Tektronix Monitoring Solution for Mobile Networks

Features & Benefits

• • UMTS Iub Deciphering: Deciphers all Messages on the Iub Interface in Real-Time. Facilitates Troubleshooting by Enabling Full Access to the Content of all Frames
  • H324.M Protocol Suite, HSDPA Protocol Suite, EDGE Test Suite, Troubleshooting Video Telephony Services, and Interactive Multimedia Services
  • Multi Interface Call Trace: an Expert Software that correlates all related messages within and between SS7, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, cdmaONE, and CDMA2000 Networks, Enabling Fast and Easy Identification of Problems From the Symptom to the Root Cause.
  • H324.M KPI and Video Quality Analysis: Enables Videotelephony Troubleshooting and Quality of Service analysis.
  • Application Layer Analysis: Enables Service Level Troubleshooting and Usage Pattern Analysis of key GERAN services such as Voice, WAP, SMS, POP3, FTP, SMTP and HTTP.
  • Auto-configuration Capabilities Ensure fast and easy setup of measurements and allows Troubleshooting to begin within minutes
  • Availability of E1/DS1/J1, STM-1/OC-3c, 10/100 Fast Ethernet Monitoring Cards With High Port Density Along With Fixed Network, SS7, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, cdmaONE, and CDMA2000 Protocol Decoding
  • Stream to Disk Capabilities for Subsequent Off-line Analysis
  • NTP- and GPS Synchronization Along With the File Merge Application Permits Distributed Multi-site Monitoring
  • Hardware Filters for STM-1/OC-3 based UTRAN Interfaces Allows Network Analysis Under Heavy Load

Applications

• • GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/cdmaONE/CDMA2000 Mobile Network Operators’ Operation and Maintenance Technicians for Troubleshooting Live or Trial Networks Under Significant Traffic Load Conditions
  • GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/cdmaONE/CDMA2000 Equipment Manufactures’ Test Engineers for Troubleshooting During Load, Stress, Duration, and Acceptance Tests of Network Elements

Breakthrough Solution for Mobile Network Troubleshooting

The K15 is the Tektronix dedicated monitoring solution for mobile network testing, based on a high performance transportable platform equipped with real-time powerful troubleshooting applications and designed to handle the demanding high performance requirements of mobile networks.

Platform

The Compact-PCI compliant platform houses a PC running Windows XP Embedded operating system and up to five Application Boards in a small, easily transportable box. A complete operator interface is provided on the front panel, including a 15” XGA color display and attachable keyboard with touch pad. A central front foot allows optimal viewing angle. The top cover opens to the rear, and can be left in place in order to protect from dust even when cables are connected.

Top access is provided for up to six CompactPCI boards that are housed vertically, and for a dual-slot plug-in AC Power Supply. Five slots are available for Interface/Measurement Application Boards; the sixth slot is equipped with a 1.8 GHz Pentium M CPU board, which also provides one free PMC slot for RAM memory upgrades. The backplane is compliant with the telecom extension of CompactPCI (H.110/PICMG2.5) and provides access to four system-wide clock/sync signals. Each K15 unit can act as a synchronization master or slave; GPS input is also supported.

There are four USB 2.0 interfaces (backward compatible with USB 1.0 and USB 1.1) available. Powerful Internal Mass Storage capabilities are provided by means of two RAID0 SATA HD drives with a capacity >250 GB each, >500 GB in total.

A standard AC97 Sound Codec and Line IN/Line OUT and MIC IN via 3.5 mm phone jacks provides standard sound capabilities.

An Intelligent Platform Management subsystem provides flexible management of platform ID, temperatures, fans and other system values, allowing also low acoustic noise in low-power-consumption applications.

Automatic UMTS Iub Deciphering

The UMTS Iub Deciphering application consists of an expert software capable of automatically deciphering all the ciphered protocol messages traveling on the UMTS Iub interface in real-time. All the necessary parameters needed for deciphering are collected automatically by the instrument by monitoring the Iu interface.

Powerful Auto-Configuration

The Auto-Configuration application shortens and simplifies the setup of measurements allowing troubleshooting activities to begin within only minutes. Using powerful detection algorithms, the Auto-Configuration application independently determines the network configuration on interfaces such as Iub and GPRS A-bis/EDGE and configures the K15 accordingly.

Multi Interface and Multi-Technology Call Trace

The Multi Interface Call Trace and Multi-Technology Call Trace applications are expert software that helps trace calls/sessions in real-time and off-line as they evolve over multiple interfaces.

Simple parameters such as the IMSI are used to identify the subscriber identity and to trigger the search. The call/session can even be traced if the identifying parameters change dynamically during the transactions (for example IMSI, P-TMSI), as well as if it spans over multiple interfaces (such as Iub - Iu-PS - Gr) and involves different network elements (like Node B, RNC, HLR).

The GUI allows drill-down troubleshooting from the problem symptom to the root cause with a single mouse-click.

The Overview Window lists detected calls/sessions and highlights their status at a glance (normal, failed) for quick identification of problems. This allows easy filtering out of calls that are not of interest for the particular test being performed (normal calls).

The Arrow Diagram graphically shows the message flow (arrows) of the call/session and the involved network elements (vertical lines) in a highly intuitive way. Deep protocol knowledge is no longer required to perform expert level troubleshooting .

For in-depth troubleshooting of the problem’s root cause, all details about the protocol messages and their parameters are shown in the Detailed Monitor Window.

Supported interfaces are:

• SS7/GSM (ISUP, INAP, CAP, MAP)
• GPRS/EDGE (Abis, A, Gb, Gr, Gn/Gp)
• UMTS (Iub, Iu-PS, Iu-CS)
• cdmaONE/CDMA2000 (A1, A10/A11)

H.324M Video Telephony QoS Analysis

By tracking H.324M video calls on the Iu-CS or CORE interfaces, the H.324M Video Telephony QoS Analysis application enables users to:

• Calculate H.324M key performance indicators (KPI) to speed-up troubleshooting activities.
• Extract the H.324M video/audio stream to assess its quality.
• Look and listen at video calls to assess the customer perceived quality of service.
• Extract the video stream in .3gp format for subsequent in-depth off-line video quality analysis with the Tektronix MTS4EA Software Suite.

GERAN Application Layer Analysis

By monitoring both control and user plane details on the GERAN interfaces, the Application Layer Analysis provides K15 users with an insight into how end users use and experience common GERAN applications. With a dashboard overview highlighting areas requiring further investigation, the GERAN Application Layer Analysis application enables users to:

• Quickly identify under-performing or rarely used services and applications
• Easily identify the cells and services that result in low QoE due to dropped calls, low throughput, slow RTT, etc.
• Determine capacity requirements needed to support the services and applications used by end-customers
• Direct access to the individual sessions allowing fast and focused troubleshooting of issues which require further investigation

Protocol Analysis

The K15 monitors a wide range of SS7, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, cdmaONE, and CDMA2000 protocols, and features a graphical user interface that allows easy visualization of protocol messages with increasing level of details, along with easy to use powerful filtering capabilities.

Distributed Monitoring Applications

The K15 embeds all the fundamental building blocks for a distributed monitoring architecture.

The Remote Desktop capabilities allow the K15 to:

• Reduce technicians traveling cost and time, by allowing operations to be centralized
• Reduce the time needed to solve problems, as inexperienced technicians in remote sites can be supported by skilled personnel at headquarters
• Maximize use of experts at headquarters, because troubles can be analyzed in real-time without waiting for the technicians to collect traces

With the NTP and GPS synchronization capabilities, the K15:

• Reduces the time needed to identify the root cause of a problem: with the new multi-interface call trace, all interfaces and network elements in the problem domain can be analyzed simultaneously
• Grows with the needs of the user: if one instrument is not enough to cope with an increasing number of interfaces, additional test systems can be added and synchronized with the existing units
• Deals with the high complexity problems typically observed in 2.5/3G networks: investigating the issues which occur in next generation mobile infrastructures requires the ability to measure simultaneously and time synchronized at multiple interfaces in different geographic locations

The capability to stream protocol data to a hard drive while simultaneously conducting real time analysis allows the K15 to:

• Collect a large amount of data for subsequent analysis by using a simple recording pipeline that stores monitored protocol data in to an internal HD, to an external HD or to a network file system
• Merge data collected from different instruments at different sites by using an easy-to-use File Merge application
• Use previously collected data to perform offline analysis by using our offline or post-processing software

Multi-User Environment

Already in earlier releases, the K15 became a true multi-user test system. Five users can work completely independently yet concurrently on the same K15 hardware connected to one server. Now, with the 2.40 release, the multi-user feature is extended further to allow the merging of information from multiple K15 units. The system is scalable with additional servers. Multi-user offers full functionality with full performance and results in each user being able to carry out real time analysis using data from all test ports.

Interfaces Available on the K15 Hardware Platform