Gigamon has announced significant advances in equipping global mobile network operators (MNOs) around the world with the deep observability they require to fast-track 5G deployments alongside existing 4G production networks. Over the last year, Gigamon increased the number of customers utilising the Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline for 5G core services with 43 MNOs in production, deployment or trials alongside widespread 4G core services, all driven by a series of innovations for converged 4G/5G cores, including bringing deep observability to encrypted 5G core traffic.
MNO network traffic has doubled in the last two years, estimated to grow 24% annually over the next five years according to the 2022 Ericsson Mobility Report. While hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested on the new 5G spectrum and underlying infrastructure, most subscriber traffic still traverses 4G core networks – even when 5G radio capacity is utilised. Increasingly, the focus of MNOs is to adopt converged cores to serve both 4G and 5G subscribers as they advance transition efforts. Gigamon serves as foundational technology to a growing number of 5G core deployments, delivering a broad range of advanced product features and capabilities.
Delivering converged 4G/5G core efficiency
Gigamon has developed, delivered, and hardened MNO core feature sets for sampling, load-balancing, and forward-listing at a subscriber level, as well as network-aware filtering based on business context like phone model, cell tower, voice vs. data, over-the-top applications, QoS priority, and more. The Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline correlates control plane traffic with user plane traffic across 4G and 5G networks utilising the same underlying monitoring infrastructure. This optimisation reduces unified correlation across a converged core, reducing load on downstream tools while maintaining depth of insight and consistent quality of telemetry in accordance with required service levels.
“Mobile operators of all sizes are under increasing pressure to innovate with 5G while continuing to support the vast volumes of 4G traffic running across their networks,” says Shane Buckley, president, and CEO of Gigamon. “We’re fully committed to developing critical capabilities in close partnership with our MNO customers to provide deep observability into all mobile traffic, with operational and economic efficiency, whether 4G or 5G, even when encrypted.”
Bringing deep observability to encrypted 5G core traffic
Data encryption was designed into 5G networks by 3GPP architects for nearly every interface, including the new service-based interfaces (SBIs) that handle all crucial 5G control plane traffic. Acquiring deep observability into this control plane traffic helps to assure network performance and deliver a superior user experience, revealing many critical insights otherwise hidden by encryption. Gigamon has solved this problem through validated integrations with major 5G providers including Ericsson and Nokia, combined with innovations in container visibility, smart network interface cards, and service meshes. Carriers running encrypted Ericsson 5G cores, for example, are achieving clear-text visibility via Gigamon for monitoring purposes across all traffic. Gigamon provides similar capabilities to a growing number of MNO customers operating private 5G networks that also implement encryption.
“For Communications Service Providers who are building out their 5G core, Gigamon employs next-generation technology to ensure modern 5G networks deliver the appropriate quality of experience and remain secure at scale, while keeping security and performance monitoring costs in check,” says James Crawshaw, principal analyst for telco IT & operations at Omdia.
5G momentum
According to the GSMA, a momentum behind 5G is building across more than 70 countries and nearly 200 operators, it now covers half of global markets and almost one third of the world’s population. This unprecedented growth represents the fastest generational roll-out for the mobile industry when compared to 3G and 4G. Having deep observability into 5G network traffic will be critical to the continued success of MNOs as they accelerate their transition from 4G to 5G.
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