Carriers look to assure IoT performance and security
Scott Sumner, Accedian
The Internet of Things will lead to a torrent of mobile network traffic, writes Scott Sumner, the vice president of solutions marketing at Accedian. Most carriers welcome the IoT as good news as they look to get ROI on their network investments while fuelling a transition to 5G. Carriers sorely need both in order to survive in an age of declining margins, fierce competition for subscribers, and the challenge from new communications and content providers.
But the IoT does not come in a single one size fits all package. Applications such as video security surveillance and telemedicine have a relentless need for bandwidth. At the same time, critical patient monitoring sensors, industrial automation and connected cars require relatively little in the way of network capacity, but require ultra-low latency transmission, high mobility – or both. Failure to deliver this quality of service could literally have life or death implications. Some apps are chatty, some stream at a regular rate. Many use proprietary protocols, the list goes on.
While carriers must accommodate so many variables from different services, one thing is certain: each IoT application will leave its own distinct mark on the mobile network in some way.
The IoT will compete with existing voice and data services for precious capacity and resources in the mobile network. Services like VoLTE, data access for roaming subscribers, and content delivery make up the lion’s share of today’s revenue for operators, and will need to coexist in the network alongside the wave of IoT-based traffic that’s about to arrive.
Carriers must strike a real-time balance between the different traffic types in their ever more complex networks – and at a time when quality of experience (QoE) is more than ever becoming an operator’s prime differentiator. Ten times more apps, 100 times more devices, and 1000 times increased bandwidth – expected by 2020 – all have to be managed efficiently and securely, the GSMA said in October 2015.
The increased surface area, growth and densification of access points makes monitoring the IoT, on a per-thing quality of service (QoS) basis, extremely challenging – especially when you consider the security of the network. The sheer variation of services available will prove too much for existing monitoring platforms, application analysers and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) to handle. Emerging visibility technologies that can now form a virtualised instrumentation layer, will be required. In a way, performance assurance, policy enforcement and security of the IoT needs to use the concepts of the IoT to secure and assure itself.
Carriers must introduce methods that employ smart SFPs, virtual test agents, and SDN-inspired virtual instrumentation controllers to create ubiquitous visibility over the IoT as it taxes the mobile network. By creating a ‘bot net’ of QoE and security sensors, operators can, firstly, capture flows of interest at targeted or all locations in the network to bring anywhere, anytime visibility to analysers. They can then also provide low-bandwidth active test and detection methods that will alert central systems when, and where, high definition analysis and localised intervention is required.
There are several examples of large scale implementations by global tier one operators including SK Telecom, Telefónica and T-Mobile, where they have integrated these methods. By adopting big data analytics, benefiting from SDN control, and deep learning systems to provide monitoring at IoT scale, these operators have managed to overcome enormous complexity to maintain service quality differentiation for all services. These include all innovative and critical IoT applications.
These techniques will also serve these operators well in managing their upgrade paths from 4G to 5G. There is a clear link between the value of prescriptive analytics and network automation in delivering further bandwidth and QoE improvements for 5G. The need to simplify the network, bring in QoS control and build a low-latency, high-bandwidth capacity pool to distribute rich services as and when needed, is central to ensuring 5G becomes a reality. The rise of SDN and NFV serve as key enablers of this functionality. The same principles are spawning the new tools required to monitor QoE, and keep it in check.