Next Generation Communications - Security Archives

LTE is Changing Public Transportation Operational Security

2012-03-25T19:32:38Z

By Erin Harrison

Long-term evolution (LTE) is driving many changes in the IT landscape, not the least of which is operational security in mass transit. Railway operators and law enforcement agencies are using a range of CCTV technologies in a variety of situations to improve public safety. Alcatel-Lucent’s TrackTalk e-zine is a great source for information and insights on what LTE can do for enabling a host of capabilities including significantly upgrading in a cost-effective manner video surveillance, IP camera monitoring and what the future of CCTV and surveillance will look like.

In a recent article that takes an expert view perspective, aptly titled, The Changing Face of Operational Security, Jeremy Haskey, Transportation System Integration Division, Alcatel-Lucent notes that, “The hype surrounding the development of LTE is justified…With greater capacity, it has the potential to revolutionize video surveillance by carrying live high-definition video to individual handheld devices carried by security personnel, staff in control centers or directly to the emergency services. The HD images will improve zoom quality making grainy images associated with current CCTV applications a thing of the past.”

Optimization of railway operational security includes design as a major consideration for the effective application of large CCTV networks as well as selecting the right technology from the range of CCTV equipment available to optimize the return on investment. Indeed, once such a system is in place, inevitably all of this information has to go somewhere to be managed and responded to in an effective manner. Multiple voice communications systems, including passenger communications points and security stations also need to be coordinated.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Integrated Communication Management System (ICMS), for example, acts as the facilitator of this information, also providing operators with the tools to respond to a specific incident. It is part of the company’s overall view on providing railway operators with a comprehensive video protection solution such as the one it is providing with France’s RATP to the Paris Metro system.

“With no single standard available for all emergency services’ and transport operators’ communication equipment, these systems are often not compatible with each other,” says Haskey. The ICMS can decode the information from the various communication and security surveillance systems that are in place, providing integrated communication paths between the different organizations.

To summarize, while LTE technology is still in its initial stages of development, as it evolves, it is imminent that LTE will become the platform that the next generation of security can be built on and developed by the technological community. For more information you may wish to check out the latest issue of TrackTalk which not only has valuable insights but links to many useful resources.

Rail Security Essential to Modern-Day Transportation Systems

2012-03-13T21:03:53Z

By Erin Harrison

“Your surveillance network should dictate your power and equipment requirements, not the other way around. Often operators tell me they want 50 cameras. I ask them what they think every one of those cameras should be doing. It’s very easy to over-engineer systems and overwhelm your ICT network with unnecessary data.”

In addressing network operators in a recent article in Alcatel-Lucent’s Tracktalk, Making the case for Enhanced Rail Security Systems, the above expert advice was provided by Dave Gorshkov, CEO of Digital Grape Business Services.

“Security is essential to the modern railway, protecting passengers, staff the operator’s assets from diverse range of risks including terrorism, crime, trespass, and vandalism,” he continued, noting that few security systems are installed without the support of a robust business case.

Gorshkov’s comments underscore the need to consider the functional requirements for optimizing a video surveillance system from the beginning of such a project. In addition, the capability of supporting ICT infrastructure needs to be scaled to the data volume.

Since 2006, the U.S. government has awarded more than $1.6 billion in Transportation Security Grants (TSAs). Most of this funding is directed to large metropolitan areas where the safety risks are judged to be greatest, with high-impact projects that guard against terrorism given priority.

Before initiating such a large-scale project, operators first need to create a systems requirements specification (SRS) that outlines the safety, operational, and security features of the proposed installation, which will help to ensure that camera compression and memory systems are designed to meet the operators’ specific operational needs.

Camera design and system architecture need to be considered carefully as part of the overall design process as do data storage and transmission capacity, Gorshkov added. Among the key questions that should be asked during the planning phase are:

Why are we installing the system?
What is its main use?
Where do we need to install cameras and why?
What are the images supposed to achieve?
What recording system and back up facility do we need?

The ability to upgrade in future is an important consideration if the system is expected to have a long service life, Gorshkov added. Future considerations are critical in the early planning stages. Ten years ago networks operated with 5-10mbps transmission based on a handful of cameras. Today there are installations with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of IP-based cameras that require hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes of capacity. In another 10 years, network needs will change yet again.

Alcatel-Lucent’s Critical WAN Infrastructure solution offers a route to this new infrastructure, avoiding disruption while laying the ground for migration to an all-IP network and allowing public transportation systems the ability to provide comprehensive security solutions in a cost-effective manner.

Video Surveillance: Minimizing Cost and Maximizing Return on Investment

2012-02-27T16:51:05Z

By Mae Kowalke

The use of video surveillance as a public safety and security tool is growing. Partially, that’s because homeland security regulations and initiatives around the world are driving deployment. It’s also because high capacity wireless data networks have brought down the cost of infrastructure to the point where the ability to provide comprehensive coverage is practical and cost-effective.

However, it should be noted that the initial investment and operation and maintenance costs of video surveillance can be significant. This is highlighted by the fact that protection responsibility is shifting from police/military to infrastructure owners.

“In the US energy market, for example, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation-Critical Infrastructure Protection regulations require that utilities tightly control access to their most important infrastructure,” notes Sheridan Nye, Senior Analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media’s Enterprise Verticals practice, in a LifeTalk article, “Is Video Surveillance Worth the Investment?”

Since the security benefits of video surveillance can be significant, companies and organizations either voluntarily looking to deploy this technology, or those compelled to do so by regulations, are considering a variety of strategies to justify the expense and achieve cost savings. One of these is to look at indirect cost savings that can be viewed as return on investment (ROI) for capital expenditures on security network infrastructure.

For video surveillance systems, Nye notes, ROI is usually indirect, and comes from multiple sources. He further states that, “Protecting assets … has a direct impact on insurance premiums as well as meeting regulatory requirements.”

In the U.K., video surveillance is being embraced to counter metal theft, which is a big problem. Copper, which fetches a high (and rising) price, is especially appealing to thieves. The rail industry in the U.K. alone lost £43 million worth of metal in the last three years, and companies are spending at least £12 million each year on security to prevent metal theft.

Although video surveillance may not be able to prevent this theft in the first place, items like pipes and cables can be visibly marked to be traceable if stolen. In fact, situational awareness, public safety officials being able to deploy pervasive video surveillance and potential bad actors knowing it is present, is also a deterrent to potential thieves.

As potentially useful as video surveillance can be for security, it’s especially difficult for public safety agencies to afford the technology, since there have been major funding cuts in the past several years due to the recession. Often, video surveillance is only an option if the cost is shared with other organizations.

“Video is an example of a service that can be shared between the transport service and the police or other agencies like the ambulance service,” Nye points out. This is why being able to leverage the deployment of LTE is so critical since they dramatically cut the costs of deploying a wired-based video surveillance network and can be share by multiple parties.

In addition, complementary technology, such as motion detectors, can also reduce the cost of operating video surveillance systems. Compressing video to lower quality when precise imagery isn’t necessary can also help by boosting efficiency and network capacity.

The most recent issue of LifeTalk which features multiple articles on the issues and value of deploying a comprehensive video surveillance capability is worth a read. It includes a variety of perspective as well as information about the differences between U.K. and U.S. markets, projections for deployment growth along with features on partnering and what the Sao Paulo Militar are doing in Brazil .

Mathematical Processing Explores the Benefits of Georedundancy

2012-02-27T15:45:48Z

By Susan J. Campbell

Businesses throughout the world rely on their networks to support business processes, run applications and drive revenue for long-term sustainability. As a result, the importance of the network is amplified. The network and the data it maintains must be redundant to ensure optimization in the event of a failure. For this, Alcatel-Lucent recommends the benefits of georedundancy.

A recent article in Alcatel-Lucent’s TechZine by Randee Adams, Consulting Member of Technical Staff, Eric Bauer, Reliability Engineering Manager, and Daniel Eustace, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff entitled, “Availability Benefits of Georedundancy,” explores the enhanced service availability and client-initiated recovery possible with geographically redundant systems. With breakthrough mathematical modeling, a deeper understanding of the availability boost provided by such systems is enabled, while also identifying opportunities for optimization. And, lest we forget, the business continuity assurance it provides in the wake of a major disaster event.

Alcatel-Lucent developed the mathematical modeling that demonstrates how businesses have an opportunity to leverage the existing georedundancy within their systems to enhance overall service availability. This approach also identified potential methods to use for optimization, including retry parameters, faster time out, rapid context restoration and client-initiated recovery.

Beyond the benefits of georedundancy lies its primary purpose – to ensure the continuity of a business following a disaster such as a fire, flood, human error or other impactful event that can render the entire data center or multiple systems useless within one location. While safety of the people is the primary concern, the close second is the recovery of critical services to sustain the business. With georedundancy in combination with methodical disaster recovery plans and manual procedures, service can be recovered in days or even hours.

When the benefits of georedundancy are combined with high-availability mechanisms and systems, service is automatically detected and recovered with a single failure event occurs. High-availability systems must be recovered within seconds, with a benchmark of no more than 315 seconds often set per system per year.

Georedundant systems speed up the time to detect a failure and recover. To enable the benefits of georedundancy, Alcatel-Lucent relies on the continuous time Markov availability models for the quantitative comparison of service availability. Client-initiated recovery is the only proven scheme to address uncovered failures and ensure a fix before the failure is felt by the client’s customers.

One of the main benefits of georedundancy is the ability to improve service availability in the wake of any interruption in service performance. Alcatel-Lucent offers a few recommendations to ensure standard high-availability mechanisms are augmented through georedunant systems:

Client-initiated recovery – use return codes and expiration of time outs to detect critical failures and support recovery to redundant system instances.

Time out and retry parameter optimization – shorten failure detection latency and eliminate false positives.

Enable rigid reestablishment – keep the process to identify, authenticate and authorize a session to another server instance as brief as possible to add only minimal latency.

Rapid context restoration – this must be enabled to retain user data in a common and replicated data store accessible to redundant system instances.

Overload control – when this is implemented, floods of primary and retired client-initiated recovery requests are prevented.

With innovative mathematical modeling provided by Alcatel-Lucent, we now have a deeper view and understanding of the availability benefits of georedundant systems to support a cost-effective, methodical approach to optimization. Reality is that the mathematics as well as historical evidence show that it is always “better to be safe than sorry,” and that when it comes to the protection of a network physical redundancy based on geographic diversification is the best way to ensure network resiliency and very short meantime-to-restoration periods in the face of network outages resulting from disasters.

Responding to Railway Security Through Partnerships

2012-02-21T16:20:17Z

By Erin Harrison

In the face of global threats and terrorist acts, collaboration and sharing best practices can help railway operators optimize their security capabilities. In addition, improving rail security by upgrading communications capabilities allows railroad providers a single, high-capacity network that can support multiple applications. In fact, such new applications improve the transportation experience for customers and enable railroads to keep existing riders and attract new ones.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent article in its TrackTalk e-zine for railways communications enttitled, “Partnerships are the key to a secure railway,” looked at how the rail industry is responding to the security challenges of the 21st century with solutions such as IP MPLS broadband networks and CCTV systems. 

Some key highlights from the article include:

Security strategies need to be continually reviewed to adequately address dynamic threats
Surveillance measures are often determined by specific local and national requirements
Partnerships and collaboration are critical

As the article points out, customarily, metro and main line critical infrastructure for rail networks has been based on complete yet inflexible systems designed to move data through fiber optic and microwave transmissions. However, with the world becoming more risky and threats occurring in possibly unorthodox manners, including such things as cyber attacks, a premium is now being placed on communications flexibility to ensure responsiveness in an effective and timely manner.

It is for this reason, as the article details, that security strategies need to be continuously updated. As Jacques Colliard, head of the Security Division of the International Union of Railways (UIC), says however, this updating and the need for flexibility must be done in the context of country and cultural difference. In other words, solutions cannot generically be transferred from one place to another they need to be adaptable.

Colliard continued citing that ideally operators will collaborate to discover best practices, however, variance in local conditions and requirements means the application of security technology varies widely around the world and therefore the standardization of systems is an unlikely goal. “Rail security systems cannot be entirely standardized because they need to meet specific regulatory and operational needs at a national and local level,” he explained.

This is by no means meant to say that partnerships and collaboration are ineffective. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The idea is to take what works in one place, and adapt it to local conditions. However, given the communications-intensive nature of public safety capabilities for use by public transportation authorities, especially for things like the expansion of deployment of video surveillance systems, legacy communications network are increasingly not up to the task.

This is why Alcatel-Lucent and leading transportation agencies, with a push from their public safety executives, are focusing on a new critical wide area network (WAN) infrastructure as part of a roadmap to an all IP-based network of the future.

It is a WAN solution that relies on a converged IP/MPLS-based communications to support network resiliency, quality of service, virtualization, synchronous Ethernet, convergence and a management platform that automates and simplifies operations management. It also can be easily integrated with new 4G LTE networks. These wireless networks are being deployed to provide vital communications links for video surveillance, other machine-to-machine (M2M) monitoring solutions and improved customer on-board experiences.

In fact, as can be seen from reading other TrackTalk features in the most recent issue, new wired and wireless networks not only enable railway operators to offer improved protection of physical assets and passengers, but also enable faster and more effective response capabilities in case of an emergency whether it be local or more widespread.

Sao Paulo Policia Militar Improves Video Surveillance, Saves Money with LTE

2012-02-21T15:06:19Z

By Mae Kowalke

Video surveillance is one technology that law enforcement officials increasingly rely on use to protect public safety. But, traditional hardwired systems are expensive, time-consuming to set up, and often produce unreliable results.

As an alternative, agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere are turning to 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks for the creation, deployment and expansion of sophisticated video surveillance networks.

A good example is Polícia de Estado de So Paulo (São Paulo State Military Police)—the agency charged with crime prevention, order maintenance, traffic control, and firefighting in Brazil’s most populous state. As highlighted in a recent article in the Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) e-zine LifeTalk, it has been experimenting with an ALU supplied LTE network.

Polícia Militar has a force of more than 100,000 police officers, covering the 96,000 square mile state with a population of 41 million (more than California). The agency uses video surveillance to efficiently and effectively prevent crime.

Colonel Alfredo Deak Jr., who oversees the agency’s telecommunications system, stated in the article that, “Even with 100,000 police officers, the police cannot be everywhere and see everything, all the time…The presence of overt video surveillance… provides a sense of security for São Paulo’s citizens, who see the police cameras and know there is someone operating and monitoring it proactively.”

Two problems with traditional hardwired video surveillance networks have hindered the speed at which they could be deployed and their effectiveness in São Paulo: bureaucracy and cost. As the article details, there is so much red tape associated with setting up a hardwired network in Sao Paulo that it can take 6-9 months to install a surveillance camera. In addition, non-LTE video cameras installed on the street cost, on average, 55,000 Brazilian reals ($29,270) each. By comparison, the total installation cost of LTE cameras is five times less at roughly 10,000 Reals ($5,322).

“LTE is a tool that allows efficient communications redundancy for applications such as video surveillance,” Deak said in the article. “It allows me to use my APCO 25 system towers which support my mission critical voice communication network with much less cost.”

Redundancy built into the LTE network means Polícia Militar is able to cost-effectively keep video surveillance monitoring up in all areas, by swapping out one tower for another to cover a specific region. The result has been that in Sao Paulo, the LTE network has transformed video surveillance into a much more powerful and versatile tool.

Deak said the video surveillance network is especially useful during disaster and emergency situations. It enables police officers on the scene, and those directing operations remotely, to communicate more efficiently and respond more effectively. Deak illustrated this by saying, “A real-time video image allows the commander to see what is happening with his own eyes, from multiple perspectives, and apply his own experience and training to that scenario.” He also praised the power of dual band and talk-to-talk broadband capabilities for allowing responders to communicate in hostile environments.

Polícia Militar also uses intelligence from video surveillance to prevent excessive use of force.

“The intensive use of intelligence to prevent the intensive use of force,” Deak explained. “The more intelligence and the more the police officer is prepared, the more information and knowledge he has about an emergency, the less force he will use to protect himself and the citizen.”

Deak said two types of activities tend to reduce crime: approaching suspicious persons, and removing alcohol, drugs and weapons from circulation. Video surveillance is a powerful tool that effort.

The LTE trial in Sao Paulo also addresses another requirement: the ability to buy technology form local vendors that builds on, rather than replaces, existing infrastructure. The LTE trial… has drawn the Polícia Militar and Alcatel-Lucent together with a focus on allowing the adaptation of our existing tablets, of our equipment, of our current software to the infrastructure provided by the trial,” Deak noted. “It is most important to allow Brazilian industry to begin to create devices for it.”

It is no secret that vigilance, especially when bad actors know they are being watched, is an extremely strong deterrent to crime, as well as being a critical component of effective emergency preparedness and response. The ability to provide high-bandwidth, secure, reliable communications for video surveillance over LTE wireless give law enforcement agencies not just the capabilities and coverage they require, but at a price/performance that is superior to wired alternatives.

Balancing Security and Privacy Using 4G LTE Enabled Video Surveillance

2012-02-13T16:58:45Z

By Mae Kowalke

When it comes to public safety, how much oversight and surveillance is enough, and how much is too much? Where do you draw the line between safety and invasion of privacy? These are questions policymakers and law enforcement officials struggle with every day. There are usually no easy answers.

A good starting point is to look at the role technologies like video surveillance can play in public safety, and what applications such technologies are most effective for particularly for providing an adequate degree of situational awareness.

Video surveillance is very prevalent in the U.K. where the typical person is recorded 20 times a day. It is gaining ground in the U.S. where post-9/11 has made people feel less safe and created a desire to have their “guardians” always watching in public spaces. However, omnipresence for the sake of security has a price. It does invade personal privacy.

This concern has only grown as sophisticated video and network technologies like 4G LTE— which is increasingly the technology of choice for massively deployed machine-to-machine (M2M) monitoring solutions— enable video can be not just automatically captured but also quickly analyzed to, for example, use facial recognition to ID a person or check a license plate against records in a database.

In a recent article in Alcatel-Lucent’s LifeTalk e-zine, “Video Surveillance: Balancing Security and Privacy, Capability and Cost,” author Andreas Olligschlaeger, Ph.D., President, TruNorth Data Systems notes that, “Privacy advocates complain these systems can be used to track the comings and goings of citizens with no connection to crime, and have concerns about how this data will be used.” He goes on to say that, “Privacy is less of a concern in Europe, where surveillance systems have been in use longer and personal privacy is constitutionally guaranteed.”

The facts are that video surveillance can and should play a part in public safety. It is proven to be a valuable tool that helps law enforcement officials do their jobs more effectively. That said, public safety officials also like to say it is only a part of a holistic approach and it cannot replace human judgment, and is obviously most effective when paired with human monitoring and decision-making.

“Video monitoring probably doesn’t do much to prevent crime, although it can be helpful in investigating, solving and prosecuting crimes…Key to this issue is the need to have human monitors watching the video output,” Olligschlaeger says.

Even the most sophisticated license plate or facial recognition system isn’t designed to sound an alarm if a criminal snatches someone’s purse or hits someone over the head with a beer bottle.

However, video surveillance systems—which take the closed circuit TV (CCTV) concept to a new level—are becoming more popular in the U.S. and in developing countries alike, in part because of lower cost made possible by wireless broadband growth. It’s easier than ever to balance capabilities with cost.

“Wireless networks eliminate the need to run coaxial cable to camera installations, and the smaller cameras reduce power requirements,” notes Olligschlaeger. “Now, a camera and transmitter can run for days or weeks on a battery, and may be able to recharge via a solar collector.”

Such video surveillance systems enable users to set up monitoring on demand, a feature made popular by social media trends like flash mobs. Flash mobs can be entertaining for a global audience if streamed live or published afterward on the web (which they often are, using smartphones and social media networks) but can also cause problems.

“Flash mobs can have a dark side, too,” Olligschlaeger points out. “One flash mob raided a convenience store in Maryland, with thieves running inside to steal merchandise off of the shelves, protected by the anonymity of the crowd. Another flash mob attacked people leaving the Wisconsin State Fair, knocking people to the ground and stealing personal belongings.”

It’s clear that video surveillance is here to stay, and has its place in the arena of public safety. However, it is also clear that striking the right balance as to how much security, when \, where why and how has been and increasingly will be a challenge for the officials charged with keeping us safe.

Improving Safety for Train Passengers with Video Surveillance and Other Technology

2012-02-06T16:46:26Z

By Mae Kowalke

Sustaining a successful public transportation system, such as train service, depends on that system being both convenient and safe. For train passengers, especially women, safety (both actual and perceived) can be a major issue.

In a recent article in TRACKTALK, “What puts women off using the train?” Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Associate Dean at University of California Los Angeles’ School of Public Affairs and Urban Planning, shined a light on the critical role video surveillance and passenger information systems (PIS) can play in helping female travelers feel safe. As she noted, “Dark and deserted stations and trains are understandably off-putting and can encourage people to seek alternative means of transport, or even not travel at all, to avoid feeling threatened, or in some instances becoming a victim of crime.”

For the uninitiated, PIS are electronic information systems that provide real-time information about estimated arrival and departure times, as well as brief descriptions regarding the causes of disruptions. PIS not only can be strategically located at transportation hubs but their information can be accessed remotely via a web browser or mobile device. As the author says, video surveillance solutions like those developed by Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), using a new Critical WAN Infrastructure solution based on IP/MPLS, go hand-in-hand with PIS as tools that, when combined with human staffing, can address the most pressing aspects of safety for all train passengers.

Loukaitou-Sideris researched this topic in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, and found that women train passengers are most concerned about their personal safety in several types of situations:

Waiting for a long time at a station
Poor visibility at the station (e.g. night, poorly lit)
Lack of staff members at the station
Being the only passenger on board a train carriage
The presence of another single, male passenger, or a crowd of drunken passengers

“Darkness, isolation, and limited opportunities for surveillance were all identified as the major reason that anxiety might increase among passengers, particularly women,” the author said. However, she found that unfortunately there is a gap between security measures that women feel are appropriate, and security measures operators generally choose to provide.

Transport authorities, Loukaitou-Sideris found, tend to prefer installing technology like closed-circuit TV (CCTV) video surveillance rather than adding more security staff, because it costs less. Video surveillance, of course, is only effective at actually stopping crimes if security staff is watching the feed and responds promptly when there are issues. “Technological solutions that are currently available and widely used such as communication points, and emergency buttons are viewed as a positive means of drawing attention,” stated Loukaitou-Sideris. She added, “However, concerns though remain about where exactly the operator at the other end of the line might be, and how quickly they will be able to respond.”

While the most fear-inducing possibility is a violent crime like rape or other physical assault, instances of intimidation, verbal assault and groping are much more common yet hard to prove, and thus tend to haunt female passengers. Women, Loukaitou-Sideris says, feel that if there were more security staff around, these “lesser” crimes would occur less often.

That said, if used appropriately, video surveillance and other technology can and does make passenger safer. For example, accurate information about train arrival and departure times—displayed on screens at the platform, or delivered through other means like on-board communications—helps passengers minimize the time they spend waiting at an unstaffed station.

Where Alcatel-Lucent’s Critical WAN Infrastructure Solution serves a vital function is to automate and simplify operations management. As TRACKTALK highlights, as a result of the increased desire by transit authorities around the world to protect not just passengers but critical physical assets that might be targeted by terrorists, there has been an increasingly holistic approach to railroad security. This is driving the need for interconnected surveillance and alerting. In this regard, several perspectives — social, economic, customer and transit system operations — must be taken into account.

It may sound a bit obvious but this approach must rely on a networking environment that is always on, always available, and can provide a level of granularity that enable authorities to accurately identify trouble spots and people and react quickly. In short, there can be no alternative to being on constant watch and having trained professionals ready to react to any contingency.

Finally, Loukaitou-Sideris states that security must be balanced with efficiency. After all, the goal is to get people to use the system. The implementation of cumbersome and time-consuming security practices, especially for mass transit systems in urban hubs, could dissuade not just women but all potential customers from riding the train. She found that, “Anything that delays the transport process makes public transport less attractive compared with automobiles…Airline passengers are able to tolerate more delays, but it is not the same for rail passengers who would not wait for hours to go through security. In busy cities where thousands of people are flowing through stations this is impractical anyway.”

While we live in an increasingly dangerous world, having a high-performance communications network that can support all aspects of rail security (in stations as well as throughout the physical transit network) is no longer being viewed as a luxury, but as a necessity. Finding the optimal balance to assure safe journeys with minor inconvenience is a complicated task which is why transit authorities are working closely with communications solutions providers to achieve that balance.

New Revenue Opportunities Possible with the New Conversation Experience

2012-01-03T17:15:24Z

By Susan Campbell

Service provider (SP) revenues are taking significant revenue hits from application and content providers (ACPs) as the disaggregation of content from physical access shifts value generation opportunities toward third parties. At the same time SPs are also attempting to ward off “free” offerings, such as people using things like Skype for making phone calls who are willing to put up with inferior quality, by attracting people to superior services they will pay a premium for. The challenge, which every day gains more urgency, is how to react to both trends.

The objective is to be relevant and central in evolving ecosystems and thereby be in a position to maximize new opportunities while minimizing risks. The vehicle for turning things around is embodied in the desirability of creating a new conversation experience with customers based on a holistic strategic approach.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent article, The Value of the New Conversation Experience highlighted the need for service providers to increase the average revenue per user and reduce churn, two of the major revenue corrosive issues. It focused on the reality that to accomplish these goals, SPs must quickly bring to market enhanced service bundles and also rapidly introduce innovative service offerings with compelling and differentiated perceivable value as critical to combating free services.

According to research and business models provided by Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), establishing a new conversation experience offers SPs the means to create sustained business value. It cautions that the value has to be communicated correctly to users and made attractive to all members of evolving ecosystems as well.

ALU’ research reveals that service providers willing to leverage things like IMS technology can capture and keep the attention of their customers through by enabling a more intimate relationship that is experienced as being personal, seamless, secure and social. However, a rich communication suite is not enough.

The research found that users want something with the attributes of ALU’s new conversation experience if they are to remain loyal which in turn can provide service providers with a broad and long term business value.

To truly deliver this new conversation experience, it’s critical that service providers understand what is required. For instance, the article says that customers want such things as:

Delivery of enriched voice to enable VoIP through a presence- and chat-ready enhanced network address book
One number service for all calling
HD quality IP-based video calling and sharing services through the availability of an enhanced network address book
Intuitive messaging for a converged messaging
Single inbox service between SMS, IM, MMS, video mail and voice mail

The key to all of the above and many more is that each of these services can deliver only short-term business value when delivered alone. Worse, they can be easily commoditized. When the services are bundled together, however, they are the foundation for the delivery of the new conversation experience.

To position service providers to generate new and sustainable revenue streams, ALU contends that the focus needs to be on creating integrated communications solutions, combining services and delivering enhanced bundles. This may include a Multimedia Pack to extend enriched voice, intuitive messaging and live video and access to enhanced bundles to deliver on the new conversation experience.

The key for the service provider is to develop the right offering and the right strategy for taking the offering to market. They must then employ sophisticated business modeling techniques so they can react quickly to maximize opportunity and minimize risks in a rapidly changing world.

ALU contends that the new conversation experience is the best way for service providers to create long-term differentiated and sustainable value and that now is the time to start the conversation before as they say, “the window of opportunity is closes.”

As with so many aspects of modern life, the Internet has profoundly changed the nature of relationships between buyers and sellers. Choice and not dictates are the rule and not the exception, and the customers because of access to information and alternatives now have historically unprecedented leverage. They are willing to talk but under new terms and conditions which are going to require new approaches to engagement both short and long term. It is as stated, a new conversation experience. It certainly appears to be a conversation worth getting started.

SIP CLF Will Simplify Network Management, Call Tracking and Troubleshooting

2012-01-02T22:19:14Z

By Beecher Tuttle

Assessing the performance of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servers in a multi-vendor environment is a difficult proposition for today's service providers. This issue is mostly due to the lack of common SIP call log standards, a reality that allows vendors to develop call logs based on their own format.

The myriad of call log formats acts as a barrier for service providers that want to review SIP transactions across multiple vendors, evaluate and troubleshoot their servers, and analyze call trends.

Fortunately, the answer to this concern – SIP CLF (Common Log Format) – has already been developed and is currently in the process of being standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

SIP CLF is a signaling protocol that creates a common log format that enables complete visibility and network management across all Session Initiation Protocol servers, no matter how many vendors are involved. This is highly important for carriers that deliver messaging, voice, video and other multimedia services using SIP.

The benefits of SIP CLF for service providers will be immense. Vijay Gurbani, a distinguished member of technical staff in the enabling computing technologies domain at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs, recently discussed these industry gains in a TechZine post, Easier Network Management with the SIP CLF.

Gurbani notes that, when implemented, SIP CLF will allow service providers to assess the state of SIP transactions across multiple vendors, thus providing trend analysis and traffic reports that help carriers better their service and streamline their network. In addition, SIP CLF can train anomaly detection systems to trigger alarms and enable the use of SIP equipment tests.

SIP CLF "provides an easily digestible log of past and current transactions, and its format allows quick parsing to discover relationships between transactions," says Gurbani. "In addition, it provides a foundation for creating other innovative tools that can be used to simplify call tracking, troubleshooting and identifying calling patterns."

Gurbani stresses that the signaling protocol will provide carriers with a number of different ways to improve their network performance, including the enabling of trend analysis and troubleshooting tools. Specifically, SIP CLF will eliminate the time-consuming and costly process of correlating data from a diverse set of SIP servers.

The common log format can also help create a standardized diagnostic trail to follow SIP call sessions across the globe, and make troubleshooting adjustments accordingly. The protocol can even help detect attacks based on perceived anomalies.

Gurbani expects SIP CLF to be standardized in the near future. "And as it is implemented throughout the industry, it will give service providers better ways to maintain high performance for multivendor networks, resulting in a better quality of experience for end users," he says.

Tools and Techniques for Securing Data in the Cloud

2011-09-12T15:21:53Z

By Mae Kowalke

The acronym CIA is probably associated most commonly with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But, in the realm of security for cloud services, CIA stands for Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. These lie at the core of how to most securely store and transport data in cloud.

To gain trust from enterprise customers, cloud service providers must prove they are qualified to address customer concerns. Opportunities abound if they are able to prove that, because cloud services have many advantages for enterprises.

“Enterprises want transparent solutions that protect their data while making it accessible,” said Alcatel-Lucent’s Serge Tapia, head of security compliance, and Arnaude Fillette, security solution architect, in an Enriching Communications article, “Where’s My Data? Securing the Cloud.”

That nicely sums up the advantages of enterprise cloud services: transparency, accessibility, and security. Tying these things together requires strong governance guided by best practices.

In the EC article, Tapia and Fillette explored four keys to successful cloud security.

1. Data protection and integration

In this area, the trick is recognizing that all enterprises are not the same even when it comes to things like protecting confidential data. Data classification lies at the root of the challenge.

“It is imperative that data classification be aligned with the customer expectations,” Tapia and Fillette stressed.

Data location requirements also vary from one enterprise to another. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

2. Compliance

Because cloud computing is so new, there are not yet established global standards for security. Until that changes, successful providers will keep pace with developing standards, contribute their own expertise to the specifications being created, and apply best practices learned so far within the industry.

“Adherence to recognized industry standards can help facilitate customer discussions and certification processes,” Tapia and Fillette noted.

3. Regulatory and legal requirements

Although worldwide standards for cloud security are still in the works, enterprises still have to follow established rules for security data. Many enterprises use the Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) system to gauge their security level, and cloud providers can leverage this tool as well.

“Security consulting services can also help providers address regulatory or legal requirements,” said Tapia and Fillette. “It is particularly important that security consultants be involved in the initial stages of the cloud project.”

4. Protection against targeted attacks

While direct security attacks tend to be of most concern for high-profile enterprises, other types of threats – such as employee corruption – are a universal threat. As with any other type of computer system, technology combined with human screening tactics are needed to protect data in the cloud.

“Security consulting and threat analysis can help cloud providers ensure that appropriate security solutions and operational tools are in place to help customers detect targeted attacks,” Tapia and Fillette suggested.

It’s clear that cloud security requires ingenuity, flexibility, and customization.

“Cloud providers can deliver superior security and win more business by working directly with customers to develop relevant, security-focused service level agreements (SLAs),” Tapia and Fillette concluded. “They can also leverage highly secured cloud infrastructures to propose new security services to customers who cannot afford to develop secure services internally.”

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End-to-End Security for the Smart Grid

2011-09-12T15:00:54Z

By Mae Kowalke

Around the world, electricity distribution infrastructure is being transformed using "smart grid" technologies. Although this is happening more quickly in some areas than others, the purpose is the same: secure energy supplies and ensure they remain viable.

This goes beyond security, of course, to profits – as such things always do.

“The bottom-line benefit is more efficient use of energy,” noted Peter Johnson, Vice President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Smart Grid division, in a GridTalk e-zine article, “Protecting the smart grid with today’s solutions,” about smart grid security.

In North America and elsewhere, the smart grid transformation is focused on moving toward solutions for the power industry based on converged IP/MPLS networks, which enable timelier reporting and better control. This is becoming more critical because technology in general is becoming less centralized, and security is therefore a more spread-out endeavor.

“Communications and other critical data are no longer contained inside traditional network boundaries, but now reach out to the edges where there is more opportunity for interception or attack, which means that more devices have to be protected,” Johnson noted.

Making sure there is a continual supply of affordable energy when it’s needed also requires building infrastructure that addresses data privacy and “the human element.”

Security, privacy and the human element (all components of “teleprotection”) are very much on the minds of decision-makers at AltaLink, which in 2010 began a four-year project to upgrade 12,000 kilometers (approximately 7,456 miles) of distribution and communication infrastructure in Western Canada.

Smart grid upgrades have now reached more than 65 of AltaLink’s 300 substations.

The multi-tier security system being put in place makes use of IP/MPLS intelligence, with centralized authentication and logging, security policies for each service, and a Layer 2 VPN firewall, among other capabilities

“We deploy industry best practices,” said Cory Struth, AltaLink’s Network Architect, in a GridTalk e-zine article, “Altalink: Implementing an end-to-end smart grid security strategy.” “We have centralized user management so that there is one button to push to take everybody off if necessary.”

While MPLS technology helps ensure a high level of data security, the biggest challenge is the human element.

“The technology itself is maybe 30 to 40 percent of the equation, with the human aspect the bigger wildcard in the whole migration,” said Clint Struth, Principal Engineer at AltaLink’s Telecommunications Networking division, in the article. “Trying to get the people to buy in, learn the technology, and fully understand it and be capable with it is a much more difficult process.”

Challenges and benefits are both inherent in smart grid deployments. This new type of ecosystem leverages diverse knowledge and technology, which makes it potentially more challenging to maintain – although if done right that need not be the case.

“Highly effective security can be designed into a deployment, and it will be far stronger and more effective than anything that has come before,” ALU’s Johnson said.

At least in the U.S., regulation is key to adoption of smart grid security. That’s because, as Johnson points out, cyber security tends to be driven by regulatory requirements.

“The role of Smart Grid technology is to provide the tool set that allows the utility to adequately protect its network and meet its obligations to both regulators and customers,” Johnson stressed.

None of this will happen overnight. But the benefits are too great to not begin acting now.

“The emerging imperatives for smart grid security include getting a consistent level of attention around the world for the issues, and then implementing solutions in a productive fashion,” Johnson said. “Central to this is the absolute imperative to design in security from the outset of smart grid design, and not to try and add it in after the fact.”

Delivering the Dynamic Enterprise

2009-12-15T13:47:18Z

With competition more fierce than ever in nearly every business market, enterprises are looking for any competitive advantage that will provide them an edge on the rest of the market. Naturally, talent is a natural area in which to invest, but increasingly, businesses are turning to technology, looking for even the slightest edge over their market competitors.

This includes enabling mobile workforces through fixed/mobile convergence and other mobility solutions, conferencing and collaboration tools, and other IP-based communications technologies that enable employees to work more efficiently.

For many businesses, this is a significant evolution from their existing communications systems, which included only traditional communications capabilities - no FMC, no video conferencing, no remote access to network resources, etc. But, businesses are quickly realizing they need to invest in these technologies in order to remain operationally fluid and able to quickly and effectively respond to internal and external demands.

As such, today's communications expenditures must be justified by their correlation to business objectives - in other words, executives must look not only for cost effective solutions, but those that have been proven to increase productivity and efficiency in the workplace. These interconnected solutions, enabled by IP connectivity, help create a more dynamic workforce that is able to match technology with employee responsibilities, allowing the entire business to react to changing business and customer needs.

Embracing the need for enterprises to create a more integrated and user-centric communications environment, Alcatel-Lucent has recently launched a new section of its Web site specifically dedicated to the Dynamic Enterprise, which, as CEO Ben Verwaayen notes, is about enabling users to collaborate quickly in a seamless multi-channel communications environment, helping drive innovation in their businesses and, importantly, with an eye on environmental impact of the technology.

The Dynamic Enterprise site, itself a highly interactive experience, features a variety of dynamically designed sub-sections to educate the business community on how to leverage converged communications to become more agile, including a clear definition of "dynamic enterprise," focusing on the connections between what Alcatel-Lucent calls the Four Pillars of the Dynamic Enterprise - network, people, process, and knowledge.

An interactive guest blogger forum draws attention to the hottest topics in enterprise communications and offers an opportunity for reader to pose questions that are then posted to the forums.

The site also features case studies showing how businesses are already turning the dynamic enterprise vision into reality, a media library with videos and podcasts, a newsroom with the latest information from Alcatel-Lucent, and even some entertainment, like a quiz to see you dynamic your enterprise is, a puzzle, and downloadable wallpaper and screensaver.

The site is designed not only to deliver information to help businesses become more dynamic, but to embrace the collaborative environment that is at the heart of a dynamic enterprise.

For more on Alcatel-Lucent's vision of the dynamic enterprise, visit the micro-site.

Collaborative Security: Shifting the Security Paradigm to Create Innovative Enterprise Security Solutions

2009-12-11T17:58:04Z

In today's age of Web 2.0 and cloud computing, security can actually be a positive enabler for driving business performance. To achieve this objective, enterprises can benefit from having a corporate-wide strategy, or a "security blueprint," that allows the enterprise to be open for business and provides a trusted environment.

On the other side of the coin, the rapid growth in communications technology has been accompanied by a similarly swift increase in security threats, cybercrime and the introduction of correlated security regulations.

According to an Alcatel-Lucent white paper, "Created the Trusted, Dynamic Enterprise," early in 2009 industry experts presenting to the U.S. Senate committee hearing on improving cyber security estimated profits from the cybercrime economy totaled close to $1 trillion - more than the cash generated by drug crime. This was later reinforced in a report by Symantec in April 2009 that noted there was a 265 percent increase in malicious code threats in 2008 compared to 2007.

However, adopting what the company calls a "trusted dynamic enterprise" philosophy, companies can position themselves to leverage the Internet to conduct day-to-day business while ensuring enterprise security.

"We believe our philosophy around security is to really help our customers focus on leveraging new collaborative business models such as the cloud and Web 2.0 and it's really about managing risks, controlling data and controlling costs and understanding how to use security as a positive business enabler...rather than a detractor," said Cliff Grossner of security solutions marketing at Alcatel-Lucent, in a recent interview with TMCnet.

Collaborative security in terms of creating innovative enterprise security solutions results in a trusted dynamic enterprise - trusted because enterprises provide the trusted environment for their employees to do their work, for their business partners who aren't being compromised, and trusted by their own customers because Alcatel-Lucent's customers are able to protect their data.

Further, Alcatel-Lucent's brand of security is more about managing security from the network. If you manage it from the end point, you will always get a fragmented view of the current security status of the enterprise.

Key Factors Driving the Need for a Comprehensive Security Blueprint

2009-11-25T16:36:53Z

A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report warned that cyber-threats facing federal networks and the country's critical infrastructure are becoming increasingly sophisticated. And while the number of attacks is exponentially growing - security incidents grew by over 200 percent from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2008 - the report concludes that the country is not optimally prepared to protect itself from such attacks.

Although this particular report is in reference to government networks, enterprise security is as vulnerable, if not more so. Rapid advances in communications technology have been accompanied by an equally rapid increase in security threats, the growth of cybercrime and the introduction of new security regulations.

New business models such as cloud services and Web 2.0 mashups are being rapidly adopted without mastering how to make the technology less vulnerable, according to industry experts.Although security has always been a major concern for enterprises worldwide, today's requirement for new business models, the pace of technological change and the emergence of a new, more sophisticated wave of cyber criminals, and demanding regulatory environment are making security more challenging for enterprises of all sizes.

Being a dynamic enterprise in this environment is only half of the formula for success. The other half requires an organization to become a trusted, dynamic enterprise by making security a positive enabler and a dynamic, integral, part of the enterprise rather than a static add-on.

To achieve this objective, enterprises must have a corporate-wide strategy - a security blueprint - that allows the enterprise to be open for business and provides a trusted environment.

According to Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner, businesses should recognize that new threats or vulnerabilities may require security spending that exceeds the amounts allocated, and "should consider setting aside up to 15 percent of the IT security budget to address the potential risks and impact of such unforeseen issues."

An Alcatel Lucent whitepaper recommends a "user-centric" approach to security that is delivered from within the network to protect networks, people, processes and knowledge.

With a security blueprint, enterprises can efficiently transform themselves into a trusted dynamic enterprise by addressing enterprise security from the perspective of the network, people, processes and knowledge to drive business performance.