ClearSky Technologies virtualised hosted policy management helps regional CSPs stay competitive

Transcription

1 Research Case Study ClearSky Technologies virtualised hosted policy management helps regional CSPs stay competitive May 2014 Glen Ragoonanan and Gorkem Yigit

2 2 ClearSky s virtualised policy management solution enables regional CSPs to optimise cost and increase network control to stay competitive The mobile market in North America (NA) is one of the most advanced and lucrative markets, where mobile data is the main driver of growth. A few Tier-1 communications service providers (CSPs) dominate the market and a large number of smaller regional players operate in the areas underserved by these Tier-1 CSPs. Regional mobile CSPs in NA are losing subscribers to Tier-1 CSPs as they expand their reach through new roll-outs and acquisitions. Smaller regional mobile CSPs often find it difficult to compete against Tier-1 CSPs because of lack of access to capital for large network investments and spectrum. To stay competitive and generate maximum return from their constrained resources, regional mobile CSPs use providers of hosted infrastructure and managed services to gain access to more-affordable systems and expertise. ClearSky Technologies is a provider of hosted infrastructure and managed services to mobile CSPs, mainly in NA but also in South America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands. It delivers a wide array of products and services under the following three main solution areas: traffic and policy management, hosted LTE services suite, and Small Cell as a Service (SCaaS). It has a customer base of more than 50 regional mobile CSPs across the Americas, served from three data centres in Dallas, Denver and Orlando. ClearSky s Total Traffic Manager (TTM) solution is a hosted policy management solution that enables mobile CSPs to manage and monetise rapidly growing mobile data traffic. TTM use cases include roaming management, quota enforcement, tethered device management, fair usage, bill shock notification, tiered access speeds, zero-rate charging and shared data plans. ClearSky and regional CSPs face the challenge of increasing capex and opex that stem from deploying more enforcement systems closer to the edge of the network for more-intelligent policy decisions and optimising network capacity to support growing subscriber numbers and mobile data traffic. To cope with the increasing costs, ClearSky partnered with, which already provides its Policy Traffic Switch () for the traditional TTM enforcement platform, to virtualise core elements of its TTM solution with network function virtualisation (NFV). The virtualised TTM solution promises to enable regional CSPs to implement more enforcement points in their networks with the same level of investment because of less-expensive hardware capex and comparable managed services opex.

3 Mobile service revenue (USD billion) Mobile data traffic (petabytes, thousands) ClearSky Technologies offers virtualised hosted policy management for regional CSPs 3 Business environment: Mobile data revenue growth in NA is slowing, but data traffic growth remains steady, requiring a reduction in the cost per bit The mobile market in NA is one of the most advanced and lucrative in the world. The market size is estimated at USD200 billion in 2013, growing 3% from USD194 million in ARPU in NA is the highest worldwide. Mobile data is the main driver of growth in NA. All CSPs in NA have almost completed LTE roll-outs and the USA has the largest LTE footprint in the world. NA had more than 97 million 4G mobile connections in 2013, which is forecasted to reach 329 million in We estimate that 71% of active handsets in NA were smartphones by the end of A few Tier-1 CSPs dominate the market and many smaller regional CSPs operate in the areas underserved by these. By 4Q 2013, all major CSPs in Canada and the USA provided LTE coverage to at least 60% of the population. Bell Canada and TELUS had already covered at least 77% of Canada s population by September 2013, and AT&T planned to cover 85% of the US population by the end of Spectrum policy in the USA has led to an imbalance of spectrum assets among the mobile CSPs and created a marketplace for operator-to-operator transactions. Tier-1 CSPs have targeted medium and small CSPs for acquisition in recent years to obtain additional spectrum, and expand coverage and subscriber numbers. Figure 1: Mobile service revenue by type, and mobile data traffic, North America, [Source: Analysys Mason, 2014] Mobile service revenue: Data Non-data Data traffic

4 4 Regional mobile CSPs in NA deploy hosted policy management solutions for network cost protection and revenue generation Regional mobile CSPs in NA are losing subscribers to Tier-1 CSPs as they expand their reach through new roll-outs and acquisitions. Regional CSPs often find it difficult to compete against Tier-1 CSPs because of a lack of access to capital for large network investments and spectrum. Some regional CSPs are launching LTE services to compete more effectively and monetise rapidly growing mobile data traffic. However, they face the significant challenges of limited spectrum and network capacity. These CSPs rely on roaming partners to extend their limited coverage to nationwide access. Roaming costs may be excessive if subscriber usage is not managed properly. To stay competitive and generate maximum return from constrained resources, regional CSPs turn to providers of hosted infrastructure managed services, such as ClearSky, in order to gain access to affordable systems and expertise. The deep packet inspection (DPI) component of policy management systems provides customer insight from network traffic for churn reduction and development of new targeted customer services. Figure 2 provides some examples of ClearSky s commercial policy management deployments, using its Total Traffic Manager (TTM) solution. Figure 2: ClearSky s commercially deployed hosted policy management use cases with its TTM solution [Source: Analysys Mason, 2014] CSP customer State or country 1 Scope MTA Alaska, USA Deployed ClearSky TTM to increase ARPU by enabling customers to top up when they reach thresholds and upgrade to higher-tier data plans that permit tethering. MTPCS CellularOne iwireless Montana, Louisiana and Texas, USA Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, USA Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska, USA Chose TTM initially to reduce roaming settlement costs. TTM now also improves customer experience on popular social networking and video streaming sites through caching and content optimisation. Uses TTM to offer 2G and 3G individual and shared data plans, redirecting subscribers to top-up page when they reach their quota. TTM also helps deliver tiered data plans, bill shock notification, tethering detection and customised packages. Chose TTM initially for traffic management and network protection use cases by enforcing existing fair usage provisions in the operator s terms of service. TTM has since been used to launch new metered data plans and control roaming costs. 1 Each CSP s operations typically only cover a portion of the USA state(s) listed.

5 5 ClearSky Technologies helps mobile CSPs stay competitive by providing fast and economical access to advanced solutions ClearSky Technologies is a provider of hosted infrastructure services to mobile operators. It delivers a wide array of products and services under the following three main solution areas: traffic and policy management, hosted LTE services suite, and Small Cell as a Service (SCaaS). It has a customer base of more than 50 mobile CSPs across the Americas, served from three main data centres in Dallas, Denver and Orlando. It helps regional mobile CSPs stay competitive against Tier-1 CSPs by providing advanced network technologies and monetisation solutions cost effectively with a fast implementation time. ClearSky s Total Traffic Manager (TTM) solution is a hosted policy management solution that optimises the capex of these regional CSPs by managing network traffic such as to maximise limited network capacity and extend the longevity of network infrastructure. Additionally, ClearSky s policy management solution provides a range of use cases for churn reduction while delivering a high quality of service at an optimal managed service opex. TTM use cases include roaming management, quota enforcement for tiered pricing, tethered device management, fair usage, bill shock notification, tiered access speeds, zero-rate charging and shared data plans. TTM is comprised of two main components: TTM Control Platform, a centralised, self-contained, in-house-developed, non-3gpp policy control and charging (PCC) solution that contains elements for policy control and data collection including a policy management engine (PCRF), usage collector, charging manager, share correlation and analytics. TTM Enforcement Platform, an on-premise platform with policy enforcement functions (PCEF) such as traffic engine, bypass switch and content engine, which can now be virtualised. ClearSky deploys TTM Enforcement Platform in client CSPs networks for traffic monitoring and policy enforcement while its TTM Control Platform resides in ClearSky s centralised data centres for policy creation, orchestration charging and analytics functions. ClearSky delivers its TTM solution as a managed service with a monthly service charge. It also offers various service bundles for implementation of different policy-based use cases, based on the mobile CSP market and customer usage.

6 6 ClearSky Total Traffic Manager (TTM) architectural overview Figure 3: ClearSky Total Traffic Manager (TTM) architectural overview [Source: ClearSky Technologies and Analysys Mason, 2014] TTM Control Platform Hosted in ClearSky data centres Share correlation platform ProTrends Analytics Policy management engine Usage collector Charging manager Notification manager TTM Control Platform Control and data collection ProVision (provisioning) RevShare (billing) Interactive portal TTM Enforcement Platform On-premise in each CSP client network Key ClearSky TTM components CSP s network elements and systems RADIUS Data PDSN/GGSN/ P-Gateway Content engine Traffic engine Bypass switch TTM Enforcement Platform Provisioning events UDRs Operator OSS/BSS Edge router Billable purchases SMS centre Bill shock SMPP Internet Website access via HTTP

7 7 ClearSky is virtualising its policy control and enforcement to effectively improve traffic management throughout its customers networks As CSPs increase their subscriber bases, they need to optimise network capacity using effective policy management. Policy management plays an integral role in traffic and congestion management while assuring the quality of the customer experience. Regional CSPs in NA need to offer new tariffs such as family plans, shared data and value-added services in order to generate more value from data usage, attract new subscribers and reduce churn by matching their offerings to those of Tier-1 CSPs. Conversely, CSPs in Caribbean markets need to manage network traffic differently, to service the lucrative roaming revenue from tourists. As such, each CSP needs to invest in policy management systems that can deliver unique policy-enabled services. CSPs want to deploy more enforcement systems closer to the subscribers so that policies can be delivered more effectively and intelligently, that is at the subscriber level and with reduced network signalling traffic back to the core network. However, the deployment of more enforcement points (PCEFs) in the distribution and access networks is costly to deploy and manage as the sites increase in number and geographical spread. To address the need to increase enforcement points and contain the cost, ClearSky partnered with to find a solution. is already a vendor to ClearSky and provides ClearSky with its Policy Traffic Switch () for the traditional (non-virtualised) TTM enforcement platform. provided a virtualised solution that ClearSky combines with its virtual Content Engine () to deliver policy enforcement more cost effectively. The virtualised TTM Enforcement Platform promises to enable CSPs to implement more enforcement points in their networks with same level of investment because of less-expensive hardware capex and comparable managed services opex from ClearSky. Moreover, this virtualised TTM solution allows ClearSky to cost-effectively monitor, manage and control its CSP customer networks, to optimise network capacity with effective traffic management and recommend mobile data monetisation services based on indepth usage behaviours. The new virtualised Enforcement Platform is an innovative approach and solution to solve common network traffic, content and usage problems more resourcefully. Combined with pre-integrated Control Platform tools to notify and interact with their subscribers, TTM empowers policy management and enforcement as well as enabling new service creations and interactions to increase ARPU.

8 8 Implementation details: ClearSky is deploying scalable virtualised TTM Enforcement Platforms to provide better end-to-end managed services ClearSky expects to virtualise a number of elements of its TTM solution, including the entire TTM Enforcement Platform in its CSP customers networks (see Figure 4 on next slide). The implementation will start at the TTM Enforcement Platform, which uses s on-premise in each CSP customer s core network. ClearSky will use s Virtual Platform ( VPL). Using standard configurations on virtual machines will make deployment immediate and maintenance of virtual TTM Enforcement Platform greatly simplified, with no site visit required. ClearSky s centralised TTM Control Platform, including s virtualised Service Delivery Engine (SDE), already makes extensive use of virtualisation. The virtualised SDE fulfils several roles including charging functions, quota management, and session-to-subscriber mapping. s Subscriber Policy Broker (SPB) is currently deployed as part of the TTM Control Platform using its subscriber data repository (SPR) for integrated, real-time support to the SDE, as well as to existing ClearSky charging and analytics systems. Future SPB releases are expected to allow virtualisation of the many of the SPB functions to increase capacity and availability. ClearSky has a pool of skilled resources on the Red Hat Linux operating system and its hypervisor, because it has trained staff on Hewlett-Packard (HP) hardware ClearSky s preferred IT hardware provider. As such, s virtualised solutions were required to work on HP hardware virtualised with Red Hat hypervisors and installed on Red Hat Linux operating systems in this test trial. ClearSky has developed its own proprietary orchestration and management software for existing virtual resources in its data centres and expects to use it to manage these new virtualised network functions (VNFs) from. ClearSky expects to commercially deploy the TTM Enforcement Platform virtualised solution in the second half of It will use a phased approached, whereby customers that require upgrades or expansions will have the virtualised TTM Enforcement Platforms implemented.

9 9 Virtualised TTM policy management deployment scenario Figure 4: ClearSky virtualised Total Traffic Manager (TTM) deployment scenario [Source: Analysys Mason and ClearSky Technologies, 2014] TTM Control Platform Hosted in ClearSky data centres Share correlation platform ProTrends Analytics PCRF SDE Quota management SDE HP hardware and Red Hat Linux ProVision SPB Usage collector RevShare Notification manager Interactive portal Virtualised TTM enforcement in CSPs core networks GGSN/ EPC CSP 1 CSP 2 CSP 3 CSP 1 OSS/ GGSN/ CSP 1 OSS/ GGSN/ CSP 1 BSS EPC BSS EPC OSS/ BSS Virtualised TTM enforcement extended into CSPs distribution networks RNC RNC RNC RNC RNC RNC Access networks Key ClearSky proprietary CSP s network elements and systems Virtualised elements

10 10 Expected benefits: ClearSky is primarily seeking to reduce its costs, while increasing its end-to-end visibility of its CSP customers networks ClearSky mainly expects to achieve cost reduction by first virtualising its on-site TTM Enforcement Platforms. This will enable its regional CSP customers to deploy multiple enforcement platforms closer to the access network, for around the same cost. This is expected to provide the following key benefits. More-effective traffic management throughout the network, increasing the longevity of network infrastructure, leading to deferred capex investments, even with increased subscriber numbers or mobile data traffic. Less-expensive and faster deployments, upgrades and expansions of virtualised TTM, because the number of site visits will be reduced considerably. ClearSky can extend its proprietary virtualised resource manager to manage its TTM solution end-to-end, thus reducing its management system costs (capex and opex). CSP customers will have more floor and rack space and lower power and cooling opex with this virtualised solution. CSPs will gain more real-time, in-depth insight of mobile data usage behaviour at the subscriber level, which can lead to new policy-enabled services to reduce churn or increase revenue. Figure 5: Expected benefits of the live deployment of ClearSky s virtualised Total Traffic Manager (TTM) [Source: Analysys Mason, 2014] Capex savings Increased number of PCEFs deployed with the same investment, to optimise network capacity and reduce network capex Reduced truck-rolls for deployments, upgrades and expansions of virtualised TTM Improved scalability on moreaffordable IT hardware Lower cost for redundancy across centralised data centres and CSP customers sites Opex savings Simplified management of virtualised resources with ClearSky s existing management system Smaller physical footprint reducing floor and rack space and lower power and cooling costs Less complexity and costs for operating and maintenance Existing IT and virtualisation skills are already resident in ClearSky

11 11 About the authors Glen Ragoonanan (Principal Analyst) is the lead analyst for Analysys Mason s Infrastructure Solutions, Service Delivery Platforms and Software-Controlled Networking research programmes. He joined Analysys Mason in 2008 and has worked as a consultant on projects on next-generation IT and telecoms networks, systems and technologies for incumbents, new entrants, private companies, regulators and public-sector clients. His primary areas of specialisation include operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) solution architecture and integration for business process re-engineering, business process optimisation, business continuity planning, procurement and outsourcing operations and strategies. Before joining Analysys Mason, Glen worked for Fujitsu, designing, delivering and managing integrated solutions. Glen is a Chartered Engineer and project management professional with an MSc from Coventry University. Gorkem Yigit (Research Analyst) is part of the Telecoms Software research team, contributing to the Service Assurance, Infrastructure Solutions, Service Delivery Platforms and Customer Experience Management strategies programmes. He started his career in the telecoms industry with a graduate role at a leading telecoms operator, before joining Analysys Mason in late He has also written an academic paper about market acceptance of cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and he earned cum laude an MSc degree in Economics and Management of Innovation and Technology from Bocconi University (Milan, Italy).

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