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

Aviz Service Node (ASN) provides high-throughput observability across various network environments by extracting detailed session metadata and application metrics, aiding IT and security teams in monitoring and managing modern IP traffic.

Research overview

Autonomous System Number (ASN) addresses challenges faced by network infrastructures, such as increasing traffic volume causing congestion, application performance issues including latency and outages, and lack of granular, real-time visibility needed to detect bottlenecks and anomalies.

The platform processes large-scale packet streams by tracking millions of IP sessions in memory. It uses IP tuples to index metadata per session, capturing data points like duration, byte counts, directions, retransmissions, application protocols, and geographic regions. This comprehensive data supports performance monitoring, Traffic Engineering (TE), capacity planning, and security analytics.

Technical breakdown

ASN supports protocol decapsulation for tunnels including Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE), ERSPAN, Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), PPPoE, L2TP, and IPoE, revealing encapsulated payloads for detailed packet inspection and Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This approach reduces processing overhead and facilitates deeper network troubleshooting.

The solution employs a Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) engine capable of identifying over 500 applications, with plans to extend identification beyond 1,000. It uses multiple classification methods including pattern matching, server name indication (SNI), global IP to ASN mappings, and contextual port analysis to enable precise application identification.

Operational impact

ASN exports enriched application, Key Performance indicator (KPI), and session records via Kafka every five seconds, enabling near real-time analytics integration. Critical session events trigger immediate notifications to support rapid incident response.

It applies timestamping at various stages (packet capture, session creation, export) to facilitate accurate time-series analysis and trend detection. The system tracks KPIs such as throughput, uplink and downlink latency, retransmission counts, and total packets and bytes across session, application, and regional dimensions.

Product update

To address data accuracy and resource efficiency, ASN includes configurable packet deduplication mechanisms. Users can specify deduplication parameters such as source type, byte anchor and offset, and window size to eliminate redundant packet data, improving telemetry quality and reducing storage and bandwidth demands.

Additionally, ASN supports live packet capture concurrent with line-rate processing, suitable for Dual Connectivity (DC) setups, facilitating on-demand debugging and validation without disrupting network operations.

Leadership perspective

ASN aims to enhance network observability by providing fine-grained traffic flow and application behavior data. Its design supports scalability to maintain high session counts and throughput in extensive network fabrics, enabling continuous optimization through detailed KPIs and application-level visibility.

The capabilities of ASN provide network operators with improved tools for pinpointing application issues, monitoring health, and planning capacity within diverse modern IP environments.

This Blog Signals brief presents a factual summary of the ASN vendor blog, highlighting features and capabilities relevant to enterprise IT leaders and network operations professionals.