Augmented intelligence & IoT fingerprinting optimize networks

Felipe Soriano

December 06, 2019

Augmented intelligence and IoT fingerprinting provide the tools network administrators need to optimize bandwidth and make better decisions.

Augmented intelligence is more than just a trendy notion. It provides network administrators with information to make better decisions and anticipate issues before crisis arise, and it’s enabling new business processes using artificial intelligence, data analytics and machine learning. Together with Internet of Things (IoT) fingerprinting, which provides information at the device level, network administrators have the tools they need to optimize bandwidth and make the right decisions for their networks.

Networks are the key collectors of traffic, device and application analytics. Collectively, this information provides the augmented intelligence to formulate insights about traffic patterns, as well as develop access policies. This information provides the foundation for dynamic provisioning of network elements, such as switches and wireless access points.

Augmented intelligence about device and application usage provides the information for the dynamic provisioning of devices, based on user credentials, to enable network profiles that follow the devices throughout the wired and wireless networks.

As organizations embark on their digital transformations and move into the world of Digital Age Networking, the Service Defined Network will allow them to dynamically provision network services that align with their business objectives. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch® family of products and the Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess® Stellar Wireless LAN Access Points (APs) provide a dynamic device profiling architecture to securely provision the IP network access for the IoT devices that are proliferating networks today.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise delivers extensive intelligent networking with its family of networking devices and the Alcatel-Lucent OmniVista® 2500 Network Management System (NMS) which provides tools to dynamically provision those network elements. The OmniVista 2500 NMS uses device fingerprinting to rapidly provision the exponential number of IP-enabled IoT devices to enable secure access to the network infrastructure by enforcing the dynamically provisioned access policies in the OmniSwitch and Stellar WLAN APs.

The device fingerprint uses a cloud-based signature database to identify and profile devices that are attached through the OmniSwitch and Stellar WLAN network environment. This includes information such as the device status (Active or Offline), manufacturer, port type (wired switch port/AP/ESSID connectivity), IP address, Universal Network Profile (UNP) type, and device category, among others, to identify the unique device. The information can be used to dynamically provision the UNPs in the OmniVista 2500 NMS, which pushes those policies to the AOS-based OmniSwitch and Stellar WLAN APs, for enforcement at the access layer.

The OmniVista 2500 NMS provides a device inventory list. Filters can be applied to the inventory list to provide the most relevant information for administration purposes. For example, in a university network application, if a network administrator wants to view a “real-time” list of active wireless devices attached to SSID “IOT-Dev-Prof” during daytime class sessions on a specific date, they can create a filter to display the results in an easy-to-read table listing.

There are many industries that can benefit from the network intelligence that device fingerprinting provides. For example if we look at the higher education environment where students bring wireless IoT devices onto the university campus, once the devices are fingerprinted they can be dynamically assigned to specific network profiles which dictate their network access, as well as the type of security and bandwidth parameters. In the case of video streaming and gaming, if the university wants to restrict network bandwidth for educational purposes during class hours, the network administrator can provision UNPs for both wired and wireless through OmniVista to restrict device access (or simply limit the bandwidth of those devices) on the wireless network during class sessions.

Today administrators can manually provision UNPs based on information in the data traffic flows that match the provisioned UNPs.  The next version of IoT device fingerprinting will allow dynamic provisioning and enforcement in the network elements to automatically enable UNPs based on augmented intelligence that makes business sense.  

To learn more about augmented intelligence and IoT device fingerprinting please contact your local sales representative to setup a demonstration.