Aviz Service Node details capabilities for IP traffic analysis and application observability

Aviz Service Node (ASN) provides detailed observability into IP network traffic by extracting per-session metadata, application insights, and key performance indicators (KPIs), which assists IT leaders in monitoring application performance, managing capacity, and optimizing operations across various network environments.

Observability challenges in network environments

Modern network infrastructures face increased traffic volumes causing congestion and performance issues. Enterprises contend with latency and outages that jeopardize service agreements, while limited visibility into real-time data hampers identification of anomalies and bottlenecks.

Session-based IP traffic monitoring

Autonomous System Number (ASN) processes large-scale packet streams by maintaining millions of IP sessions in memory, using tuple information to generate indexed metadata for each session. This data includes metrics such as session duration, byte counts, directions, retransmissions, application protocols, and geographic regions. These insights support activities including performance monitoring, Traffic Engineering (TE), capacity planning, and security analysis.

Protocol decapsulation and header management

To access payload data for deeper inspection, ASN performs decapsulation and selective header removal on encapsulated protocols like Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE), ERSPAN, Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), PPPoE, L2TP, and IP over Ethernet. This capability enhances packet inspection and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) by revealing original packet information.

Application identification via deep packet inspection

ASN's Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) engine identifies over 500 applications using methods such as pattern signatures, server name indication, global IP to ASN associations, and context-aware port classification. This multi-faceted approach facilitates precise identification required for scalable application performance measurement.

KPI extraction and data streaming

Enriched session metadata including applications and KPIs are exported through Kafka streams every five seconds, ensuring near real-time observability with mechanisms to handle high throughput and avoid backpressure. Alerts based on priority events such as session changes provide timely notifications. Timestamping supports accurate analysis over time windows. Supported KPIs include throughput, uplink and downlink latency, retransmit counts, and total packets and bytes across session, application, and regional dimensions.

Packet deduplication processes

To address inflated bandwidth metrics caused by duplicate packets, ASN offers configurable deduplication capabilities that define scope by source, byte comparisons, and time windows. This capability results in more accurate telemetry, refined KPIs, and reduced data storage and transmission requirements.

Live packet capture feature

ASN supports concurrent live packet capture alongside continuous network processing, suitable for high-throughput Dual Connectivity (DC) scenarios. This feature aids debugging, validation, and analysis without disrupting ongoing operations.

Overall, Aviz Service Node delivers granular IP traffic observability through session tracking, protocol decapsulation, and application-level insights integrated with efficient data export and deduplication. This enhances network monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities relevant to enterprise technical leaders. This Blog Signals brief provides a fact-based summary of the ASN capabilities described in the vendor blog.