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The Diameter signalling storm will is expected to become a reality. The generally accepted solution is to add specialist routers to the network. These routers will perform load balancing and filtering tasks to ensure that messages are routed to the correct destination and that there is a fail-safe architecture in place.

The proposed European Directive “concerning measures to ensure a high common level of network and information security across the [European] Union” quite rightly places much emphasis on issues of user security and privacy. It states that “a secure information-sharing infrastructure will be put in place to allow for the exchange of sensitive and confidential information”.

National and International organisations are taking a keen interest in the growing issue of cyber security. There have been numerous reports of threats to commercial and private organisations and, recently, the EU launched a plan to help “protect open internet and online freedom and opportunity”.

Once we have caught our hare, we need to know what to do with it. That’s not as easy as it sounds. Buried in the flows of data that we capture and accumulate are the records of patterns and events. They have meaning – in many cases, the meaning is obvious, but in many others, it is not easily apparent. We have to sift through the data, interpreting it, sorting out events that demand our attention now and assembling pictures that enable us make better-informed decisions.

In 1994, leading philosopher Pierre Levy suggested that the publication of Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopedie in the 18th Century signalled the "end of an area in which a single human being was able to comprehend the totality of knowledge". It has also been said that Leibnitz was the last man to know everything, which is surely arguable.

As we noted in an earlier post, a significant proportion of network traffic will be based on the Diameter protocol. It's already there, but it's going to grow dramatically with the on-going transition to all-IP networks. Read more

SIP has rightly captured much of the attention in emerging NGN networks. It's at the heart of connectivity in the IMS and many other network elements. But SIP is designed for session control – voice, media and data. It is not designed for conveying complex information that is required to authenticate users and determine what they can do. Read more

The move to 4G LTE signals the advent of the all IP network. This means that control plane, session layer and transport will all be based on IP. As we discussed, this heralds significant growth in the deployment and use of Diameter signalling. Read more

One of the most interesting things about the growth of Big Data and the attention that is being paid to the field is the somewhat surprising news that, despite agreement on the volume being generated, only a very small percentage is actually being analysed today.

There's an interesting chapter in Informa's latest annual review. It provides an excellent overview of the emerging field of Customer Experience Management, otherwise known as CEM. The article highlights the increasing importance of CEM to the relationship between operators and their subscribers. Read more