early discussions of invading Ukraine. Finally, the trend line shows a massive increase in attacks against Finland after that country’s announcement that it would join NATO.”
