Gigamon to address the triple challenge of network transformation

The proposition is that a unified tool rail, which is able to see across technology boundaries, uniquely addresses this “Service Provider Triple Challenge of Network Transformation.” Collectively, challenges of these new and largely untried technologies present a major change in the way service providers architect their networks and how services will be deployed across them. A unified tool rail enabled by Gigamon’s Visibility Fabric provides operators with the capabilities to understand both the traffic and technology interdependencies and maintain constant visibility to troubleshoot any issues.

“Gigamon is seeing carriers begin deployments with one of the technologies and end up deploying all three in parallel, which causes an unexpected resource crunch that only Gigamon's Visibility Fabric can resolve through the deployment of a unified tool rail. This quickly becomes apparent with two of the new technologies, 100Gb and network virtualisation, since they actively remove monitoring visibility.” said Andy Huckridge, director of service provider solutions at Gigamon. “By deploying a unified tool rail and driving it with the correct traffic, carriers can better understand the interdependencies when deploying these new technologies. This allows for the de-risking of all three new technologies, regardless of which one is deployed first – and keeps resource needs in check while allowing more than one technology to be deployed at the same time. The Visibility Fabric can help carriers understand how each of the Triple Challenge technology deployments affects each other, how each transported traffic type is affected by each deployed technology and how Real Time Protocol (RTP) traffic is affected by other transported traffic types on the same pipe.”

Mobile operators are facing a transformative period, as they are increasingly required to roll out new technologies in order to keep up with the amount of traffic crossing their networks, as well as offer new services to stay ahead of the competition. Currently, service providers are looking to deploy next generation IP voice services (VoLTE, VoIMS and VoWiFi) and high speed transmission pipes (40Gb and 100Gb). At the same time they are increasingly evaluating and deploying environments that include network virtualisation, which encompasses virtual workloads, software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV). Many service providers will now be looking to implement significant projects involving one or more of these technologies and, while the execution of each in isolation is relatively simple, what many service providers have yet to realise is the interdependency between them – and the challenges that this can cause; especially where there are barriers to visibility, technology silos or with pre-existing ‘spot’ monitoring solutions which are not able to see the bigger picture.

"Service providers are looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors by offering industry leading services to their subscribers. There is value in new technologies like IP Voice & VoLTE, network virtualisation and 100Gb core connectivity for better voice quality, rapid and dynamic service deployment and faster connectivity, respectively,” said Ray Mota, principal analyst at ACG Research. “A cross technology approach that supports a unified tool rail feeding the monitoring tools with the correct data to be able to fully de-risk these new technologies and deliver the services carriers need to offer in a cost optimised way.”