Data center monitoring provider Big Switch Networks says its Big Monitoring Fabric (Big Mon) can evaluate the traffic of millions of mobile subscribers. This capability, the company says, will allow service providers to monitor their network performance and ensure ultra-high data performance as they transition from 4G LTE to 5G.
According to Prashant Gandhi, VP and chief product officer of Big Switch, the Big Mon platform will help operators have visibility into their networks while at the same time reducing some of the operational complexity that can come from operating too many switches. “We offer x86 service nodes for packet level and low level analysis,” he said. “This provides not just network-based visibility but transaction-level visibility within the same architecture.”
Big Mon uses high-performance x86-based DPDK service nodes for GPRS tunneling protocol (GTP) that allows it to scale as subscribers and user traffic grows. GTP correlation coupled with a software-defined networking (SDN)-based architecture will give operators a way to scale quickly, Gandhi said.
Typically, service providers have used specialized modules to achieve GTP correlation and load balance. However, Big Mon’s approach to GTP uses one or more Big Mon service nodes along with Big Mon Fabric’s visibility nodes to handle the increasing bandwidth and throughput requirements.
Gandhi touted the company’s ability to work with white box or brite box (branded white box) hardware, which reduces capex. He said that service providers can deploy Big Switch software on brite box switches from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Dell, and white box switches that are sold by branded providers.
The company’s Big Mon platform is currently being used by several system integrators in Japan, Gandhi said.
In July, Big Switch raised $30.7 million in funding, bringing its total funding to $120 million. The startup, which launched in 2010, planned to use the capital to increase sales, expand its product line, and invest in research and development.
Clarification: This article was updated to note that Big Mon uses x86-based DPDK service modes for GPRS tunneling.
