Your production network is where service quality is truly tested – by user experiences – under real-world conditions. Despite any test and assurance programmes you run before launching a service, this is where the rubber really hits the road.

That’s why it’s essential to run continuous monitoring programmes in your live networks, so you can be alerted instantly when any issue or drop in performance is detected after you have introduced a new service enhancement or software updates.

Emblasoft Evolver can help you to assure services across the entire lifecycle – our vision is to give you the tools you need to validate, assure and actively monitor your network and services, end-to-end at every stage.

In our first blog in this five-part series, we introduced the concept and importance of lifecycle automation and testing for operators that need agility, continuous delivery and innovation throughout the network architecture and to enable service innovation.

Testing and assuring the production network and the entire lifecycle of mobile services

In this second part, we are going to address how Emblasoft Evolver is perfect for supporting the first of four key steps in service lifecycle automation and testing: the production network where you need to detect network and service issues before they impact customers or SLAs.

Once services and updates leave the lab and enter the real network, they need to be actively and constantly monitored to ensure excellence throughout the lifecycle. You will have validated a new service or software release as thoroughly as possible before pushing it to the production network — but once out in the wild, there can be unexpected issues when real world conditions are encountered.

Of course, to remain competitive and agile, and provide exceptional customer experience, many operators have embraced DevOps strategies utilising CI/CD/CT processes to accelerate service innovation and provide on-going updates for security, customer experience, and improvements to existing services.

DevOps strategies represent the first line of service production and innovation – but they are also part of a continuous cycle of phased releases into your live networks.

This approach brings a new agility to how you can update and manage your networks, but the overall context remains complex. Not only do you have your 5G and 4G infrastructure and cores (EPC and 5G SA), but you also have messaging services, voice (VoLTE and IMS), advanced new services that depend on slicing (and with a broader range of performance goals), as well as roaming and interconnection services (IPX / GRX).

So, yes, you can do your utmost to validate new services before launch, but the live network is so much more complex and so much more can go wrong. Worse, the impact is more significant, as customers are all too ready to complain – and SLA breaches can be costly.

Real-time alerts using both active and passive probes

That’s why it’s essential to be alerted to any network or service issues in near-real time, so that they can be rectified before they impact service quality or customer experience.

Emblasoft Evolver’s active monitoring capabilities can be set to monitor specific service level parameters, in real time. If service levels reach, or drop to, a pre-defined threshold (customisable to specific parameters, so you can set your own tolerance values), our software agents trigger alerts that can be sent directly to communications tools used by your team (like MS Teams or Slack, for example), generate emails and more.

The software-based agents emulate your real subscribers, providing data that shows the potential impact on services that could be experienced by your customers’ actual devices, so you benefit from a continuously active fleet of agents that can be configured to model different services and behaviours.

This means that you will immediately have access to data regarding the performance and experiences delivered when you deploy new updates, upgrades and security patches.

Our agents can also co-exist with third-party passive probes and alerts, which can capture network signalling (control plane) and session or data traffic (user plane) information – so when you receive an alert from Evolver, you can immediately focus on specific values and parameters, accelerating your RCA and troubleshooting activities – because you know where to look for supplementary information.

You can even configure agents to access specific services, so you can essentially create guardians that run alongside live customers. By assigning agents to different slices, you can gain immediate feedback on your most complex and valuable offers.

The network and standards are continuously evolving so active monitoring over the lifecycle is imperative

At the same time, the number of security threats is growing, so patches or upgrades applied to the network must be continuously tested and monitored. It means that detection (and testing) is a continuous activity requiring alerts and alarms when issues occur, which can then be dealt with before they impact actual customers and services.

At Emblasoft, our motto is “Test early. Test often. Test Everywhere. Automate.”  Evolver is a comprehensive test and active monitoring platform suitable for all generations of mobile network. It supports DevOps processes to enable continuous development, testing, and active monitoring post-launch – and it gives you unique advantages in your production network as the software agents it provides give you a more realistic understanding of what’s really happening when user devices interact with services and your networks.

To find out more about how Emblasoft Evolver can support exceptional service quality and network performance, DevOps strategies, and provide alerts and alarms to guard against any drops in KPIs and SLIs or security threats, across the entire lifecycle, contact us today.