Cyber crime is a growing threat. In the UK alone, according to Government estimates, the total cost of Cyber Crime to the economy could be as much as £26.9bn a year – equivalent to nearly 2% of GDP.

While many sectors are threatened by cyber crime, telecoms networks are thought to be particularly vulnerable, facing a wide range of risks. Globally, the problem continues to grow: according to data cited by Basset Telecom, the ITU estimates that as much as 6% of total operator turnover is lost each year. That’s a significant number – perhaps as much as $50 billion a year just in the telecoms industry.

That’s why operators need to deploy solutions to combat cyber crime and fraud. They need to be able to manage their networks and identify fraudulent behaviour, denial of service attacks and so on, and take action before they have an impact.

Operators recognise that Deep Packet Inspection technologies have a clear role to play in this arena, helping identify legitimate and suspicious traffic alike. Once identified, action can be taken to analyse and then isolate suspect traffic, before problems result.

The trouble is that with traffic volumes increasing, operators need to be able to deploy solutions that can not only cope with the different traffic streams but can do so at speeds of 10Gb/s, 40Gb/s or even 100Gb/s. They need to be able to intelligently manage traffic, creating optimised performance for legitimate users, but ensuring that malicious traffic is eliminated.

Software-only implementations of DPI and packet processing solutions cannot keep pace with this data explosion. We offer a hybrid approach that combines intelligent, high-speed packet processing cards with on-board filtering to ensure that no information is lost.

Our ultra reliable packet processing solutions deliver zero-packet loss and can connect to today’s high-speed networks with transmission rates from 10 to 100Gb/s. With Telesoft Technologies, operators can deploy solutions that combat cyber crime and fraud with:

• Zero packet loss
• Hybrid hardware/software approach
• Pre-filtering and processing
• 10, 40 and 100Gb/s on scalable network interface cards
• Reduce host CPU load and build systems that scale

Our solutions help OEMs, Operators and Government Agencies protect against Cyber Crime and reduce potential losses, yielding dramatic return on investment.

Our proven technology is trusted by hundreds of network operators, OEMs and Government Agencies around the world. Our packet processing solutions can help combat cyber crime.

Why not find out how we can help? Visit our website or call us on +44 1258 480880

There have been many advances in CPU performance in the last few years, following the inexorable progress of Moore’s Law, with the result that many applications that used to require specialist hardware can now be performed in software. But what’s possible isn’t necessarily correct. There are cases in which it makes sense to adopt a hybrid approach to application performance, leveraging the best of software and hardware to ensure delivery of optimum performance.

One example of this is packet processing for applications that must determine the integrity of packets that are traversing the network. Such applications require that every packet must be inspected, resulting in a deluge of packets for processing. Here, rather than flooding the CPU with a huge volume of data, it is preferable to perform pre-processing and filtering on hardware before routing appropriate packets to the CPU for inspection.

If instead of simply pumping data to a CPU at what might be highly variable rates, the hardware can be used to intelligently filter packets, more efficient and scalable solutions can be built and deployed. Specialized packet interface and processing cards can perform Layer 2, 3 and 4 filtering and classification; ensure load-balancing of flows to multiple processing engines to avoid system overload and to accommodate peaks and troughs of traffic; and perform pre-filtering on other layers within IP packets.

This hybrid approach leverages the best of both worlds to reduce costs and increase system performance and scale. On its own, software can achieve much, but there will continue to be a case for supplementing software capabilities with specialized hardware that can support the complex applications required to protect today’s networks. Why not find out how Telesoft’s hardware expertise can boost the performance of your packet processing solutions?

Learn more about our high-performance packet processing solutions or get in touch with our experts to see how we can help? Or, come and see us at booth 4354 at CTIA Wireless!

Packet loss is a common problem of data transmission in IP networks. Sometimes, packets of data fail to reach the required destination. Whatever the cause – and there are many – if packets don’t arrive at their destination, then problems can result. For some applications, this doesn’t matter too much, provided the rate of packet loss doesn’t exceed a certain threshold. But other, more critical applications, depend on the receipt of all transmitted packets in order to function correctly.

 This doesn’t just apply to end-to-end applications, such as conversational voice or video conferencing, but can also affect those applications that are designed to monitor the performance of the network. The impact of packet loss on such systems is also variable. For example, solutions that are deployed to gather network analytic data may not need to gather all packets that are transmitted. It can be sufficient to sample packets and to extrapolate from averages or samples in terms of packet use and demand.

 However, applications that are designed to protect the network from invasive attack must be able to reliably collect all packets transmitted in order not to miss those that might reveal signs of attack or performance degradation. Worse, some forms of network incursion may effect a rapid escalation of packet loss, so the early signs of such attacks need to be caught before real harm results.

 That’s why its essential to ensure that the solutions that protect our networks from harm are able to effectively capture all packets, with zero loss – and to ensure the resulting data can be screened by the intelligent applications that are designed to ensure optimal and secure network performance.

 It’s possible to develop such solutions using off-the-shelf network interface cards and high-performance CPU hosts. But as network transmission rates increase from 1Gb/s to 10Gb/s and beyond, it’s difficult for such solutions to deliver the performance guarantees required to ensure network protection. The cost of deploying such systems also escalates dramatically, both in terms of CAPEX and OPEX through power consumption and real-estate demands. And, such investments may be at risk through performance degradation.

 What’s needed are specialized solutions that enable network security applications to collect all required packets in real-time and at wire-speed without placing additional demands on CPU performance. By sharing the filtering and processing demands between specialized line interface cards and the CPU, overall system CAPEX can be reduced. Moreover, such solutions can also be deployed in small-footprint chassis units with lower power demands, reducing OPEX and providing the scale required to enable network-wide security solutions.

 There are a number of applications that have strict requirements in terms of packet loss, those associated with the emerging field of cyber security among them. By deploying hybrid solutions consisting of high-performance packet-processing interface cards and CPU hosts, not only will you not lose a packet, you won’t spend one either.

Why not find out more about our high-performance packet processing solutions or get in touch with our experts to see how we can help? Or, come and see us at booth 4354 at CTIA Wireless!

Telesoft Technologies is pleased to announce our involvement in the CTIA Wireless event in New Orleans from May 8^th – May 10^th where we will be demonstrating our industry-leading range of 10, 40 and 100Gb capture cards.

CTIA Wireless is the main event for the global wireless marketplace, attracting more than 40,000 attendees every year with top-level speakers from across the industry. It’s a valuable opportunity for Telesoft to meet with our partners, discuss their requirements and demonstrate our latest technology developments.

This year, Telesoft will be exhibiting at booth 4354 in the Emerging Technologies zone where we will be showcasing the very latest developments in high performance packet capture technology.

Intelligent 10, 40 and 100Gb capture cards for monitoring and analysis 

Designed for high-speed packet capture, analysis and reporting, our high-performance platforms enable 100% accurate packet capture at all line-rates up to and including 100Gb/s.

Our latest hardware platforms use hardware acceleration to deliver zero packet loss and “apply on the fly” real-time configurable filters to ensure that DPI applications can effortlessly connect to 1, 10, 40 and 100Gb networks in scalable, compact platforms.

Contact us today to book a meeting with one of our consultants. We can discuss your needs and apply our expertise to solving your network challenges.

MWC this year was crowded. Judging by the activity in and around the event, those attending had an excellent experience. We certainly did!

It’s always good to reflect on what’s new at MWC and, for the benefit of our readers, we thought we would share some of our own observations.

1. Network monitoring is something that’s fundamental. Full stop. You need to be able to monitor your network in real-time and at wire-speeds. It enables a wide range of applications, but without the basic capability to see what’s happening on your network, you can’t be sure it’s working properly.
2. So much flows from network monitoring that it’s worth expanding on this. One of the major themes of MWC was the delivery of a rich customer experience and the emerging topic of CEM (customer experience management). If you can’t see what’s happening on your network, you can’t deliver CEM. To manage your customers more effectively, you need to be able to perform packet processing at Gb/s rates, which requires specialist hardware.
3. Customers are demanding better and more predictable performance. They are using increasingly demanding applications on their mobile devices. MNOs need to be able to think about delivering Quality of Service to meet these expectations. But QoS demands the ability to process packets and determine if there are any issues or problems  - and that means monitoring your network.
4. MNOs want to exploit an over-arching framework to manage and co-ordinate customer experience. Policy control is the answer to this and it’s big. But network policies need the equipment that can implement them, which takes us back to monitoring and packet processing.
5. Finally, network visualisation and self-discovery is a topic we think is going to develop in the coming months. The ability to create pictures of data routing, data sources and performance will supplement the need to monitor network traffic and help ensure complex MVNO and roaming agreements are consistently and fairly applied. With the dramatic growth in data demand, this is sure to be an interesting area.

So that’s it for another year. Network monitoring is going to be huge, although that might not be apparent when discussing high-level applications. But these applications depend on certain key capabilities and monitoring is fundamental to this process.

We’ll be reporting on new developments and themes in our regular news, but for those who attended MWC, we hope you are able to capitalize on the experience.

If you didn’t attend, or if you want to chat about any of the themes we have identified, why not give us a call? We would be happy to share our expert perspective and show you how you can meet the challenges ahead!

GTP is used to convey IP data traffic to and from mobile subscribers. While it’s been around for some time, as we move towards all IP-based LTE networks, the importance of GTP will continue to grow. Users don’t know it’s there, but they do know when a data session doesn’t work or is slow.

If GTP data isn’t transmitted in a timely and efficient manner, users notice – and start to complain to their service provider. This costs money – impacting margins and reducing profit. What’s worse, it’s a significant contributor to churn. As user demands grow, the importance of a consistent, reliable user experience is likely to grow too, with the result that operators have to protect their network to ensure that users obtain the service they expect.

This means that they need to closely monitor GTP flows to ensure smooth operation. But this is challenging as, each month, there is more and more data being conveyed across the network. In order to keep pace with this demand, operators need to deploy specialist hardware platforms that can intercept, filter and monitor GTP data in real-time, ensuring that the next flows smoothly and that potential issues are identified at an early stage so that problems can be avoided or minimised before they cascade through the network.

Hardware acceleration tools that can process data at line rates of more than 10Gb/s are required to ensure that GTP data is correctly processed and delivered at the required rate. Operators need to sort GTP streams and identify the correct session data, charging data and so on, to ensure that customers are billed correctly and that they obtain the data experience to which they are entitled. Simply keeping pace with this isn’t enough. Operators have to proactively manage the network, which means actively verifying that it is functioning as expected. If they don’t, customers will be the first to notice and they will be quick to swamp the complaints department.

If you would like to find out more about how we can help filter and stream mobile data for a range of applications, why not get in touch? Telesoft Technologies is a Gold sponsor of the forthcoming “Future of Cyber Security” event, to be held in London at Canary Wharf on the 19^th of March – If you would like to book a meeting with Telesoft during the conference or learn more about how we can help, please call Callum Rasmussen on +44 1258 486518.

Telesoft Technologies is a Gold sponsor of the forthcoming “Future of Cyber Security” event, to be held in London at Canary Wharf on the 19^th of March.

Product expert Steve Patton will be delivering a seminar on “A hybrid hardware/software approach to cyber security”. As transmission rates on networks accelerate from 10G, through 40G to 100Gb/s, software only implementations of DPI cannot process the packet throughput, and will miss vital signatures or identities.

Telesoft Technologies will discuss a hybrid approach, designed to ensure that no information is lost. By using a combination of intelligent hardware pre-filtering and “back in time” analysis on high speed interfaces it is possible to rapidly identify flows of specific interest, ensuring that later stages of host analysis only see packets of interest.

The Future of Cyber Security 2012 conference brings over 400 senior decision-makers face to face with leading cyber security specialists.

Designed exclusively for central and local government organisations, NGOs and major private sector enterprises, the event provides conference delegates with a unique opportunity to interact with thought leaders in the field.

Conference sessions and seminars will give senior IT, information and security officers unrivalled insight into the cyber threats of today and the potential threats of tomorrow.

To register for this important event, simply follow this link. If you would like to book a meeting with Telesoft during the conference or learn more about how we can help, please call Callum Rasmussen on +44 1258 486518.

Our product and technical experts are attending Mobile World Congress this year. They will be available to solve your network problems with in-depth, on-the-spot discussions.

• Find out why hardware acceleration is a must for packet processing applications, including DPI.

• Learn why network Policy engines depend on DPI for QoS delivery.

• Discover why true high-performance media processing needs scalable, reliable hardware – and why software is not the only answer.

• See STM1 to 40Gb/s high-speed media and packet processing cards in convenient PCIe form factors

• Discuss high-density media, IVR and signaling solutions for deployment in NGN / IN networks

Why not arrange a meeting with our consultants so we can discuss your needs and apply our expertise to solving your network challenges? Simply pre-book a meeting or call Callum Rasmussen on +44 1258 486518 to arrange a meeting.