Agilent Signaling Analyzer - J7830A

Distributed testing and analysis solutions for 2G, 2.5G, 3G, WiMAX LTE SAE mobile telecommunications

Product Overview

Agilent Technologies' Signaling Analyzer family of products for 2G, 2.5G, 3G and WiMAX mobile telecommunications provides a distributed testing and analysis solution that maximizes the time and resources devoted to planning, troubleshooting, installing, and maintaining modern day networks. Its intelligent call trace-centric approach enables distributed call trace, performance measurements, and drill-down problem isolation for calls on UMTS, GSM, TD-SCDMA, CDMA, WiMAX and LTE/SAE RANs, as well as the mobile core, IMS, PSTN and Internet.

The modular design and flexibility of Signaling Analyzer solutions allows technology teams to identify potential problems and resolve faults quickly and effectively - with product configurations to exactly match engineers' differing needs.

In particular , the Signaling Analyzer enables key personnel to see network problems as they occur and turns what can be an overwhelming amount of diagnostic data into usable information. For maximum interface flexibility, the Signaling Analyzer uses the same well-proven DNA data acquisition modules with hot-swappable Line Interfaces as Agilent's other distributed network analysis solutions. Click here for more information on DNA and click here for more information on LIM's (Line Interface Modules) . Alternatively, the Signaling Analyzer can be used off-line for post-capture analysis.

Signaling Analyzer is the easiest-to-use and most powerful network analysis software in the industry, including the ability to Call Trace MMS (Multimedia Message Service). Its intuitive user interface has set the standard for troubleshooting problems in telecommunications networks worldwide.

Key Features

The Signaling Analyzer is a software application that provides fast and comprehensive signaling analysis of wireless, wireline and data communications networks.

Key features such as hardware filtering, automatic configuration, multiple interface call/data session tracing, and built-in statistics help to identify and pinpoint problems and detect trends that affect customer satisfaction. The Signaling Analyzer has an intuitive graphical interface that makes it popular with both new and experienced network engineers. Its design makes it ideal for use in distributed as well as centralized test environments.

• Analysis software for 3G wireless networks including UMTS and cdma2000
• Automatic UMTS Configuration for the Iub interface
• Use of hardware capture filters to minimize unnecessary data capture and maximize performance
• Capture and playback of voice calls
• Export of voice call PCM data for voice quality analysis
• Real-time multi-tasking protocol analysis, statistics, and call trace
• User-configurable graphical call trace across multiple simultaneous interfaces. e.g. Iub, Iur, Iu, Gn, Gb, Gr, etc. interfaces
• Multimedia Message Service (MMS) call trace
• Graphical (or tabular) time-based statistics with thresholds
• Post capture analysis on any standard Windows PC
• Streaming of captured data to storage devices
• On-line and context sensitive user help
• Built-in protocol help
• User-configurable color coded traffic overview, protocol decodes
• Export of call control data to CSV and ASCII files for analysis by other applications
• Periodic time logging

Traffic Overview

Traffic and Message View The main traffic overview display shows (chronologically) every captured message for each signaling link. This overview display shows one line of essential information for each message. The type and format of information is displayed in columns and is controlled by the user. Each message can be decoded further to show a one-line description per octet or field.

Decode View In the decode view, each protocol level is shown in a different color to make troubleshooting simpler. The protocol names are also shown as a text header for each protocol in the stack. Users can customize colors to suit personal preference.

Message Validation The software can highlight message-encoding errors found in received messages. In the traffic overview display, a message with an error is highlighted. When the message is decoded the section with the error is also shown in the same color to aid troubleshooting.

Message Sequence Validation The "message sequence validation" function advises the user of errors in message sequences (e.g., messages which do not fit into a normal call pattern). The messages that contain error messages are highlighted.

Graphical Statistics The Signaling Analyzer supports both histograms and line graph. To see typical screen shots click here

Call Trace

The call trace application is a powerful, flexible tool to aid troubleshooting. It helps by grouping together all signaling messages that relate to a single call or data session. A large number of calls/sessions can be displayed in this way and errors are easily identified as they are highlighted graphically. The application produces a user-configurable window that contains a single line for each call discovered. The call identification variables and statistics that can be shown in the call trace view are user configurable and can also show variables such as IMSI, setup time, clear down time. The Call Trace Application allows display of message sequences in easy to follow multi-segment message flow diagrams. These diagrams allow users to follow control messaging as it flows across multiple network elements. Messaging sequence and discontinuity errors are rapidly identifiable. To see typical screen shots click here

UMTS Call/Session Traces

The application provides UMTS call traces including the Iub, Iur and Iu interfaces.

The Iub Session Trace Tool for the UMTS Iub interface captures and groups the signaling messages for Node B Application Part (NBAP), ALCAP, Radio Resource Control and other protocols. The type of information displayed in the summary view includes:

The Iub & Iu Combined Session Trace Tool for the UMTS Iur interface captures and groups the signaling messages on the Iub and Iu interfaces together in a single call. The type of information displayed in the summary view includes:

Call Identifier Call Status Call Duration Establish Cause IMSI TMSI/P-TMSI CRNC Communication Context Id Node B Communication Context ID

S-RNTI SRNC Identity Location Area Code CN Domain (CS/PS) Routing Area Code Various Cause Values IP Packet/Octet Counts for Iub and Iu

cdma2000 Call/Session Traces

The application provides cdma2000 call traces including the R-P (A10/A11) and P-H interfaces.

The cdma2000 P-H Interface Session Trace Tool captures and groups the signaling messages for users' carrying a users authentication (e.g. Radius) and location messaging (e.g. Home Agent and Foreign Agent dialogs). The type of information displayed in the summary view includes:

3G Wireless Applications

The complex combinations of network protocols and physical transports make 3rd generation wireless networks well suited for analysis by the modular Signaling Analyzer Solution. The Signaling Analyzer captures traffic on all key interfaces, including control messaging, packet data, and voice traffic. A full range of UMTS and cdma2000 analysis features, including vendor variants, voice payload quality analysis, deciphering and user level data session performance statistics make Signaling Analyzer the most complete solution in the industry.

>>click here to see application diagrams for UMTS.

>>click here to see application diagrams for cdma2000.

WiMAX network architecture support

The Agilent J7910A Signaling Analyser for WiMAX provides extended R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6 and R8 decode and filter capability that allows in-depth WiMAX protocol analysis.

Agilent J6910A provides complete coverage of architectures to correlate calls end-to-end from WiMAX ASN to CSN and the rest of the network:

• ASN and CSN
• IMS, PSTN and Internet

>>click here for more detail.

LTE and SAE support

The Agilent J7880A signaling analyzer software platform enables passive probing and analysis of LTE network interfaces. From single point monitoring and analysis to a fully distributed test environment, the signaling analyzer platform effortlessly scales to meet the dynamic and changing test needs from the lab to operations. With a powerful combination of distributable hardware pre-processing with scalable software architecture the signaling analyzer platform will help to ensure the successful deployment of an integrated LTE/SAE network system. The Agilent J6804A distributed network analyzer high density (DNA-HD) provides a leading hardware capture-and-analysis engine with the highest testing performance and the industry's lowest cost per port. The DNA-HD simultaneously supports up to 16 gigabit Ethernet interfaces, offering scalability and increased testing flexibility. It provides Network Time Protocol or GPS type synchronization, extensive user and control plane filtering, line-rate signaling and user plane analysis, and can be managed and configured over the network.

To find out more about Agilent solutions for Mobile Signaling analysis, call Phoenix Datacom on 01296 397711 , click here to send an email or use the Request More Info form.

For a full list of Phoenix Datacom products and applications, click here.