Cisco Service Control Business Intelligence Solution Guide, Release 3.6.x
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Table Of Contents
Cisco Service Control Business Intelligence Solution Guide,
Release 3.6.x
Cisco Service Control Solution Guide
Cisco Service Control Business Intelligence Solution Guide,
Release 3.6.x
Revised: November 8, 2010, OL-23868-01
Note
This document supports all 3.6.x releases.
1 Overview
The Cisco Service Control Business Intelligence (BI) solution provides the enhanced analysis and reporting of subscriber network traffic. The infrastructure of the Cisco Service Control BI solution consists of features that enable the user to analyze the behavior of subscribers within the network. For example, the traffic analysis can include volume consumption, access patterns, top content providers, and usage trends. The Cisco Service Control BI solution offers tools for trend analysis, traffic comparison, and enhanced data reporting. It also provides ways to access this data over longer periods of time (up to 1 year).
Within the Cisco Service Control BI solution infrastructure, the Cisco Service Control Engine (SCE) sends Raw Data Records (RDR) to the Collection Manager (CM). The CM then uses software modules to perform various data aggregations and writes the data to an external database (for example, MySQL). Like the Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband (SCA-BB) Reporter, the Cisco Insight Reporter processes the data from the database and presents the data in web reports. Figure 1 illustrates the network topology of the Cisco Service Control BI solution.
Figure 1 Cisco Service Control BI Solution Network Topology
Related Publications
Use this guide in conjunction with the following Cisco documentation:
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2 Features
Within the Cisco Service Control BI solution infrastructure, there exists a large amount of data that needs to be collected, processed, and stored. Reports on this data need to be generated within a reasonable response time to meet user requirements. The need for reporting on both detailed and long-term trends can create challenges. To address these challenges, the
Cisco Service Control BI solution provides these features:CM Features
The CM uses several complementary features to provide a compromise between level of detail and long-term storage of the data:
Focus on Significant Data
The term ClickStream describes the actual Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests that a particular user triggers. The SCE filters out irrelevant URLs that secondary HTTP requests trigger. The ability to classify HTTP requests as belonging to the ClickStream of the user allows an accurate and effective extraction of the web browsing habits of the user. The ClickStream of the user contains significant data about the access pattern of the user. Because ClickStream events make up only 1 to 5 percent of the total amount of HTTP requests, it reduces the amount of data to be analyzed.
The user can set the volume threshold within the reports based on the ClickStream, and transactions for particular applications that exceed the threshold are filtered out. This significantly reduces the amount of data to be processed without compromising accuracy.
Database Table Partitioning
The CM partitions records of the same type into separate tables within the database. These partitions are calculated according to time-stamp ranges. A rolling window mechanism is then used to periodically delete the oldest partition.
String Removal
Because strings require storage space and have limited use in data mining, eliminating such strings frees up space for more storage. The Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) adapter of the CM can replace strings with empty strings based on the dbtables.xml configuration file. Eliminating strings results in a smaller overall database.
To modify a string field in the configuration file, use the <options> subtag in the <field> tag to overwrite the string with an empty value.
The following reports become unusable if INFO_String is removed:
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The following reports become unusable if ACCESS_String is removed:
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Aggregation of Usage Data
The aggregation process is run per table as a database stored procedure. Aggregation of usage data significantly reduces memory requirements by freeing space previously used to store more granular data points. Aggregation is disabled by default.
The xUR (where x is a particular type of Usage RDR) table records are displayed over time. With little effect to the overall accuracy of the report, usage data can be aggregated for the following timeframes:
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Adaptive Frequency Counts
Long-term trend reports are based on frequency counts, that is, how frequently a host was accessed. Because performing frequency counts on an infinite data stream could be a complex computational task, the CM uses an adaptive frequency count method where data for each of the most frequent events is aggregated and then stored. Aggregation periods are configured by hour, day, or week.
SCE Features
SCE data classification features include:
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When a flow does not match a protocol signature, advanced classification mechanisms are used:
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3 Reports
The Cisco Service Control BI solution includes enhanced reports that provide a comprehensive view of the network activity collected and processed by the Topper/Aggregator (TA) and Real-Time Aggregating (RAG) adapters in the CM:
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The real-time Subscriber Usage RDR (SUR) is periodically generated at user-configured time intervals for each subscriber that has real-time monitoring enabled. SURs are generated per subscriber and describe the traffic generated by that subscriber for a defined time interval.
The Transaction Usage RDR (TUR) is generated for each transaction, where a transaction is a single event detected in network traffic.
The real-time Flow Usage RDR (FUR) is periodically generated based not on time intervals but on open flow traffic. The content of the FUR is similar to the TUR but contains additional fields (flow ID and session ID).
A user can proactively drill down through the reports with the ability to display open subscriber flows, that is, display top services, then display subscribers per service, and then display detailed information about a specific subscriber. Figure 2 illustrates the data flow between components during a drill-down to flow-per-subscriber data.
The drill-down follows this data flow:
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Figure 2 Data Flow of Drill-Down to Flow-Per-Subscriber
Video and HTTP Reports
The Cisco Service Control BI solution includes enhanced reports on Video and HTTP domains:
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The SCE sends Video and HTTP TURs to the CM. The CM then routes these TURs to its RAG adapter. The RAG adapter aggregates these TURs to the domains at the first aggregation level and periodically populates the top domains into a new table in the database schema. A scheduled database server aggregation job periodically aggregates the first-level aggregation data into the second aggregation level. A reporter queries the database to generate the Video and HTTP reports.
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Any Internet Protocol (IP) addresses used in this document are not intended to be actual addresses. Any examples, command display output, and figures included in the document are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any use of actual IP addresses in illustrative content is unintentional and coincidental.
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