MobyDick FlowVis - using NeTraMet for distributed protocol analysis in a 4G network environment

The commercial operation of future "4G" mobile wireless networks, comprising both IP-based voice and data uniformly, is widely considered as the next challenge for service providers. Within such an IP-environment, with its implicit integration of the control and data plane, passive measuring and metering will be one of the key elements for AAA and QoS provision, for performance and fault management purposes. Within the IETF, a real-time flow measurement framework has been developed for measurement and accounting for the fixed Internet infrastructure. The article first briefly introduces the IETF "real-time flow measurement" (RTFM) architecture, a pure IP 4G-architecture, together with its key signalling scenarios, and Java/J2EE and Web middleware technology. It then describes "FlowVis", a highly scalable and distributed IP based protocol visualization and verification framework for both signalling and data traffic. Combining the near-real-time capabilities of the existing IETF RTFM with current middleware technology, this "FlowVis" framework can serve as a starting point for distributed protocol analysis in future 4G networks. We use NeTraMet, an open-source implementation of the RTFM architecture as the key metering component of "Moby Dick", a 4G mobile access network architecture.