Napatech Enables Monitoring Of Mobile Data Networks

“Mobile networks have traditionally been based on telecom protocols with significant management overhead built into the protocol itself. This is not the case with IP, which allows IP networks to be more flexible, but means that network management needs to be handled differently. For example, for performance monitoring, analysis and troubleshooting of IP networks, dedicated network appliances are required. These solutions already exist in enterprise networks where they have proven their value many times over. Now this technology can be applied to the challenges of mobile data networks”, said Erik Norup, President of Napatech Inc.

Napatech has recently added key features to its widely deployed intelligent real-time network analysis adapters to support mobile data networks. These include full and comprehensive support for IPv6 including relevant extension header, a requirement for LTE, which will require an IPv6 address in each hand-held device. Napatech has also included support for automatic recognition of key tunneling protocols used in mobile data networks, such as SCTP, GRE and GTP. This allows intelligent flow definition based on which tunneling protocol is being used. It also allows these flows to be intelligently distributed to multiple CPUs allowing parallel processing of mobile data.

These features enable real-time network and application performance monitoring of mobile user data as well as analysis of control data. With 10 Gbps capture-to-disk, it is also possible to capture mobile data traffic for later forensic analysis and troubleshooting.

Napatech will be demonstrating its intelligent real-time network analysis adapters at the Mobile World Congress from the 15th to the 18th of February in Barcelona, Spain on stand 2G28.