Automation of Capacity Management in Multi-Vendor Access Microwave Network
The wireless landscape has changed dramatically in a very short period of time. Not only is there greater capacity demand, but wireless networks themselves have become infinitely more complex because of growing interconnectedness, new technology innovations, and shifting patterns of user activity. All of these factors mean that capacity planning models also have to change. There are more variables to monitor and more scenarios to consider. At the same time, the consequences of not being able to accurately predict bandwidth demand loom larger than ever.
Section 1:What is Capacity Management?
Network Capacity Management is an ongoing process that involves continually assessing network utilization, traffic volumes, and traffic type to identify shortcomings that could cause performance chokepoints?affecting the end-user’s experience and to identify when and where upgrades are needed. Capacity Management takes baseline bandwidth utilization and compares it with latest usage trends to determine which Microwave links may require load-balancing or additional bandwidth allocation.
Section 2: Why is Capacity Management important?
Capacity Management is critical to service availability, reliability, and business continuity. The more traffic on the network, the more congested sites become, impacting user-experience. This is especially true with services such as VoIP or streaming applications: network delay and jitter due to increased network traffic can make some services unusable. Appropriate Capacity Management requires a delicate balance of resources and budget allocation to optimize utilization and return on investment (ROI).?
Without proactive and ongoing Capacity Management measures, organizations risk decreases employee productivity from degraded network performance, reduced customer satisfaction, Service-Level Agreements not being met, possible brownouts or complete downtime, all of which result ultimately in a poor experience for end-users.
Section 3:Key Metrics for Planning Network Capacity Management
Network operations teams often set a baseline for network performance. A key question they ask is: What is expected of the network when it is working properly? (Operating a network is a complex endeavor and, regardless of how much planning takes place, problems do occur.) Network engineers determine optimal performance thresholds, which can then be utilized by network management tools. Key metrics include:
·?Bandwidth?— the maximum rate that information can be transferred, typically measured in bits/second
·? Throughput?— the actual rate that information is transferred
·? Latency?— the delay between the sender and the receiver
·? Jitter?— the variation in packet delay at the destination source
·? Packet loss?— measured as a percentage of packets lost with respect to packets sent
·? Error rate?— the number of corrupted bits expressed as a percentage or fraction of the total sent
?Section 4: Factors to be considered for Capacity Management
Capacity Management has to be a strategic priority. The following are five new rules of day to Capacity Management:
4.1. BACKHAUL and NETWORK E2E TOPOLOGY
The cellular backhaul market is one of the fastest growing segments in the mobile industry, thanks to rapid growth in demand, and specifically the need for more capacity to support the transport of local wireless data traffic back to the Internet. Where a bundle of T1 lines to a cell site might have sufficed five years ago, today it's not uncommon to need multiple 10 Gig pipes connected to a single location.
Growth has led to more competition among backhaul providers, but unfortunately, it hasn't necessarily made arranging for new backhaul agreements faster or easier. Providers often sell capacity before they have a chance to build it out, which means it can take months to light up a new link even after a deal is closed.
Wireless carriers need to do significant advance planning in order to prepare for maximum capacity events before they happen. By monitoring traffic and creating threshold alerts at every link, network operators can determine where upgrades are needed and when those upgrades must occur. Carriers should also ensure that the backhaul providers they choose can meet necessary service level agreements. Detailed traffic reports at every backhaul site offer assurance that capacity demands are not only being met in the moment, but that there is room for growth in the future.
4.2. NIMBLE IN PERFORMANCE MONITORING
Telecom environments are a heterogeneous mix of hardware and software systems. Unfortunately, that diverse technology landscape makes it difficult to maintain end-to-end performance visibility and to understand network utilization at a granular level. With increases in new technologies, network operators need new ways to monitor activity in order to plan capacity upgrades effectively.
Performance monitoring systems should be agnostic in data collection. In addition to relying on standard, out-of-the-box measurement capabilities, carriers need to be able to adapt quickly as new hardware and software gets added to the telecom infrastructure. This means not just being able to monitor standard Cisco or Juniper routers, but also being able to incorporate measurement data from any third-party source, including network probes, proprietary business applications, element management systems, and more. Accurate and timely data reports are critical in capacity planning, and that means carriers have to be able to adapt quickly to avoid performance visibility gaps.
4.3. INCREASE POLLING FREQUENCY
Many network monitoring systems still rely on five-minute polling intervals to track bandwidth utilization. However, that cycle length can be highly misleading when it comes to analyzing micro bursts of traffic. A one-second spike in activity, for example, gets flattened out over a five-minute interval, making it difficult to get an accurate picture of bandwidth usage or to diagnose potential latency issues.
By increasing polling frequency, carriers can better see traffic spikes that would otherwise fly under the network management radar. These activity bursts can have a major impact on the customer experience, and need to be factored into capacity planning models. The greater the polling frequency, the more accurate the model.
4.4. AUTOMATE WITH ALGORITHMS
In order to understand where traffic patterns are headed, a network operator first needs to understand the usage patterns of the past. From a modeling perspective, carriers need to set trending baselines that illustrate normal traffic behavior over many months. Once those baselines are established, it's relatively easy to recognize when activity strays outside the norm. For example, there may be a short-term uptick in bandwidth usage every Fall when college students go back to school, but viewed in the context of an entire year's worth of data, that information doesn't necessarily mean that a carrier needs to increase capacity more quickly than planned.
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Capturing traffic data over a long period of time makes it easier to project bandwidth usage in the future. In addition to analyzing individual usage spikes, carriers can use historical data to generate algorithms for more sophisticated projection models. Once created, these algorithms help to automate the process of capacity management, showing network operators where growth is likely to take place well in advance of network overload.
4.5. REMEMBER, VOLUME ISN'T EVERYTHING
Knowing the amount of traffic on a network is important for capacity planning purposes, but so is knowing the composition of that traffic. Understanding the type of activity taking place can make a big difference in investment plans and even monetization strategy. For example, knowing how much customers are utilizing 4G broadband versus 3G can help operators determine how to allocate capacity across different services. Knowing how much bandwidth is being used by a single application can help a carrier analyze whether a different pricing structure would deliver better financial returns.
Capacity planning is a numbers game, but the best projection models take into account the value of different types of traffic. Volume isn't the only important variable.
Bandwidth is a critical resource, and creating an effective capacity planning strategy is well worth the investment. As networks grow more complex, utilization models have to advance as well. Following best practices for capacity planning enables carriers to reduce costs, explore new revenue opportunities, and stay competitive in an increasingly dynamic market.
Section 5: Network Scalability Matters
When looking into upgrading the on-premise system, scalable network technologies are the way to go. They’ll let network grow with organization need – and adapt to changing functions – while keeping budget under control. For example, look for flexible networking solutions that offer scaling capacity in somewhat of a grid-like manner, for things like adaption with future capacity demand, grabbing technological change, i.e specially in RAN part and on-demand requirements. The overall idea here is to make sure to choose proper platforms and deployment tactics that will allow to grow as system evolves.
Section 6: How the scalable solution works?
Innovation of Netoarc Solution Inc.
Section 7: Benefits of capacity management
Capacity management provides many benefits to an Telco organization and is a factor in overall management of a computing infrastructure.
In addition to ensuring that systems are performing at adequate levels to achieve a company's goals, capacity management can often realize cost savings by avoiding over-provisioning of hardware and software resources.
Good capacity management can also result in more-effective purchasing to accommodate future growth by being able to more accurately anticipate needs and, thus, make purchases when prices may be lower.
By constantly monitoring equipment and processing, problems that might have hindered production may be avoided, such as bottlenecks or imminent equipment failures.
Summary is: A better integration and framework between automated E2E?Service Topology database and Capacity Management Solution offer big advantages in terms of:
Conclusion
Capacity management is the broad term describing a variety of network resources monitoring, administration and planning actions that are taken to ensure that a infrastructure has adequate resources to handle current data processing requirements as well as the capacity to accommodate future loads. The zero touch automated solution/tool used here for capacity management is a robust orchestration framework and management system. Using automation, data pulling among several EMS and servers are accomplished within seconds with 100% accuracy and with real time data. Moreover the?multi vendor EMS platform?removes vendor dependency from our system.
Thank you!!
Monowar Hossain
HOD, Microwave Unit (Planning & Operation)
VEON, Bangladesh
E-mail:[email protected]
Mobile:+8801962424691