‘No one has a lack of data … but can that data help you?’ asks Cisco exec
There is a dizzying array of data available to telecom operators on the status, performance and health of their networks; at various speeds and levels of granularity; focused on end-user-experience, peak network capability, or dozens of other potential indicators.
Operators face considerable challenges in making the best use of that data and translating it into actionable intelligence to validate, assure and optimize network operations. One of the biggest challenges is getting the right data, in the right format, at the right timescale in order for it to be useful. But what is the “right data” when you’re a network operator?
Kevin Wollenweber, SVP and GM of data center and provider connectivity for Cisco Networking and Joe Vaccaro, VP of product for Cisco ThousandEyes, respond to that question by saying when it comes to using various tools for network data collection and analysis, a network provider needs both a microscope and a telescope. “There are certain things that they’re going to need to understand very granularly about the path through their network, and links being up and down, and connectivity,” Wollenweber elaborated. “That’s where things like [network performance assurance company Accedian, which Cisco is in the process of acquiring] and some of these probes and this microsecond-granularity-type data is super relevant. But then there’s also this big picture, that telescope view, of when you need to understand the broader landscape and what’s going on–the work that the ThousandEyes teams are doing, [focused on] do you have connectivity to Office 365 or Salesforce?”
“No one has a lack of data,” Wollenweber says. “But can that data help you, to be shaped in a way to improve that connected experience, knowing that that connected experience is more important than ever and people’s patience when there’s an issue is lower than ever before.”
Essentially, there have to be layers of data and visibility, Vaccaro explains; abstracted, so that the underlying data is useful rather than overwhelming. The microscopic view at its most granular may extend all the way to a view of different interfaces up or down. “If you abstract it out, it might be, ‘is my infrastructure healthy?’ And if I abstract that, that might be, ‘is my service healthy?’ but then abstracted all the way out it may be, ‘is my digital experience healthy?’”
“Where that telescopic view comes in is that operators need to understand that the digital experience is very rarely wholly within their control,” he continues. “They need to work and understand digital experience through the eyes of the enterprises who are traversing their networks. They need to also understand how the digital experience exits their network to the key providers, maybe that they’re peering with, or the cloud providers, where that network is ultimately residing to.”
“You don’t need microsecond-level, active probing towards Office 365 to understand at microsecond-level granularity, are they up and running?” Wollenweber offers. “But you may need that to understand if your interfaces that are going towards your peering points, or those that are going toward your customers, are up and running and be able to provide real-time feedback to your end customer of whether or not their service is operating at SLA.”
Back to that telescope again, from Vaccaro, who says, “Understanding data over time is really helpful because these connected experiences are highly dynamic, meaning the path that a packet takes in times series A could be very different than it is in time series B. … You need to survey the landscape, you need to look at your telescope to see where along that path you’re having that issue, and then once you’ve localized it, you need to bring your microscope together … and how quickly you can bring that level of focus and create that closed-loop automation, is what allows you to drive that high degree of overall assurance for that digital experience.”
If you don’t have both the telescope and the microscope, you get a lot of people working inefficiently to solve problems, they explain.
“What we find a lot of times is if you don’t have that ability to see that data, to understand it and to do what over time at these different granularity levels … what you see is, potentially, war rooms inside operators or enterprises form with tens or hundreds of people. And that’s inefficient,” Vaccaro says. “So your key step in resolving issues is, how quickly can you localize where the problem lies, so that you can then focus and get down to that hyper-granular data and visibility, that microscope concept.”
Looking for more insights on telcos’ use of network analytics? Check out the on-demand RCR webinar “Test, Measure, Monitor, Learn: How operators can make sense of data in a new era of observability”, featuring Verizon and Viavi Solutions. An accompanying editorial report is coming soon and will be available as a free download here.
