Making the most of network analytics  

Data gathering in the cloud
Data gathering is the analytics bit: the more data about actual network behaviour that can be garnered across the entire infrastructure, the greater chance of finding all the answers. But it is subtler than that, experience teaches that some sorts of data are more useful than others, so it can be better to target essential parameters rather than have them lost under a mountain of useless data. In addition, you do not want the data collection itself to impact the network operation – avoiding, for example, measuring latency in a way that adds latency!

So, from a data-gathering point of view, cloud services mean a quantum leap in complexity, as we are forced to correlate inconsistent data across a shifting ecosystem. Trying to gather useful and reliable data in real time will only be possible when there are global standards defining the key parameters and the way they are measured, allowing providers and different networks to mix and match data in a simple reliable manner.

The role of the OpenCloud Connect (OCC)
A dynamic cloud environment becomes a sensitive organism where small local problems can cause ripple effects that lead to disastrous consequences on many levels: poor service performance, loss of critical business for the customer, reputation damage for the provider, and ultimately customer churn. At the same time, it is becoming harder to garner and analyse sufficient data about the inner working of this complex environment. That is why analytics is one of the five VASPA fundamentals (Virtualization, Automation, Security, Programmability and Analytics) being addressed by the OCC.

If a cloud services consumer experiences degradation in service performance, what can be done? The cloud services provider might offer to boost processing by spinning up further VM resources. The cloud carrier might provide additional bandwidth. Is this a cloud carrier or a cloud provider issue, or has the consumer got unrealistic expectations?

In a competitive business environment this is the sort of situation that can degenerate into finger pointing and loss of business. What the OCC is doing is recruiting members from all these cloud stakeholder groups to work together on strategies to anticipate and resolve the challenges of a new exciting, yet disruptive technology.

The stakeholders include major cloud consumers, who can help clarify what is wanted in terms of performance, so as to determine how best to measure it. For example: it is obvious that a cloud consumer subscribing to a streaming video service wants brilliant high quality video, but the industry has found out that this subjective experience depends on essential parameters like bandwidth latency, jitter and packet loss that can be readily measured and analysed. Hence the OCC needs both cloud carriers and cloud providers on board to understand the consumer’s needs, and to find ways to satisfy them together.

This is as much about business practice and working relationships as technology: if the OCC can define common standards that will make different provider and carrier systems compatible, would the cloud carrier allow the cloud provider some control of its network? When the consumer complains about service performance, can the provider have access to analyse both network and datacentre performance and come up with the optimal balance between processing and bandwidth resources? Or would the carrier be allowed access to the provider’s system to do the analysis and resolve the issue if asked? These are all vital questions which define the future of cloud.

The OCC is working on defining standard interfaces and APIs between cloud providers and carriers to create an open cloud environment. This is key to enabling consistent data gathering and consistent definitions that will provide sufficient reliable input for data mining across multiple networks. How the data will be mined on sufficient scale is another issue, and the way the results will be reported or presented is another of the key concerns for the OCC – all the more so since analytics output can provide essential data for automation, security and the other VASPA fundamentals.

To achieve these aims, and to create an open cloud environment fast enough to maintain the momentum of cloud migration, the OCC is inviting all cloud stakeholders to participate in the standardisation process.co-chair of the OCC analytics group, and Vice President – Engineering, Veryx Technologies, to provide his thoughts.