Quality of Experience
Optimizing a new standard for mobile and branch office
managed services
July 2012
|
Author
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Pravin Mirchandani
Customer
White P
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. The need for managed service innovation
3. Delivering QoE solutions to businesses
3.1 The investment required
3.2 Service Differentiation
3.3 Sustainability and speed to market
3.4 Packaging the services
3.5 Applying visibility to existing services
3.6 New services or options within a service mix
4. OneAccess Solutions for improving Quality of Experience
4.1 OnePLUS for the Branch Office
4.2 ONE APM server - Application Performance Management Monitoring
4.3 The OneAccess AirBooster Application
1. Introduction
Businesses are increasingly dependent on the convenience and flexibility of remote access, mobile computing, hosted applications and new cloud services such as SaaS. This is driven by the needs to increase productivity through real time collaboration, provide the flexibility to address changing business conditions and meet lower or static ICT budgets. As a consequence, businesses exchange increasing volumes of data between multiple sites and remote users, which in turn increases their dependency on wide area networks (WANs) and mobile connections.
However, the bandwidth restrictions and latency effects of WAN and mobile connections drastically decrease application performance, and diminish the user experience – a trend exacerbated by new applications, increased traffic flows and media richness. To ensure high levels of application performance across the WAN, service providers need to identify and resolve problems before they impact the user experience or lead to customer churn and lost revenues. With this in mind, Quality of Experience (QoE) enhancements can be introduced, which pave the way to provide service differentiation and deliver new revenue streams.
2. The need for managed service innovation
Understanding what is happening on the network requires visibility into the numerous causes of poor application performance. This can range from applications that use dynamic content, such as video conferencing sessions, which quickly cause congestion on WAN connections; through uncontrolled growth of recreational web traffic which can slow the response times for business-critical applications; to poor server performance and uncontrolled bandwidth arbitration between applications. The consequences of these are often wrongly associated with the performance of the service provider’s managed service.
In addition, large and small businesses alike are struggling with the proliferation of mobile devices and applications as their IT budgets stagnate or decline as a percentage of enterprise revenue. As such, many businesses and CIOs will consider a pay-as-you-go cloud approach to replace legacy systems that do not support a mobile workforce. This places increasing demands for LAN-like performance on existing, limited wireless network resources.
The Growing
Problem
The Opportunity
The Benefits
• Performance degrades as apps go remote or mobile • Uncontrolled growth of web based applications
• The reach and availability gap of the new high speed services
• Growth of tablets & smart-phones
• Enhance existing services • Provide innovative Cloud and mobility services to small and large businesses
• Customer acquisition & retention • Revenue protection
• User satisfaction
• New revenue generation • Service differentiation
3. Delivering QoE solutions to businesses
3.1 The investment required
By focusing on QoE, service providers can enhance services with network intelligence for business applications: optimizing network resources to provide LAN-like performance for mobile users or branch office workers. This complements the ambitions of many businesses, which desire application performance improvements but do not have the budget necessary for their own dedicated solution. The required solutions approach involves building the necessary application intelligence to understand how the network is being used; agreeing business application priorities and implementing such policies; and finally monitoring and reporting on application performance so that they can be seen to meet service level guarantees.
With this in mind, the optimum approach is to provide the appropriate tools for measuring application performance, implementing policies and mitigating the impact of WAN network latency. These ‘application-aware’ technology tools can be provided as mobile clients on tablets and smartphones, embedded software on access routers or network appliances, and as a management application on a central server.
Measuring, assuring and improving the
user experience
is everything
Build Network
Intelligence
• Application Inventory • Selection of business critical applications • Assign service level objectives• Troubleshoot
Optimize Network
Resources
• Define Network-wide policies dor application prioritization• Throttle recreational traffic bandwidth • Monitor effect of prio-ritization on KPI
Reduce Distance to
Servers
• Mitigate impacts of deplays and losses • Reduce transfer times• Deploy more hosted apps with preserved QoE
3.2 Service Differentiation
Delivering QoE measures through application-aware technology allows service providers to enhance existing services and create new, differentiated ones. Traditionally, communications service providers have based their performance management and service level agreements (SLAs) on network level traffic management metrics, without monitoring the all important end-user experience. Application-aware technology enables service providers to extend their standard quality of service (QoS) SLAs to include guaranteed quality of experience from their business customers’ perspective.
For service providers operating in a competitive marketplace, application-aware technology provides a major service differentiator, plus opportunities for cloud enablement services into the SME business environment. Small businesses, for example, could be provided with an enhanced experience from their CRM system or SaaS services, while multi-site companies can better access their corporate applications using a range of VPN and heterogeneous access points. Additionally, by providing a unique and powerful application-aware mobile solution, service providers themselves can address today’s 3G application performance issues, whilst differentiating their mobile data services and unified communications (UC).
The reality is that the deployment of application-aware technology over the past decade has focused on large sites or locations where bandwidth costs are extremely high, and these projects have typically involved high cost solutions with complex and costly processes to justify the investment. Delivering an affordable solution to small businesses, branch office sites and mobile users demands a low cost solution, implemented in service provider CPE and client end-point devices, which can be remotely activated with low operational costs.
3.3 Sustainability and speed to market
Minimizing the cost of provisioning and maintenance is key to the profitability of services and has driven the popularity of mass customization solutions using standardized, preconfigured profiles to significantly reduce costs and set-up time.
Quality of Experience
measures can be delivered
as a set of ‘application
aware technology tools
embedded in user devices
and network resources
Where deployed, automatic configuration of on-premise devices, remote systems management, automatic patching of software updates and remote service activation can even enable zero- touch deployments.
By adding application-aware technology to this already powerful recipe, service providers will be able to achieve better operational efficiency and further competitive advantage, while business customers stand to benefit from lessinstallation issues, greater convenience and easier maintenance. Fundamentally, this approach helps service providers to better understand their customers’ usage, manage network capacity and predict future demand based on application performance and adoption rates.
3.4 Packaging the services
Today’s business market is very diverse, ranging from small businesses working from a single location supported by no internal IT staff, through to very large companies operating locally and internationally, with a mix of small and large sites, supported by a strong IT department.
An application-aware technology solution enables service providers to build multiple product offerings based on the different requirements of each customer type or industry segment. Service providers are able to create value-add for new and existing services to generate new revenues and increase average revenue per user (ARPU).
As shown in the “Building Premium Services” chart, service providers can enhance existing connectivity and hosting services by boosting the performance of critical applications. The value-add can be finessed further or specialized towards industry specific verticals, through the packaging of pre-configured application prioritization policies and management reporting.
3.5 Applying visibility to existing services
An important step towards delivering new QoE services is to introduce application visibility and monitoring capabilities to existing services. This allows service providers to make available a comprehensive view of application performance right down to site level, so that customers can see and assess bottlenecks.
This ‘visibility service’ also enables service providers to proactively identify application performance issues and determine whether the problem is related to bandwidth congestion, recreational traffic on the network, network latency, server performance or other related factors.
In many cases, service providers are able to add value by fine-tuning network level QoS in order to resolve application performance issues. This tuning is achieved using existing network management and configuration tools, where the implementation of advanced network control and optimization techniques cannot be justified. In other cases, it provides evidence to support the need for bandwidth upgrades to some, where it is practical to do so.
Current Services
Provide Application Visibility Dashboard Maximize Quality of Experience
Provide Quarterly Performance Tune-ups
Provide Quarterly Performance Guarantees
Building Premium Services
The visibility service provides additional value by demonstrating that a comprehensive improvement in application performance may require more than the fine-tuning of existing resources or a bandwidth upgrade; pinpointing the need for an advanced solution to improve QoE. The service then lends itself to further incremental revenue opportunities including ‘before and after’ reports, and ongoing proactive monitoring to maximize QoE. These visibility capabilities can be introduced as a basic service option adding value to existing services, which enables a pathway to more enhanced service delivery: 1. To identify applications and performance issues 2. Tune QoS and optimize existing network resources 3. Enable the deployment of advanced solutions to maximise QoE
The benefits of this approach are demonstrated in the table below:
Services
Business Benefits
Advantages
Service
Service Challenges
• IPVPNs
• 3G mobile data • Satellite access • Hosted email • Hosted security • Hosted Voice (IP Cen-trex)
• Remote office & server backup
• Improve end-user pro-ductivity
• Prioritize business- cri-tical applications • Improve application performance
• Solve congestion and bottlenecks
• Minimize technology complexity and risk • Reduce resources
• Revenue protection • Differentiated SLAs • Enhance monitoring & control with application visibility
• Address latency and bandwidth issues on 3G, long haul and satellite • Improve use of avai-lable network band-width
• Leverage demand for outsourced services • Improve use of existing network assets
• Requires an appliance for sites without appli-cation-aware routers • Roll-out of mobile clients to satisfy the mix of mobile devices and OS types
• Compatibility with WAN Optimization investments found in data centers
• Provide application intelligence for existing connectivity and hosted services
• See how applications behave glo-bally or per site and identify perfor-mance problems
• Enable fine tunning of network QoS to provide ‘basic appplication performance improvements’
• Identify sites where ‘advanced techniques’ will enhance QoE
• Keep application performance tuned for maximum QoE
1
Application
Visibility
All sitesTune Network
QoS
Most sitesImplement
Advanced
Techniques
Some sitesBasic Service Enhanced Service
2
3
3.6 New services or options within a service mix
Service providers can look to deploy innovative services to SMEs such as Unified Communications from the Cloud. Such services offer SMEs reduced costs, remove the burden from under-resourced IT functions, remain up-to-date with technology advances at minimum risk, and provide the flexibility to scale up or scale down as their business requires.
These services can be provided with the levels of application performance that businesses now demand or have come to expect, which are increasingly governed by the preferences of their individual users, who judge them on the quality of experience. The following tables provide examples of such services:
Enabling Services
Business Need
Advantages
Service
Challenges
Service
• Unified Communi-cations as a service (UCaaS)
• Real time sharing documents
• Provide business agi-lity/flexibility
• Less hassle • Pay as you grow • LAN-like perfor-mance
• Reduce resources
• Utilize existing WAN infrastructure fixed and mobile
• Improve use of cloud assets • Differentiated SLAs • Compatibility with WAN Optimization investments found in data centers
New Cloud Services for SMEs
Example service
Business Need
Advantages
Service
Challenges
Service
• Services for mobile workers with tablets Healthcare Policing
Field sales & support Logistics & warehousing Home working • Improve business productivity • LAN-like perfor-mance over the 3G • Provide business agility/flexibility
• Enhance Monitoring & Control with appli-cation-awareness • Reduce latency and bandwidth challenges on 3G cellular
• Easy deployment and service activation
• Support for multiple OS types
The OnePLUS solution from OneAccess delivers application-aware technology as an integrated software solution that combines powerful application performance monitoring (APM), with traf-fic management (NetControl), and acceleration and compression (NetBooster) capabilities. The solution boosts the QoE for applications delivered across a WAN, 3G or Wi-Fi networks through advanced acceleration and data compression techniques. Acceleration reduces the effects of latency and boosts throughput, whilst data compression and data redundancy elimination reduce the volume of data being transferred without reducing functionality.
NetControl software within the OneOS software incorporates a high-speed deep packet inspection (DPI) engine. By identifying and filtering non-essential network traffic, the NetControl function ensures bandwidth is prioritized for mission-critical applications. Completing the solution the NetBooster software combines TCP optimization and bi-directional compression techniques to enable LAN-speed data transfer rates from a remotely hosted server.
This technology has been designed for multiple deployment scenarios, from mobile clients and routers to powerful network appliances. Its unique flexibility allows service providers to creatively position and differentiate enhanced or new services, where previously it was not economically feasible.
4.1 OnePLUS for the Branch Office
For branch office network application visibility, control and acceleration needs to be provided across the WAN from the data center through to the remote sites. The OneAccess optimization application is fully integrated into the OneOS software on the latest generation of OneAccess multi-service premise based access routers. This functionality is available via a software licence and can be remotely enabled, so that premium services can be easily provisioned. The solution also integrates transparently with advanced networking features on OneAccess routers such as QoS, load balancing, WAN monitoring and encrypted IP-VPNs, allowing it to seamlessly operate with existing connectivity services.
IP VPN
Network Operation Center ONE1540 with OneOptimization ONE1540 with WXC2000 UDgateway WXB240 OneOptimization Data Center4.2 ONE APM server - Application Performance Management and
Monitoring
The ONEAPM server provides application performance management with traffic visibility at the application layer. Incorporating an intuitive management dashboard, ONEAPM provides admi-nistrators with the tools to ensure that application performance issues can be quickly pinpointed and resolved. The software runs as a multi-tenant application on a server in the service provider network operations center, and collects raw metrics exported by OneAccess routers or WAN Optimization appliances at remote sites. This enables service providers to offer a fully managed, hassle-free service to multiple customers, or provide the end user organization with performance visibility at their site.
The application can easily scale from small to large networks and provides global and site level views of applica-tion health. This visibility enables the quality of experience to be measured using an application performance index for each application, with reports on the top and preferred applications. Network administrators can distinguish between web-based business applica tions and standard recreational traffic over the web, and where suspicious traffic patterns occur, navigate through the interface to the specific problem
4.3 The OneAccess AirBooster Application
AirBooster is OneAccess’s unique and powerful solution to solve mobile application performance issues. AirBooster’s advanced optimization technology improves the speed and capacity of a typical 3G broadband connection by as much as 50 times enabling Android devices and tablet users to experience LAN-like performance when connecting to head office, enterprise data center, or cloud-based business applications.
The application is available as a downloadable client, so can be added to an App store, or a provi-sioning server. AirBooster connects via 3G or WiFi to a premises-based OneAccess multi-service access router with integrated optimization capabilities (such as the ONE-1540). Alternatively it can connect to an OneAccess Appliance (such as the WXC22500) located at the enterprise’s hea-dquarter or a data center.
and solve configuration issues, identify a malicious user and uncover server performance problems. The ONEAPM application is available under software license from OneAccess.
5. Conclusion
Businesses are increasingly dependent on the convenience and flexibility of remote access, mobile computing and hosted or cloud-based services. Cost savings and flexibility are major factors in driving the move towards cloud-based services, so it is important for service providers to provide consistent quality of application services. The explosive growth of tablets and smartphones demanding access to bandwidth hungry business applications presents service providers with significant capacity challenges.
Service providers can harness the power of their networks by offering businesses and their users a superior communications experience. By providing an end-to-end optimization process inte-grated into the network and endpoint devices, businesses with distributed and mobile users can experience applications as they were intended, with LAN-like responsiveness.
AirBooster extends the reach of service provider enabled WAN optimization capabilities to the tablets and smart devices that businesses needto deploy for improved workflows and increased productivity.
The sustainability of a software-driven approach and remote activation process provides service providers with operational efficiencies and a commercial strategy for the ‘as-a-service pay as you grow’ model. Such a solution enables service providers to build multiple product offerings based on different feature requirements and/or add value to existing services, creating value-add for new services, increasing ARPU and generating new revenues. The resulting superior communications experience assures aggregated revenue streams from business services while maximizing the quality of experience for business users.
An application-aware mobile solution enables service providers to exploit the growth in tablets and smartphones to ensure business investments maximize cost and efficiency benefits, opening opportunities to introduce premium services for 3G/4G business customers, generating new reve-nue streams and enhancing customer loyalty.
supplies routers to over 110 communications service providers including 4 of the top 5 largest telecoms operators in Europe. By using mass customization techniques OneAccess CPE solutions can be precisely tailored to meet the stringent demands of the business managed services market enabling superior performance, management, reliability and services innovation.
Smart Enterprise Access Solutions for Service Providers
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381 Avenue du Général de Gaulle, 92140 Clamart, France Phone: +33 (0)1.41.87.70.00 |
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