Whitepaper AXTRACT d00606

On-Device QoE MonitoringIntroducing Axiros AXTRACT TR-069 Monitoring Appliance

Axiros White Paper

On-Device QoE

Monitoring Via TR-069

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34

85635 Munich Hoehenkirchen

T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

Executive SummaryThe Strategic Importance of On-Device Monitoring

Transparency about Quality of Experience is accepted as critical success

factor for IP service delivery within the consumer world, not only for IPTV

but also for Voice and other IP services. Within the paper we demonstrate,

that a new highly specialized component, the Axiros AXTRACT server, can

be utilized in a 100% non intrusive way, to turn the delivery devices (CPEs)

into sophisticated probes for the service quality.

It will be shown that existing auto provisioning infrastructures, based on the TR-069

protocol suite, are an ideal basis to start On-Device QoE monitoring right away, using the

Axiros AXTRACT appliance.

Further, AXTRACT can significantly help the support in troubleshooting processes by

supplying a historic view on the service quality, on the average for arbitrary groups or down

to a single device, including changes of service related parameters near realtime. It can

deliver on time information about quality status from other devices in the service delivery

chain, when one device reported an error.

AXTRACT is answering KPI related investigations like

￭ Which gateways in the field deliver the best/worst WAN quality

￭ Is packet loss on the uplink the major source for streaming errors on the set top box

￭ Is there significant difference in how different STB vendors handle packet loss

which might influence purchasing decisions.

Further AXTRACT, equipped with meta data can deliver service usage related information

like

￭ How quickly are customers “zapping” away in advertisement periods

￭ To which extent is zapping related to WAN quality

￭ Is there a significant portion of unconnected HDMI cables

￭ How often are subscribers redialing the same number on their voice handsets

Answers to questions related to information from the devices themselves can contribute

significantly to QoE analyses, turning the CPEs themselves to probes for the overall service quality.

AXTRACT Monitoring Appliance 2

exec

utiv

e su

mm

ary

Axiros GmbH

Altlaufstr. 34

85635 Munich HoehenkirchenGermany

T +49 8102 80655 - 00F +49 8102 80655 - 01

[email protected]

AXTRACT can also support existing ACS processes when raw performance is needed,

e.g. at mass firmware downloads or emergency updates. It takes care of shielding the

ACS as an increasingly critical component from potential attacks from the field.

Last but not least, AXTRACT’s ultra fast data aggregation, consolidation and visualization

performance is key for delivering value added services, including but not restricted to

central subscriber portals, smart metering or intelligent home applications, completely

centrally managed.


exec

utiv

e su

mm

ary

About This DocumentTable of Contents / Revision History

Scope and Prerequisites 5

.....................................................................................................Collected Data / QoE 5

.............................................................................Beyond Data Models: RunCommand 7

On-Device QoE Monitoring 9

Configuration vs. On-Device Monitoring 9

What Is QoE And (How) Can It Be Monitored On-Device? 10

Troubleshooting and Support 11

Besides QoE: General Relevance of Southbound Performance 12

AXTRACT Key Features 15

Built In Features of AXTRACT 16

Legacy Device Support 20

Extension Modules (APPS) 21

Deployment Strategies 26

Requirements 26

Actively Sending Connection Requests 27

Passively Awaiting and Processing Periodic TR-069 Informs 28

....................................................................................................................Discussion 28

Deployment Topologies 29

.........................................................................................Proxying Productive TR-069 30

.............................................................................................Setup Parallel to the ACS 32

Appliance Specifications 33

Monitoring Server: AXTRACT Appliance (AXTRACT.5K) 33

About Axiros 35


Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

met

a in

form

atio

n

Revision History

Version

0,1

0,2

0,3

0.3.1

Date Remarks Release Status

10 / 2008 Initial Version Draft, Internal

11 / 2009 Design Change / New CI Draft, Restricted Access

05 / 2010

Rebranding to AXTRACT. Transparent mode.

New Use Cases based on Input from 2010‘s TM

Forum Management World

Draft, Restricted Access

05 / 2010Slight Information and

Design ImprovementsDraft, Restricted Access

Audience￭ Operator Network / Support / IT / Marketing Decision Makers & Technical Experts

￭ Operator Product Management

￭ Device Management Experts In General (Design, Implementation, Testing)

Scope and Prerequisites

This paper focusses on explaining how but also why existing TR-069 ACS setups can and

should be refined by adding the Axiros AXTRACT monitoring appliance to collect QoE /

QoS monitoring data in large quantities from the managed devices, without overloading

the ACS.

The following sections outline that AXTRACT is a generic and open approach to on-device

monitoring, not dependent on specific KPIs or proprietary protocols but by making full use

of industry standard vendor independent methods and possibilities.

1. Collected Data / QoE

In the paper it is not illustrated which data is available on which device classes.


Axiros GmbH . www.axiros.com . info.axiros.com

met

a in

form

atio

n

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

http://www.axiros.com


In general there is to say that the TR-069 standard suite - Technical Reports (TRs) and

Working Texts (WTs) - defines a vast amount of low and high level relevant monitoring

KPIs, including link status, packet statistics but also data, voice and video quality.

As an example from the area IPTV the following KPI/KPQ table shall demonstrate which

areas of QoE (as defined by TR-126 as as “the overall performance of a system from the

point of view of the users”) are covered by on-device available data

WT-160 Categories

IPTV Portal Information

Retrieval Time

IPTV Service Access Time

IPTV Channel Switching

Time

IPTV Video on Demand

Access Time


Access Success Ratio


Completion Ratio


Control Response

IPTV Media Quality

IPTV Packet Loss

IPTV Channel Availability

IPTV Video without

Disturbance

TR-126 QoE Objective

TR-135 Support

Global Operation

Average Response Time

Global Operation

Service Access Time

Video Response Stats

Average Video System Response


Average Video System Response


Access Successes, Access Failures


Access Successes, Completion Count


Average VoD Control Response

Metric Data

Metric Value

RTP Stats

Packets Expected, Packets Received, Gmin, Loss Event, Severe Loss

N.A.

N.A.

Note that the right column shows only a small subset of available parameters on a TR-135

STB.



met

a in

form

atio

n

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



We refer to the relevant parameter specifications available to be downloaded from the

broadband world forum’s site1 for a full overview of which data is already well defined

within data models of the TR-069 suite.

2. Beyond Data Models: RunCommand

For the reader totally unfamiliar with the RunCommand TR-069 extension, we give a short

overview within this section. Please contact Axiros in case further technical information is

required.

By defining the data models for various device types the Broadband Forum achieved great

clarity in specifying what diagnostic tooling can be expected at minimum from a certain

device type today.

Device vendors usually deliver also a vast amount of vendor specific parameters,

extending the specified standard data models.

Still, there remains a critical gap between information available within data models plus

their vendor specific parameters and the real state of the device and it’s natively available

features.

The solution is to realize that TR-069 is not restricted to data models and vendor specific

parameters only - vendor specific calls can as well be added, when extended

management functionality is required within operators’ environments.

That possibility was not heavily used in auto provisioning until Axiros suggested a

“RunCommand” extension, which is a vendor specific call, trivially to implement for the

vendor.

RunCommand is a bridge to the native command flow via TR-069, so that the ACS has full

access to the underlying OS, doing away with the need for vendor specific parameters

covering special needs.

We summarize the main advantages of RunCommand:

￭ Slim and reliable device communication stacks, saving development cost, CPU and

space on the devices

￭ Efficient utilization of network, consolidating information already on the devices instead

of on the server (e.g. log files but also decisions on how to handle multiple state

changes)


1 http://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/trlist.php


met

a in

form

atio

n

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



￭ Normalizes available device information, drastically reducing normalization effort within

the server workflows and vendor specific differences on it’s northbound interfaces 2

￭ Key for proactive monitoring, i.e. directly on the devices, e.g. to restart a process when

CPU consumption is over upper boundaries

￭ Key for triggering management flows at arbitrary state changes on the devices, far

beyond TR-069’s change notifications

￭ Key enabling technology for business router management via TR-069 as well as

centralizing the device portal allowing management access to all features of the devices

￭ Turns TR-069 into a carrier for non IP based smart home protocols (Z-Wave, ZigBee,

others) driven via the TR-069 gateway from the central office

￭ RunCommand, due to it’s trivial implementation and negligible stack size, is further key

for getting devices into the managed set where no data model yet is defined, e.g.

personal computers and even smart home / smart metering equipment

￭ Solves TR-069‘s index number uncertainties

￭ Solves the problem of disconnects between device’s data model configuration state

and real state

Axiros AXTRACT is fully supporting RunCommand, i.e. can synthesize and parse arbitrary

command flows and results as well as arbitrary TR-069 Data Models.


2 This refers to the fact that offered data models at the devices are increasingly different from each other - data models are (like SNMP MIBs) subject to heavy insertion of vendor specific parameters. Since also the index numbers of parameters are not fix in TR-069, the normalization effort is significant from device to device.


met

a in

form

atio

n

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



On-Device QoE MonitoringIntroducing Axiros AXTRACT TR-069 Monitoring Appliance

Consumer IP service provisioning on the one hand and monitoring of IP

services on the other require very different technical challenges to be

overcome. Provisioning involves tight integration with OSS/BSS services

and operator specific business logics to be able put the right configuration

at the right time onto the right device(s). Whereas sufficiently frequent

monitoring of Voice Video and/or Data consumer type services involves

mainly one problem: The ability to handle and consolidate a vast amount of

data from the field.

In this proposal Axiros advances it’s AXTRACT solution3, which handles

large scale monitoring of devices when a provisioning solution is already in

place, without interfering with its provisioning and real time support flows.

Configuration vs. On-Device Monitoring

With the advent of TR-069 in late 2004, centralized consumer device provisioning became

feasible on a large scale and quickly found it’s way into the centralized infrastructures of

carriers and ISPs.

TR-069 ACS servers today take care for handling

￭ Association of factory reset devices to subscriber profiles by means of network port

detection, subscriber self identification or preregistration of devices

￭ Provisioning of initial personal settings for data, voice, video and other services onto

those devices

￭ Enabling real time support flows, i.e. online checks, configuration checks whenever the

subscriber calls with a problem

￭ Firmware upgrades

Flexibility counts here, i.e. the ability of the ACS to adapt to the OSS/BSS service

parametrization and the different ways those services are to be enabled on those devices.


3 See also Proceedings Broadband World Forum 2008, Brussels: Invited Speech Gunther Klessinger, Axiros, at JDSU Panel (D4): “Service Assurance in the Home Network – The End-to-End Service View and Its Most Critical Component”. After extensive tests in production in Q1/Q2 2010 the solution was commercially released during the 2010 Management World of TM Forum in Nice, winning a catalyst project together with JDSU and Bull (“Driving the costs out of IPTV”)

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

intr

oduc

tion

Signaling back and forth between ACS and OSS/BSS, both synchronous and

asynchronous, is vital. The ability of the ACS to pass every hit from a device through a

sophisticated set of operator specific rules, which might involve communication with

backend resources is key for service aware Device Management.

Naturally, these requirements have significant impact of overall turnaround times of device

transactions - ACS servers serve at roughly at round about 100 requests per second -

which is enough for even very high scale provisioning setups, where around 1-5

transactions per device per day are to be expected.

Not so for IP service level monitoring: When rolling out data, video or voice services on a

large scale, very high frequent service related KPI measurements on the devices

themselves and consolidation of that data against reference and quality data from backend

resources like service delivery platforms or backend network related data into meaningful

and fine grained statistics has turned out to be a key success factor.

Therefore desired granularity of measurements to be able to backtrack QoE problems

sufficiently well is in the range of minutes per device4, leading to transaction rates of 100 -

1500 transactions per device per day !

What Is QoE And (How) Can It Be Monitored On-Device?

Broadband Forum TR-126 “Quality of Experience for Triple Play Services” defines Quality

of Experience (QoE) as “the overall performance of a system from the point of view of the

users. QoE is a measure of end-to-end performance at the services level from the user

perspective and an indication of how well the system meets the user’s needs.” QoE is thus

in a sense the only figure of merit that truly matters to the customer of any broadband

delivery system. ‘Do I, the user enjoy this experience, does it meet my needs’.

QoE is inherently subjective, objective measures of service quality, QoS measurements,

such as error seconds, degraded packets, latency times, jitter and so forth only have

importance when they can be related to the experiences of real viewers of video

programming in their own homes.

So the answer to the headline question is: QoE can’t be measured on the devices alone. It

must be correlated and consolidated against information from systems other than the

service delivering devices in the homes like the service delivery platform or probes within

the traffic path.

But it is a trivial to see, that any approach to deliver information about end user experience

is highly dependent on information very frequently measured on that same device the end

user is directly connected to, when consuming the service.


4 In general the more the better. 5 minute polling intervals per device have turned out to be a good compromise between polling load and analytic possibilities.


intr

oduc

tion

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



As an example we show a screenshot from JDSU’s Home PM umbrella monitoring

system5:

The most relevant data for the conclusions of such a QoE expert system is delivered from

the remote gateway (“RG Stats”). From these it can derive precise error prevention

measures - without that information from the delivery device itself the system’s would be

restricted to information from backend resources and a (restricted) set of probes in the

field.

Troubleshooting and Support

What about the relevance of on-device data for troubleshooting and customer support?

The following graph (kindly forwarded from JDSU) depicts the fact that around 50% of all

problems in triple and quad play offerings happen within the homes, due to the

heterogenous environments found there.


5 The product introduced in this white paper ships with JDSU Home PM interfaces by default


intr

oduc

tion

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Furthermore problems within the customer premises are very expensive to fix as well, often

involving truck rolls and / or technicians on site.

Therefore, ongoing service quality monitoring directly on the end devices, within the

customer premises themselves is a most obvious thing to do - if the performance to do it

would be available on the central office.

Besides QoE: General Relevance of Southbound Performance

More and more devices within the homes are shipped with IP stacks, making them ready

running business logic defined elsewhere, in management applications, local or central.

TR-069 stacks have been defined for printers, NAS devices or power plugs. Even

“whiteware” (refrigerators, ovens, others) is getting into the manageable set of devices.

Building centrally managed infrastructures alone for value added services in the field of

home device management (‘the managed fridge’) was never justified be a solid business

case. But with the advent of TR-069 that infrastructure is there anyway - so that putting

VAS on top of it is now obvious.

￭ Centralized management of the router, although deployed for different reasons6 has

become a key technology for centrally managed home network applications involving a

multitude of devices. Centralized subscriber portals allow convenient access to those

applications. Content served by those central portals is mediated for different consumer

devices, turning e.g. the mobile phone into a remote control for the home.


6 The classical TR-069 ACS tasks: Plug and Play provisioning of basic data and voice services, firmware upgrades and real time support


intr

oduc

tion

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



￭ Central help desks can now fully support the customers in case of problems.

￭ TR-069 and the RunCommand call are key for non IP based7 smart home applications,

based on sensors reading out volume, temperature, humidity (...), with the information

transferred to and from the server, via the TR-069 gateway.


7 ZigBee, Z-Wave, others


intr

oduc

tion

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Summary:

The industry migration towards centrally managed smart home applications and / or smart

metering offerings is increasing the shear amount of data to be read from the field

drastically, with amounts of managed devices often in the two digit range per managed

home environment and granularity of readings within the minutes range.

To enable and drive all of these applications Axiros has developed technologies to...

￭ process

￭ inspect

￭ DB write

￭ load balance / proxy

￭ consolidate

...TR-069 application layer calls at a rate of over 5000 transactions per second per node -

the Axiros AXTRACT server.

AXTRACT technology is available as appliance8 or as software package to run on third

party server hardware9.


8 In the paper we refer to the appliance solution throughout.

9 Intel Architecture, 2 (XEON) CPU 4 Core, 4Gig RAM


intr

oduc

tion

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



AXTRACT Key FeaturesTransparent Data Aggregation At Ultra High Performance

Guiding design policy for AXTRACT was transparency to any given ACS.

Further there should be no need to adjust settings on the ACS when

deploying AXTRACT. AXTRACT refines any given TR-069 setup but not

collides with anything the ACS does. That goal was reached.

The principal process of inserting the appliance leaves the ACS server(s) untouched as

schematically depicted below.

Data Storage / Dashboard

Axiros AXTRACT(Transparent for ACS)

Data Consumerse.g. Umbrella Monitoring

(JDSU)

Management /Internet

Management /Internet Provisioning / Real Time Support Load

TR-069 ACS (unchanged)

Monitoring Load

TR-069 ACS(Provisioning, Real Time Support))


Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

feat

ures

Built In Features of AXTRACT

￭ Scalability to thousands of interactions and consolidation runs per second, suitable for

millions of devices

￭ Fully transparent to existing ACS traffic

￭ The properties to be collected can be freely defined per device group, so AXTRACT can

monitor any attribute the device offers and can be used in various service scenarios like

VoIP, IPTV but also Smart Home / Smart Metering, to collect information delivered by

various sensors within the home networks

￭ Fully redundant cluster setup supported for HA and further increased performance.

￭ High availability in non cluster mode through IP failover to a secondary AXTRACT server

￭ Setup Wizard for convenient and straight forward base setup



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



￭ Integrated Dashboard to control the appliance as well as to create reports on the

collected data

￭ Flexibility in aggregation, storage and export of the collected data



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



￭ Cross device analyses, taking into account all devices of a service chain (e.g. gateway

and set top box)



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



￭ Out of the box support for JDSU’s Home PM umbrella monitoring and QoE expert

system10 as data consumer on AXTRACT’s northbound side.

The illustration demonstrates the principal architecture for the case of IPTV QoE end to

end monitoring, as shown in 2010’s Telemanagement Forum’s Management World

convention, within a ‘Catalyst’11 project (Driving the Costs out of IPTV).


10 http://www.jdsu.com/products/communications-test-measurement/products/a-z-product-list/sas-pm.html

11 http://www.tmforum.org/DrivingtheCostsOut/8482/home.html


feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Legacy Device Support

AXTRACT can be equipped with legacy device handlers, turning open synchronous

management protocols into asynchronous TR-069 on the AXTRACT server.

OSS/BSS

Loadbalancer(s)

TR-069

Non TR-069

HTML

TR-069, TR-098

PC With TR-069 Client

TR-069

SSH / SNMPTelnet

TR-069

Primary ACS Cluster

Secondary ACS Cluster

AXTRACT ClusterManagement /Internet

Supported protocols:

￭ SNMP

￭ TELNET

￭ SSH

￭ HTTP

In contrast to using TR-069 as monitoring protocol, there are flow handlers needed for the

various device vendors.

See next section.



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Extension Modules (APPS)

AXTRACT ships support for adding extensions (“APPS”) on southbound collection,

consolidation and charting but also northbound side. APPS can be downloaded and

installed by the customer.

￭ Southbound legacy flow handlers based on the AXTRACT TR-069 to legacy converter.

Currently APPS are available for adding various SNMP, TELNET, SSH or HTTP devices

into the monitored set.

Shown below is the application of an APP, which added a non TR-069 ADB Set-Top-

Box into the managed set via TELNET:

This is the featured data set on a remote gateway device, fetched via TELNET and

mapped to TR-069 vendor specific data objects.

InternetGatewayDevice.WANDevice.1.WANDSLInterfaceConfig.DownstreamCurrentRate

InternetGatewayDevice.WANDevice.1.WANDSLInterfaceConfig.UpstreamCurrentRate

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ACTPSDDs

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ACTPSDUs



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_APIVersion

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATUCANSIId

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATUCANSIRev

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATUCANSISTD

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATUCCountry

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATURANSIRev

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATURANSISTD

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ATURVendor

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_AnnexType

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisBDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisBUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisDelayDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisDelayUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisLDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisLUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisMDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisMUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisRDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisRUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisSDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisSUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisTDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisTEQError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_BisTUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_CommonHandshake

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_Connected

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_DataBoost

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_DeltACTATPds

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_DeltACTATPus

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_DeltHLINscds

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_DriverVersion

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_DspVersion

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_FastRDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_FastRUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_FirmwareVersion

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_INPdown

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_INPup

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_InterleaveDpDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_InterleaveDpUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_InterleaveRDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_InterleaveRUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_InterleaveSDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_InterleaveSUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LastFailed

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalEndLOS

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalFastChannelRxRate



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalITUCountryCode

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalLineAttn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalSEF

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalSNRMargin

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_LocalTxPower

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_OperationProgress

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_OperationalMode

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_OverallFailure

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_PMstatus

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_PhyCellDropCount

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_PhyRXCellCount

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_PhyTXCellCount

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RSCorrectedErrorsDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RSCorrectedErrorsUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RSUnCorrectedErrorsDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RSUnCorrectedErrorsUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RawAttn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RxATTNDR

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_RxCellRate

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_ShowtimeStart

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_State

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_SuperFramesDn

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_SuperFramesUp

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_TxATTNDR

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_TxCellRate

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_A1_Watchdog

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_Addr

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_FullDuplexEnable

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_HashHigh

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_HashLow

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_MAC

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_MaxMulticastListsize

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_MaxQueue

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_PhysicalPort

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_PortClassEthernet

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_PromiscuousEnable

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxBuffError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxCRCError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxFrameError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxLockupFixApplied

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxMissedFrames

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxMulticastAllEnable

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxNotFirstError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxNotLastError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxOverflowError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_RxShortPacketError



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_TxExcessiveRetryError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_TxManyRetries

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_TxNoCarrierError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_TxNoRetries

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_TxOneRetry

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_TxUnderflowError

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_Version

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_portSnmpIfIndex

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_portSnmpIfType

InternetGatewayDevice.X_XAVI_Port_Raw_ethernet_resetDefaults

Note that the offered quality stats are exceeding TR-069 standard data models (refer also

to the RunCommand RPC, illustrated in the first chapter of this paper ).

￭ Another App is the configurable rule engine, which, when deployed in proxy mode for

the productive ACS (see next chapter), takes away from the ACS static mass jobs,

which need no OSS/BSS integration.

This can further significantly relief the productive ACS.



feat

ures

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



￭ Consolidation backends are available for application specific processing and dash-

boarding in specific use cases.

Shown below is an APP for PC support and inventory over large subscriber base:



feat

ures



Deployment StrategiesHow to Deploy a Dedicated Probing Appliance

In TR-069 KPI data collection can be done by actively sending connection

requests to the devices and process the subsequent TR-069 inform

packets or by waiting for the devices to send periodic informs.

We discuss the two approaches, given that a dedicated monitoring

appliance is to be inserted without integration needs and without interfering

with the productive ACS.

Requirements

The ACS server, due to it’s flexibility needs regarding provisioning business logic can not

process monitoring load order of magnitudes higher than provisioning and real time

support traffic. Simply gathering KPI data from it’s northbound interfaces is therefore not

feasible on a larger scale. A monitoring server clearly must be inserted in a way that it

handles the traffic without passing it through the ACS.

The following goals are to be reached:

￭ Monitoring traffic does not interfere at all with productive ACS flows

￭ Monitoring cycle times of around 10 minutes should be feasible for devices in the 1 Mio

range

￭ Monitoring traffic does not hit the productive ACS

Devices Monitoring Appliance ACS

High Volume KPI Data(~100-1000 Hits / device / day)

Low Volume Provisioning Calls(~1 hit / device / day)


Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

depl

oym

ent

￭ Monitoring server can be simply plugged in, without the need to integrate with ACS or

OSS/BSS

We are going to discuss how these can be accomplished in a TR-069 enabled network.

Actively Sending Connection Requests

In TR-069, the straight forward way to gather KPI data from a device which is to be

studied, is to send a connection request12 to it and handle the subsequent TR-069 inform

packet by a GetParameterValues job for the interesting values.

This approach has the advantage of keeping network load to a minimum since only those

devices where KPIs have to fetched cause traffic in the network and Inform processing

load on the ACS.

However, a dedicated monitoring server, to act independently from the ACS, would need

to send the connection requests in case KPI data is to be fetched. This is due to the fact

that TR-069 informs will always be sent to the same server from the devices, regardless of

origin and parameters of a connection request. Therefore the monitoring server would

need to be aware of IP, connection request URLs and credentials of every device. That

clearly violates the goal that the monitoring appliance is to be added by simply plugging it

in, without any integration with the ACS.

Device Monitoring ApplianceConnection Request

(Digest Authed Empty HTTP Request)

TR-069 Inform (Event: ConnectionReq.)

GetParameterValues

GetParameterValuesResult

Ack (Empty Reply)

Data Consoli-dation


12 http://axiros.com/fileadmin/media/home/knowledge_base/faqs/TR-069Amendment2.pdf


depl

oym

ent

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Passively Awaiting and Processing Periodic TR-069 Informs

Alternatively to actively requesting the devices to send TR-069 informs the devices can be

set to high frequent periodic inform intervals, with the data gathering possible then only at

those periodic times:

A clear advantage is that the monitoring server does not need to know how to send

connection requests to the devices. But there are also disadvantages:

￭ Inform load is on the network even for devices which may not be interesting at a given

time (i.e. not “under study”).

￭ Data gathering can only happen at periodic inform cycle times of devices.

Discussion

A typical TR-069 inform has, conservatively estimated, 2 kBytes of data. The monitoring

appliance would only react with GetParameterValues (GPVs) jobs if the device is under

study. Assumed that minimum data gathering interval for devices under study mode is 10

minutes, 1 Mio devices would caused around 3 Megabyte13 / second on the management

network, corresponding to around 1700 TR-069 informs per second.

If we calculate around 10% of the devices under study mode we are still under 2000

TR-069 transactions per second and cause a load of < 5 Megabyte / second on the

management network, assuming GetParameterValuesResponse sizes of < 20KBytes.

Device Monitoring Appliance

TR-069 Inform (Event: Periodic)

GetParameterValues

GetParameterValuesResult

Ack (Empty Reply)

Data Consoli-dation


13 1000000 * 2048 / (1024 * 1024) / (60 * 10)


depl

oym

ent

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Load capacity of the AXTRACT Monitoring Appliance is around 5k transactions per

second, in proxy mode, with inline data consolidation. Therefore one appliance node is

very well fitting to handle the load of 1 Mio devices at 10 minute inform intervals and

around 10% under study mode.

When we want to have more devices under study / even smaller collection intervals the

bottleneck to overcome is the size of the GetParameterValuesResponse packets and not if

the GetParameterValues jobs are sent actively or passively.

Besides simply adding more AXTRACT servers, Axiros suggests as scaling strategy to pre-

consolidate KPIs already on the devices themselves by means of using

X_<vendor>_RunCommand TR-069 RPCs 14, which consolidates the information sent over

to the server already on the devices by standard OS specific means. Further the devices

can be set to send data only at interesting state changes.

The second disadvantage in passively awaiting informs is that data can only be gathered

at periodic inform cycles. But since the Monitoring appliance is intended to collect high

volume statistical data for a large quantity of devices it should be no problem that the

single device hits are not up to the minute. Single CPE interactions can still be handled by

the ACS itself, when needed in a timely manner, for example by real time support.

Deployment Topologies

Having discussed why the Monitoring Appliance acts on passive TR-069 informs, lets now

highlight how to deploy it into an existing provisioning TR-069 setup, with the goal of zero

interference with the productive ACS.


14 See Generic Device Management - Best Practices.


depl

oym

ent

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



1. Proxying Productive TR-069

The graph below depicts an architecture where the Monitoring server is the handling all

TR-069 remote procedure calls. It processes all periodic inform packets and KPI collection

call responses while forwarding the rest to the productive ACS server(s).

On configurable intervals AXTRACT can also send periodic informs to the ACS.

OSS/BSS

Loadbalancer(s)

Non TR-069

TR-069

Primary ACS Cluster

AXTRACT Cluster

TR-069 (proxied)

TR-069 (proxied)Provisioning

RealTime Support

That approach has the advantage that the Monitoring appliance can also run non

monitoring related tasks on the TR-069 RPCs before forwarding to the productive ACS:

￭ Filter malicious TR-069 payload, i.e. act as an application level firewall for TR-069

￭ Streamline broken/non compliant TR-069 payload, to be consumed by the ACS,

making the device stacks look alike

￭ Run static mass actions, like firmware downloads or initial pre provisioning preparation

tasks autonomous of the ACS



depl

oym

ent

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



A summarized description of that setup is that the monitoring appliance is interfering with

the productive TR-069 payload and can therefore also handle further supportive tasks for

the ACS, rather than monitoring only.

If the appliance should not interfere at all with productive ACS traffic we suggest the

second deployment type - forwarding the monitoring TR-069 traffic to the appliance and

the rest to the ACS via standard web based load balancers.

Total TR-069 Load

KPI Data ? yesKPI Data parsing normalization & consolidation

Filterrules match? yes

Run static TR-069 jobs (mass FW

downloads, schedule Inform, ...)

Security checks

passed? noDrop packets

Productive TR-069 ACS

AXTRACT Appliance

ACS Support Engine

TR-069 Firewall

TR-069 KPI Analyzer



depl

oym

ent

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



2. Setup Parallel to the ACS

Management /Internet

DB Service Assurance(JDSU)

Web Loadbalancer(e.g. F5, or ACS specific one)

Dashboard

Monitoring Traffic

Provisioning Traffic

TR-069 Cluster

In this setup the whole ACS infrastructure, including potential load balancer and CPE’s

ACS URL is not touched at all. Southbound of the ACS (incl. a potential load balancer)

there is introduced a standard web load balancer, which forwards productive inbound ACS

traffic (RPCs from the devices) to the ACS and the rest to the appliance, matching on

request contents.

That way the ACS is shielded securely from the southbound monitoring load without

touching productive traffic streams.

The whole solution can be inserted simply, without reconfiguration of the ACS load

balancer / productive ACS server(s). The monitoring appliance immediately begins to

collect data on periodic informs and therefore fills its database automatically with

productive devices’ information.

An umbrella service assurance solution like JDSU’s NetComplete Home PM15 as a

potential data consumer would be connected to the northbound interface of AXTRACT.


15 http://www.jdsu.com/products/communications-test-measurement/products/a-z-product-list/sas-pm.html


depl

oym

ent

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



Appliance SpecificationsPerformance Information From Tested Setups

Following we present performance figures for the second deployment type only, since the

first type’s performance is heavily dependent on the character of TR-069 packet

manipulation jobs. If no such manipulation are to be performed, than the simply proxying

of unmodified packets to the ACS is causing only negligible overhead.

Monitoring Server: AXTRACT Appliance (AXTRACT.5K)

The server is able to process and consolidate TR-069 KPI RPCs from large quantities of

devices.

Secondary it can act as a CWMP (TR-069) proxy for the productive ACS, taking away from

it static mass jobs, which need no OSS/BSS integration. This can further significantly relief

the productive ACS.

￭ Performance (KPI Analyzer): > 5000 KPI RPCs per second per server (at 20 non SSL

TR-069 KPI parameters per hit and direct storage)

￭ Performance (requires optional non TR-069 Proxy): > 1200 concurrent southbound data

gathering operations (TELNET, SSH) per server

￭ Scaling: Clusterable < 10% performance loss per node

￭ Configuration: Web (graphic user interface), XMLRPC, SOAP, REST, CSV/XML upload

￭ Monitoring, Alerting: SNMP, Syslog, custom triggers

￭ Data visualization: Configurable Web2.0 dashboard

￭ Parameter Support: Any Broadband-Forum device parameter specification

￭ RunCommand Support (parsing of native device information into service quality

parameters)

￭ TR-069 Interoperability: Comes with Axiros Interoperation Guarantee (http://axiros.com/

axiros/interoperability-statement-the-axiros-guarantee.html)

￭ Statistics: Via Web GUI / Northbound Interfaces (SOAP, XMLRPC, CSV Export, REST,

Direct DB)

￭ Dimensions: 2 HU


Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

spec

ifica

tions

￭ Operating temperature: 0° to 35°C, humidity: 90% maximum relative humidity, non-

condensing

￭ Redundant power supplies

￭ Optional hardware SSL acceleration

￭ CPU: 2 Intel® Xeon® X5460 Quad Core Processor 3,16 GHz

￭ RAM: 32GB

￭ HD: Four (4) PCI-Express Slots

￭ Interfaces: LAN Ports: 4 x 10/100/1000 Mbps



spec

ifica

tions

Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]



About AxirosInventing the Future of Device Management - Since 2002

PositionWith over 40 operators within the European, South American and Russian broadband

market, Axiros is market leader in open Device Management solutions - technically,

based on the number of supported devices and protocols but also regarding number of

operators using Axiros products exclusively for their Device Management, both TR-069

and non TR-069.

Axiros claims technology leadership in open carrier grade Device Management - based on

benchmarks regarding performance, scalability and flexibility.

Since it’s founding the company is solely management owned, with no external

investment.

History￭ 2002: Founding of company. Know how based on developing broadband network and

policy management solutions for BRASes.

￭ 2003: First large deployments for open CPE Management (T-Systems International,

others).

￭ 2004: Integration of TR-069, at time of specification release.

￭ 2005: First European carrier grade TR-069 ACS product - Axiros AXESS.

￭ 2006: First European fully standard compliant TR-069 large scale productive

deployments.

￭ 2007: European market leader in TR-069 technology based solutions with over 20

operators. Invented the RunCommand approach, to manage arbitrary complex feature

sets using trivial to implement device stacks.

￭ 2008: Worldwide first TR-069 deployments for Cable, with Germany's two top players

(Kabel Deutschland, Unity Media). Integration with Docsis environments.

￭ 2009: Worldwide first hybrid TR-069 / non TR-069 productive large scale deployment of

Cisco business routers and Metro switches at Dutch incumbent KPN.

￭ 2010: Real-Time Quality of Experience Monitoring via TR-069. Axiros invented

technologies allowing not only to continuously monitor millions of devices but also to do

this fully transparent to any existing ACS.


Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

abou

t axi

ros

Please contact Axiros regarding demonstration of Axiros AXTRACT via webcasts

and / or a trial installation within your premises.


Axiros GmbHGermany

Altlaufstr. 34


T +49 8102 80655 - 00

F +49 8102 80655 - 01www.axiros.com

[email protected]

than

k yo

u

© 2010 All Rights Reserved by Axiros

Whitepaper AXTRACT d00606

Documents

featuresaxiros

specicationsaxiros

introductionaxiros

getparametervalues

management

processing

vendor specic

axiros gmbhgermany