Anritsu, a provider of testing, monitoring and management solutions for advanced and converged networks, has today announced release 6.2 of its Service Assurance solution MasterClaw. Providing extensive support for IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), VoIP and wireless broadband services, the latest release of MasterClaw is a converged network and service monitoring solution that supports operators and service providers in their migration to IMS and NGN (Next Generation Networks). With MasterClaw, Anritsu says that operators and service providers can efficiently scale their OSS solution from a single technology implementation into a converged deployment, spanning legacy technologies and new technologies such as HSPA, IMS, VoIP and NGN.
MasterClaw is an integrated Service Assurance platform for converged next generation networks. Based on non-intrusive probes, MasterClaw provides end-to-end network and service visibility across GSM, GPRS, UMTS, VoIP, triple play, IMS and NGN networks. The integrated application suite combines network monitoring and troubleshooting with service and customer quality monitoring.
Some of the most significant new features in MasterClaw 6.2 are said to include:
* Full monitoring support for IMS monitoring including R7 As IMS is maturing and reaching the commercial deployment phase, the newest release of MasterClaw now supports IMS R7, including the charging related Diameter interfaces: Rf, Ro, Gy, Gx.
* MasterClaw Insight, the new interactive operations intelligence tool
MasterClaw Insight brings operational insight to your fingertips. Through drillable reports and online encyclopaedia that guide users through the analytical process, MasterClaw Insight gives direct access to service quality and customer centric monitoring information needed to optimize the customer experience.
* User Plane tracing and analysis of wireless broadband services
To support management of wireless broadband services MasterClaw 6.2 offers the ability to analyze service sessions that are a part of the user plane signalling. The functionality includes in-progress tracing and statistical support, as well as full user sessions can be captured for offline analysis in external third party tools such as Wireshark.
The new release also includes further enhancements of MasterClaw's flexible Web based user interface. The upgrade includes both the application launch portal and the intuitive dashboard that provides instant information about the performance of any key indicator, with dynamic self-learning alarms.
"We are of course very proud to be able to announce the release 6.2 of MasterClaw", says Svend Dahl-Pedersen, Product Managing Director at Anritsu's Service Assurance Division. "Many of our customers are now entering into IMS and NGN with real commercial service offerings and with its full support for IMS R7 and VoIP our latest version of MasterClaw is designed to help our customers in the migration to IMS/NGN and reduce the technical risks.
Mr. Dahl-Pedersen continues: "During 2007 we had a growth in our business in excess of 25%, which is more than twice as much as the Service Assurance market in general. This proves that our customers appreciate our award winning suite of integrated Service Assurance applications, and MasterClaw's ability to seamlessly span across both today's and tomorrow's network and service technologies. Especially the brand new operation intelligence package, MasterClaw Insight, will help our customers to optimize their operations further."