Management World: InfoVista adds broadband, mobile management

ORLANDO – Service assurance vendor InfoVista this week released new add-on capabilities to its platform enabling service providers to test their broadband and mobile data networks.

The new InfoVista VistalInsight for Networks 3.1 is highlighted by the release of two “knowledge packs” that add capabilities to the platform for managing the performance of mobile data services and broadband services, respectively. InfoVista released the new capabilities as optional add-ons to allow carriers to deploy only the capabilities they need, said Vikas Trehan, vice president of product management for InfoVista.

For wireless data in particular, service providers need to closely monitor both network performance and, more importantly, service quality, Trehan said. “[Operators] need to have a good understanding of where network traffic growth is coming from and how to optimize for that traffic. They need to be able to correlate service degradation with the underlying network. This is our value add; we give them tools to do this they don’t have today.”

On the mobile side, in addition to providing service management reporting capabilities to service providers, the platform also enables carriers to extend them out to customers as well. Overall, the platform monitors service performance in terms of quality metrics like latency, jitter and packet loss. As for the broadband module, it allows providers to more quickly resolve problems that occur across the broadband access domain as well as the overall network environment.

Service providers are increasingly demanding end-to-end service management views and capabilities, making the addition of wireless and broadband access packs a priority, Trehan said.