APPLICATION NOTE. Enhanced Application Management and Reporting for Application-Assured Business VPN Services

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A P P L I C A T I O N N O T E

Enhanced Application Management and Reporting

for Application-Assured Business VPN Services

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Abstract

The current pace of technological evolution presents the typical enterprise IT organization with many opportunities and many challenges. The availability of cost-effective, feature-rich VPN services provides enhanced capability to expand regionally, streamline operations, and take advantage of globalization opportunities. Due to the critical nature of these business services, a practical solution to manage application traffic is essential.

This application note provides an overview of the Alcatel-Lucent Application-Assured Business VPN Services (AA-BVS) solution and the role that reporting and service management applications play in delivering value to both the enterprise customer and the operator.

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1. Introduction

Over the past quarter century technological innovations have so permeated the enterprise that, regardless of the size of organization, effectively all major business processes are fundamentally underpinned by business-critical networked applications. Additionally, highly affordable IP/MPLS Layer 2 and Layer 3 virtual private network (VPN) services have created an environment where even modest sized businesses can comfortably afford to connect discrete office locations and reap the operational benefits of centralizing business-critical networked applications over these reliable and secure connections. Put simply, business runs on critical applications and those applications depend on the availability and performance of the corporate network — including the WAN. The historical lack of effective solutions to the WAN management challenge, combined with recent product innovations and enhancements by Alcatel-Lucent have created the conditions for a highly profitable managed service delivered by operators that offers high value to the enterprise customer. For an introduction to the Alcatel-Lucent Application-Assured Business VPN Services (AA-BVS) solution, please see the Alcatel-Lucent application note: Overcoming Application Performance Challenges with Application-Assured WAN VPN Services, available through your Alcatel-Lucent representative. The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution focuses on providing the critical aspects of WAN optimization to the enterprise customer in a highly automated way — by implementing the WAN optimization capability at the provider edge within the operator’s IP/MPLS infrastructure. The key to successfully unleashing the end customer value while properly abstracting the customer from the intricacies of the operator’s network resides within the Alcatel-Lucent suite of network and service management applications, specifically:

• Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM)

• Alcatel-Lucent 5670 Reporting and Analysis Manager (RAM) 1.1 The requirements for effective WAN management

From the enterprise perspective, the most critical aspects of WAN optimization can be categorized into several silos of activity as described in the Ovum study The adoption of WAN optimization as a managed service, Pauline Trotter and Peter Hall, July 2008:

• Improve quality of service (QoS) to guarantee the performance of business-critical applications, which can be subdivided into:

¬ Application identification ¬ Problem analysis

¬ Traffic optimization

• Improve ability to optimize bandwidth and justify bandwidth upgrades, by conducting traffic volumetric analyses for the purposes of:

¬ Capacity planning ¬ Policy enforcement

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Figure 1. Ovum study findings regarding enterprises’ willingness to pay for WAN optimization services

Source: Ovum, The adoption of WAN Optimization as a managed service, July 2008

1.2 Customer premises equipment WAN optimization

Existing WAN optimization solutions are widely accepted for networking of large sites served by T1/E1, T3/E3 or OC-x/STM-x connections. For this approach, a WAN optimization and control (WOC) appliance is located at the customer edge (on the customer premises equipment (CPE)) at each location. These devices analyze and report on all of the traffic destined for the WAN. They typically allow the IT department to define policies that govern how traffic will behave on the WAN and some even allow outbound traffic to be compressed — thereby reducing the WAN capacity requirements.

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Figure 2. CPE-based WAN optimization

While accepted for managing point-to-point connections of large sites, these solutions require a large commitment of upfront capital and increase the IT operational overhead.

CPE appliances HQ CPE App servers CPE CPE WAN CPE EMS WAN management 5620 SAM Network management

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1.3 Network-based WAN optimization

Another approach to WAN optimization leverages an application-assured telecommunications net-work, where WAN optimization capabilities are embedded within the operator’s IP/MPLS network. By incorporating the capability within the provider edge (PE) node (rather than a CPE) the solution provides a simplified approach to WAN optimization, and offers:

• Immediate benefit: As an operator hosted service, the customer begins seeing the benefits of the solution immediately

• No upfront investment: No appliances or integration work means that the customer need only be concerned with the incremental cost structure associated with the service

• No hardware management: No WOC appliances means no specialized resources or additional load on IT infrastructure resources such as power and cooling

Figure 3. Network-based WAN optimization

The combination of a VPN and WAN optimization intelligence at the network service edge, as provided by the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution, delivers a solution that is more aligned with the objectives of the enterprise customer. This unique result is possible because of Alcatel-Lucent’s ho-listic approach to WAN optimization. While the core of the solution resides within the integrated WAN optimization technology within the service router and service switch, it is the network and service management layers that unlock the capabilities of the application-aware network for the operator and its enterprise customers.

Application assurance in PE HQ CPE App servers CPE CPE WAN Service portal WAN management 5670 RAM 5620 SAM 7750 SR 7450 ESS 7450 ESS AA-ISA AA-ISA AA-ISA

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2. The Alcatel-Lucent Application-Assured Business VPN Services solution

The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution enables operators to support the convergence of IP voice, data and video over Layer 2 and/or Layer 3 business VPNs. This network-based approach enables operators to leverage their existing IP/MPLS network and service management infrastructure and offer application-level visibility and policy control with minimal investment. It also enables the operator to tailor VPN services to each enterprise’s unique application performance requirements. The AA-BVS solution is made possible through the purpose-built Alcatel-Lucent Application Assurance Integrated Services Adapter (AA-ISA). The AA-ISA is an integrated processing resource adapter for the Alcatel-Lucent 7x50 routing and switching portfolio which can be hot inserted into the existing chassis of the Alcatel-Lucent 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) or Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router (SR). It leverages stateful application identification and man-agement technology to enable dynamic per-service, per-site and per-application QoS policy control. Network and service management for these products are provided by the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM. The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM provides a query and analysis capability. Both the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM and 5670 RAM can also be used to enable an enterprise customer service portal to provide seamless integration between the various network, service and policy management applications. 2.1 Portal driven management

The overall solution is focused on enabling a managed WAN service that is both highly profitable for the operator and delivers core WAN optimization value at an affordable price to the enterprise customer. In order to deliver this value to the customer, the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution leverages an integrated service portal strategy to provide a unified interface to all of the manage-ment tools within the solution, which abstracts the customer from the complexities of the operator network and ensures concentration on the critical aspects of WAN optimization. The key areas of focus include:

• Application reporting

• Application performance optimization • Bandwidth optimization and capacity planning 2.2 Application reporting

Understanding the applications that are consuming network resources is a fundamental condition for managing any network. Within the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution, a real-time stateful appli-cation identification and management capability on OSI Layers 3 to 7, provided by the Alcatel-Lucent AA-ISA, allows application-aware routers to dynamically identify and intelligently meter traffic flows, applications and underlying protocols.

The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM leverages this metered data to provide enterprise customers with the critical insight required to effectively manage their WANs. This intelligence is essential for custom-ers to undcustom-erstand the traffic and traffic mix on their networks. It also enables them to periodically assess progress against a known baseline and effectively manage capacity growth.

An inventory of applications identified on the enterprise WAN is generated by the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM and delivered to enterprise customers through the customer portal. This provides the enterprise with clear visibility of what applications are running on the network, flags newly-identified applications and provides information on how those applications are consuming network resources. 2.3 Application performance optimization

Network conditions will impact a user’s quality of experience (QoE) differently, depending on the specific application in question. In addition, not all application data traversing the corporate WAN has the same value to the business. With no WAN management, all business data traversing the WAN is treated the same way whether it is an employee engaging in a file transfer or the CEO attempting an internal web-cast.

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The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution allows the operator’s enterprise customer to define the prior-ity of specific applications in alignment with its business needs. The enterprise IT manager defines the application classification through the customer portal. The translation of the customer portal request into appropriate application quality of service policies associated with specific VPN sites occurs as a result of the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM’s awareness of customers, services and nodes. 2.4 Bandwidth optimization and capacity planning

Enterprise IT organizations have intense fiscal responsibilities to the company as a whole, and are expected to do more with less. The enterprise IT department is also accountable to provide an accurate forecast of upcoming expenditures. The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution is well suited to meeting these challenges.

As previously discussed, the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution enables the operator’s enterprise customer to maximize the use of the WAN through application identification. Understanding what applications are using WAN services gives the enterprise IT organization an opportunity to reduce and otherwise manage traffic associated with business applications. Clearly, reducing non-business-related traffic increases the business value of the provisioned WAN capacity. Application performance optimization allows business-critical enterprise applications to behave properly even when the WAN is in a congested state. Enabling prioritization of critical applications allows the enterprise to more efficiently manage network resources.

The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution also supports long-term data analysis. This aspect of the solu-tion, powered by the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM, can generate WAN usage trend reports that span months or even years. This visibility into overall WAN usage over time provides the enterprise IT organization with an accurate view of how their needs have been changing over time. This trend can be extrapolated into the future to predict when additional capacity will likely be required.

3. Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM in an application-aware VPN

The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is a single management platform offering element, network and service management for advanced application-aware Layer 2 and Layer 3 network solutions and services based on the Alcatel-Lucent Carrier Ethernet and IP/MPLS Service Routing portfolio. This state-of-the-art management system makes it possible for operators to increase their level of competitiveness by offering a highly differentiated service portfolio. It also enables them to reduce operational overhead by streamlining network commissioning, service activation, and service troubleshooting. Through integration with the operations support system (OSS), the management system can also support advanced enterprise services such as application-aware Virtual Leased Line (VLL), Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) and Virtual Private Routed Network (VPRN) over a converged IP/MPLS infrastructure. The unique challenges associated with an application-aware business VPN service include:

• Centralized policy management: Policy management extends to include per-customer application quality of service and policy management. The policy management, distribution and audit frame-work within the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM provides complete support for application-aware network policies.

• Management of generic network elements (GNE): The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM provides GNE management capability to allow for a centralized point of management of the entire application-assured business VPN service, which not only includes the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and 7450 ESS, but third-party CPE devices as well. The GNE capability enables the operator to configure and

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Figure 4. End-to-end service and application management

Operators face significant challenges bringing new application-aware business VPN services on stream with short lead times, operationalizing them effectively, and deploying them with low drop-out rates, all while keeping sufficient control on operating expenditures. Operational challenges facing operators moving to IP/MPLS-based business VPN services include:

• Service provisioning: The rich capabilities on the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and Alcatel-Lucent 7710 SR mean new and unfamiliar provisioning demands on operational staff.

• Service assurance: Troubleshooting Layer 2 and Layer 3 business VPN services based on an IP/MPLS core can be complex.

• IP/MPLS core: The full mesh requirement of tunnels for MPLS requires ongoing maintenance work in the core as it grows — and many opportunities for error.

• OSS/business support system (BSS) integration: Integrating a new manager into the existing OSS/BSS and operational methods can be expensive.

IP/MPLS service edge

Access Core network Access

Alcatel-Lucent application assured business VPN service Metro network

IP/MPLS metro

Service and application aware management High reliability – advanced assurance

OPEX – ease and accuracy of management Integration cost – pre-integrated with 5670 RAM Single point of integration for OSS

Mediation and billing OSS systems SLA reports

Activation Provisioning

Fault and RCA Traffic engineering AA-ISA AA-ISA CPE WOC CPE WOC CPE WOC

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The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is designed to enable quick and error-free workflows for all the manage-ment stages (eleThe Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is designed to enable quick and error-free workflows for all the manage-ment, network and service) as required for “best-in-breed” application assured business VPN service delivery. This gives the operator a low drop-out rate, which saves time, reduces costs, and improves customer satisfaction.

Ease of service management is achieved in the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM by sophisticated service modeling that is not found in other element management system (EMS) or network management system (NMS) software.

The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM is service aware — meaning that it is capable of correlating network and service objects. This simplifies the operational activities of the operator and makes the network far more reliable by automating many tasks that would otherwise be highly repetitive. Operations and maintenance (OAM) tests on a service, as an example, will automatically be executed against all associated nodes. Additionally, Layer 2 and Layer 3 services are modeled in an integrated way so that the workflow is common and differs only where needed. There is no need to have separate management systems for each type of service. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM has a network-wide view of all network and service objects and the linkages between them. Layers 1, 2 and 3 and their relationships are all modeled. Hence the effect of changes or problems in any one level on the other levels is immediately apparent to the operator. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM displays the effects in real time with alarms, statuses, icon color changes, topology maps and more. This holistic network modeling allows the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM to automate certain functions, which significantly simplifies the workload on the operations staff.

Business VPN services are often a combination of different service components, one component serving the access, another serving the network aggregation edge, and another the core. The Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM uses its composite service feature to allow the operator to stitch all the components together into a single entity (the composite service). This allows operators to identify when problems on one part of a service affect another. It also offers an overall, live, service topology view where the operator can see the end-to-end service and any changes in real time.

Some of the specific operational activities where a well-designed management system such as the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM makes workflows easier are: • New equipment commissioning, including the AA-ISA, which enables application awareness on the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and 7450 ESS. • Tying new equipment into the IP/MPLS infrastructure • Configuring policies and access control lists associated with service offerings • Provisioning new services • Assuring services and network infrastructure • Accounting and reporting on service performance for per-site, per-VPN , and per-customer service level agreement management

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4. Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM in an application-assured VPN

4.1 Overview

The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM enables network-wide application-aware visibility of, and planning insight for, application-aware business VPN networks. The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM provides a scalable, application-centric query and analysis capability specifically designed to support enterprise IT management as well as internal operations within the operator’s organization.

The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM functions as a centralized network-based resource — warehousing and analyzing application usage data across all customers of an application assured VPN service. The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM Report Server provides a web services interface that allows for seamless integration of RAM analytics with an operator’s customer service portal.

4.2 Application identification

Maximizing the business value generated from the WAN begins with understanding what applications, intended or otherwise, are running over the WAN. Leveraging the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM, the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution provides an integrated capability to understand what applications are present and the overall impact those applications are having on the network.

4.2.1 Creating an application inventory

The Alcatel-Lucent AA-ISA-enabled router delivers a fundamental capability to provide stateful application traffic flow inspection and application assurance for small, medium or large enterprise Layer 2 or Layer 3 VPN services. This intelligence, generated by the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM, provides an immediate awareness of applications running on the WAN over the inspection period. In an ideal world, assessing application traffic would be a very basic task — some applications have value for the business, others do not. In most cases, however, it is much more complicated:

• Some applications are a benefit to the business when used by certain groups within the organization, but not when used by other groups

• Some applications provide a certain amount of benefit to the business, but are subject to employee abuse

• Some applications provide no direct benefit to the business, but contribute to employee morale Clearly more information than a simple inventory is required to determine if applications should be allowed on the network or not.

4.2.2 Site analysis

Corporate functions are often grouped by location — that is, Site 1 might be the corporate head-quarters with primary responsibility for business and marketing; Site 2 might be an R&D location with responsibilities for product development and support; Sites 3 to 25 might be regional sales centers. Given that the activities and functions of these sites are dramatically different, it is reasonable that the traffic coming from, and going to, those sites would be notably different as well. Analyzing the traffic on a site-by-site basis will produce a better result, as the functions of each site can be a con-tributing factor to whether or not specific applications create business value.

The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM provides a range of reports to help IT managers better understand WAN traffic at a particular site:

• Application trend reports: provide visibility into which applications comprise the traffic to and from the VPN site.

• Top applications reports: identify the top resource-consuming applications

• Utilization reports: illustrate WAN traffic as a percentage of provisioned capacity to help IT managers understand if and when additional bandwidth will be required

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Figure 5. An example analysis of application flows to a site

4.2.3 Incorporating volumetric analysis

In many cases it is not the presence of an application that creates problems on the WAN, it is the volume of that application traffic going over the network that causes the problems. Prohibiting a minimally-used application on the WAN will likely have a negligible impact on the overall performance of the network, but may significantly affect employee satisfaction. On the other hand, prohibiting or rate-limiting a non-business application that is identified as a significant drain on corporate resources is justifiable and represents a reasonable return (positive impact to performance) on the effort. 4.2.4 Usage-based threshold crossing alerts

If understanding the amount of traffic being generated by an application is useful, then it stands to reason that knowing when, and how often, application usage exceeds certain predetermined levels is even more useful. The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM provides a usage-based threshold crossing alert mechanism that can be used to track, and even participate in the management of specific applications or application groups.

Operators, or enterprise customers, can define usage-based thresholds on any defined report. As an example, an enterprise customer may categorize all of the non-business-related traffic into a low priority application group. Within the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM Application Usage Report, the customer may define a threshold value for low priority application usage (say five percent of the available bandwidth). If the low priority application usage exceeds the threshold an alert will be

100 b/s

A

verage interval bit rate

80 b/s 60 b/s 40 b/s 20 b/s Week 1 Web Application Imap FTP SAP Other 150278 Minimum bytes in 2788 10783 973 765 27947 Maximum bytes in 1034 11037 1678 1820 19835 Average bytes in 1634 11002 1211 1387 Week 3 Week 2 Top 5 applications Bytes into Site_1

Week 4 0 b/s

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4.2.5 Top X analysis

Volumetric analysis is often used as a mechanism to identify anomalous activity without a clear definition of exactly what activity that might be. Top X analysis allows operators and their enter prise customers to recognize “top talkers” in various categories. Key Top X reports within the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM include: • Top sites report: This report

identi-fies sites whose usage is abnormally high, or sites where the QoE is impacted, as identified through an abnormally high level of dropped packets allowing enterprise IT managers to easily identify areas of concern.

• Top applications report: This report

can be run VPN wide, or for a specific set of sites; it determines which applications are using the largest share of the WAN capacity and how that usage changes over time.

• Top customers report (operator): This report enables the operator to easily understand which customers are maximizing the use of their Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services — providing the operator valuable insight into upselling opportunities in terms of additional bandwidth, man-aged services or additional classes of service.

4.3 How it works

The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM can be viewed as two separate compo-nents — the RAM Aggregator and the Report Server. These two elements work together to provide a scalable reporting infrastructure for a network-based WAN management solution. The RAM Aggregator provides data warehousing and aggregation services. Raw data is provided by the AA-ISA cards within the router, through the statistics collection infrastructure of the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM. The RAM Aggregator collects the statis-tics on a periodic basis and relates

that data to contextual information available via the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM OSS Interface (SAM-O), such as customers and VPN sites, and stores it in the RAM Aggregator database. As a general rule, the value of highly granular data decreases over time, while the value of trend data increases over time. In other words, highly granular information, such as raw data, is generally used to support tactical activities such as troubleshooting and diagnostics, and has a useful life mea-sured in hours or days. Beyond that period, the usefulness of the data decreases rapidly. Conversely, operational analysis and strategic planning require an information span of months or even years, but don’t require a high degree of data granularity (that is, the overall trend becomes important, not the specific events that contribute to the trend).

Figure 6. An example of an Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM top site report

Date

Sum (k)

Top 3 sites (application level) – Daily view – Streamingvideo_business Total bytes to site

3,400 3,200 3,600 3,000 2007-01-03 2007-01-02 2007-01-01

Site 39 Site 15 Site 3

Figure 7. The RAM Aggregator collects raw data from the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM 5620 SAM 5670 RAM AA stats Context Raw data Report server

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With this in mind, the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM provides data aggregation services. Raw data (the granularity of which is dependent upon the defined application assurance accounting policy) is aggregated into hourly data. The hourly aggregate loses the specific details of each contributing transaction, but maintains the overall average values, as well as high and low watermarks. Similarly, hourly data is aggregated into daily data. This aggregation system provides several key scalability advantages for the operator:

• Minimizes storage costs: If allowed to grow unbounded, data warehouses can quickly consume a tremendous amount of storage space. The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM allows the operator to define data retention policies for each data counter, for each level of data granularity. This enables the operator to provide high-value trended reports that span a significant time frame (years) without having to maintain years’ worth of raw data.

• Minimizes reporting costs: The cost of report processing is directly related to the number of data points that need to be considered. Clearly a report that requires 50 data points will take less processing than a report that requires 50,000 data points. Data systems that require the report server to examine highly-granular data in order to generate trended reports over a longer time frame lead to significantly increased processing requirements. The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM approach of providing multiple levels of data aggregation allows the Report Server to use the most appropriate level of granularity to generate the report and subsequently minimize report processing costs.

The Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM Report Server provides a portal-based infrastructure for the management and authoring of reports. A catalog of approximately 200 application-aware and usage-analysis reports provides accurate and timely decision-supporting intelligence on customers, services applications, and IP traffic flows.

Operators can generate on-demand reports, or schedule reports to be run at pre-defined intervals. Using the scheduler feature of the Report Server, customer-facing reports can be scheduled to run on a customer’s monthly bill date.

4.4 Report Authoring

In addition to the approximately 200 reports pre-defined within the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM, the system provides a report-authoring capability completely integrated into the Report Server portal. This allows the operator to tailor the existing Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM reports to suit its specific requirements, or to build entirely new reports from the 5670 RAM data model, creating a unique solution that meets the specific requirements of the operator’s customer base.

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5. The service portal in an application-assured VPN

The service portal is a web-based application that provides custom network management functionality to the operator and/or abstracted network management functionality to its enterprise IT customers. The portal provides simplified user interfaces for network management tasks — streamlining operations within the operator’s organization and abstracting the enterprise customer from the details of the operator’s network. The service portal can deliver highly differentiated views to users, allowing the same service portal system to provide direct benefit to both the enterprise customer and the operator.

Figure 8. The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS service portal

5.1 Enterprise customer portal

Much of the value of the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution is exposed to the enterprise customer through the service portal. Access to reporting, application management and the optimization capability are all provided through the web-based application, which can be specifically tailored to meet the unique requirements of the operator and its business customers.

IP/MPLS backbone Multiple policy touch-points Metro aggregation VPN

troubleshoot and billingMediation Performance

AA-BVS Service portal (AA-BVS)

Policy Reports Custom provisioning Service monitoring QoS change 5620 SAM Enterprise VPN 5670 RAM 5620 SAM 5670 RAM AA-ISA AA-ISA AA-ISA AA-ISA

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Figure 9. An example of a service portal

5.1.1 Access to intelligence

The service portal provides highly customizable access to a selection of reports predefined by the operator and generated by the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM. The service portal integrates with the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM through the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Informa-tion Standards (OASIS) Web Services for Remote Portlet (WSRP) standard. In this manner, the portal is able to pass specific information about the customer and the site or VPN of interest and the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM can dynamically inject the report content directly into the service portal. Any reports within the Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM (standard or custom developed by the operator) are available for service portal integration.

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Figure 10. Selecting reports via the Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS service portal

5.1.2 Application management

One of the most powerful tools available to an enterprise IT department is the ability to prioritize applications on the network. A detailed implementation of application prioritization requires at least a reasonable understanding of the operator infrastructure, routes, paths, QoS management and queuing. In most (if not all) cases the operator doesn’t want to share the details of its network with its enterprise customers. The service portal enables a complete abstraction from both the architecture of the operator’s network and the technical details of QoS management.

The service portal provides a simplified management view to the enterprise IT department — relating the customer’s specific application behavior and treatment with the agreements in place with the operator. By relating an application to a service (Gold, Silver or Bronze, for example) the enterprise customer is able to achieve the effect it is looking for: it can improve the quality of experience for critical applications without a massive outlay of capital. The enterprise is able to service itself with-out delving into the complexities of the underlying network.

The service portal delivers network management capability through integration with the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM using the SAM-O interface. This structure also supports the coordinated approach in which some aspects of WAN management are done by a CPE device at some locations. In most cases, the application QoS on those CPE devices (Alcatel-Lucent or third-party) can be pushed transparently by the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM to the service portal. In instances where a third- party CPE device requires a separate EMS, that system can also be integrated into the service portal. The end result for the enterprise customer is that they need not be concerned with how or where an application is being managed. The enterprise’s interface to the system remains consistent and simplified, which reduces the system’s overall cost and time to value.

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Figure 11. Defining service assurance parameters via the service portal

6. Conclusion

The Alcatel-Lucent Application-Assured Business VPN Services solution delivers real benefits to help operators align their service offerings with enterprises’ business objectives and application performance goals. By enabling network-based application performance assurance for business VPN services, operators can clearly differentiate their VPN service offerings from competitors. The network and service management components — Alcatel-Lucent 5620 SAM, Alcatel-Lucent 5670 RAM and the service portal — are the key components of the solution that translate the tech-nical capability of the operator’s IP/MPLS network into tangible value for the enterprise customer. The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution meets head-on one of the key business challenges for enterprises today: ensuring that their business applications are operating as efficiently and cost-effectively as pos-sible. With the solution in place, operators can tell enterprises exactly what applications are running on their VPNs and how they are running. They can also deliver to the enterprise — or give them direct access through a web portal — detailed reports on the efficiency of their business services. The Alcatel-Lucent AA-BVS solution enables operators to introduce a variety of tiered business VPN service plans, aligning application services with stringent business requirements. This enables the operator to more directly support enterprises’ business objectives, and helps the operator to strengthen its relation ship with its customers. This enhanced relationship provides increased opportunities for up-selling services to the enterprise.

The new service capabilities also translate directly to increased revenue opportunities, at minimal cost, and with a faster time to market. By entrenching a competitive differentiator in its service offerings, the operator is safeguarding its service offerings from price erosion, and reinforcing customer stickiness

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7. Abbreviations

AA-BVS (Alcatel-Lucent) Application-Assured Business VPN Services

AA-ISA (Alcatel-Lucent) Application Assurance Integrated Services Adapter

BSS business support system

CPE customer premises equipment

EMS element management system

GNE generic network elements

MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching

NMS network management system

OAM operations and maintenance

OASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards

OPEX operational expenses

OSI Open Systems Interconnection

OSS operations support system

PE provider edge

QoE quality of experience

QoS quality of service

RAM (Alcatel-Lucent 5670) Reporting and Analysis Manager

RCA root cause analysis

RG residential gateway

SAM (Alcatel-Lucent 5620) Service Aware Manager

VLL Virtual Leased Line

VPLS Virtual Private LAN Service

VPN virtual private network

VPRN Virtual Private Routed Network

WAN wide area network

WOC WAN optimization and control

WSRP Web Services for Remote Portlet

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