Data capture parameters can be defined by users, including full-line-rate data capture, IP headers only, filtering control-plane data for LTE, Iub or Gb traffic, specified packet length and other BPF packet filtering criteria. Once defined, data is filtered and recorded to local storage using configurable sequenced recording options based on time or file size limits. Common PCAP and enhanced PCAP file formats and open interfaces allow flexible integration to open standards-based applications and post-processing.
iPro timestamps every captured packet to 10 ns, providing extremely accurate timestamp resolution for the most demanding applications. Multiple iPro systems can be synchronized by using NTP or GPS clock sources.
Each captured IP connection can be presented in the iPro’s GUI, which includes throughput graphs and tables, with common net-flow parameters. Users can select or aggregate individual connections and extract data for further analysis. Real-time statistics are also provided for network health monitoring.
iPro can also play back the capture files. Recorded network events can be transmitted back to Ethernet with adjustable packet rate, allowing users to reproduce past network situations.
User-Plane Analysis
The optional Diagnostics Suite client application, when runs on a separate PC, allows reading of ready-flow records from the iPro IP Session Flow and QoS Analysis database. It can easily point interesting network flows, sessions and conversations as all data is visualized in different tables where flows can be filtered, grouped or sorted. With the Diagnostics Suite application, users can analyze individual IP flows and provide information such as the source and destination IP addresses, ports, protocols, locations, origins, throughput, amount of transferred data values, etc. Users can also see information such as VLAN tags, Q-in-Q, MPLS, GTP TEIDs as well as the flow data for tunneled IP connections that are especially used in mobile networks like PS Core and LTE. The Diagnostics Suite application provides GTP-C session information for LTE and Gn interfaces such as call parameters, bearer information, call duration and message statistics.
The Diagnostics Suite application also provides advanced quality of service (QoS) and key performance indicator (KPI) graphs including charts and diagrams for statistics and traffic distribution and throughput per individual or aggregated flows and sessions. Administrators can easily follow up bandwidth usage for specific connections. As for QoS and service-level agreement (SLA) measurements, graphs are available for the most important QoS KPIs, such as throughput and jitter.
Moreover, Diagnostics Suite enables maximum analysis accuracy of applications with the use of deep packet inspection technology, enabling application identification and classification with key parameters provided for each application as well. Application quality measurements are easily performed with pre-defined QoS analysis views, e.g., for subscriber’s quality of experience (QoE), top websites, web traffic QoS and audio/video analysis.