Intro
5×9 Networks’ Lightweight Monitoring System (LMS) has been the platform of choice for leading companies for years, supporting a wide range of use cases across Enterprise and Telco networks, from WiFi, Access and Edge to Core and Data Centers. One of LMS’s key strengths is its ability to provide detailed insights into the functioning of networks, services, and applications, while enabling instant problem detection, which is crucial for proactive problem resolution.
As 5×9 LMS also supports virtual probe form factors (VMs and containers), the idea emerged to deploy the LMS Probe on residential Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). The goal is to enable continuous or on-demand active performance monitoring, problem detection, and remote diagnostics from the end user’s perspective.
Picture 1 – 5×9 LMS architecture
5×9 Networks has been advocating for deploying an active measurement Probe on CPE equipment for some time, but it wasn’t until recently that significant traction was gained. Several triggers and trends have driven this development:
- Adaptation of Modern CPE Linux Distributions: The introduction of CPE Linux distributions that support containerization, such as RDK-B and PRPL.
- Adoption of TR-369 User Service Platform (USP): This enables Auto Configuration Servers (ACS) to remotely deploy third-party applications on CPE equipment that supports containerization.
- Focus on User Experience: Telecom providers are placing greater emphasis on enhancing the user experience, recognizing customer satisfaction as a critical competitive differentiator. This includes improved network performance, better customer service, and personalized offerings.
- Proactive Issue Resolution: There is a growing trend toward proactive problem detection and resolution, especially in fault repairs, addressing issues before they significantly impact the user experience.
- Avoiding Costly On-Site Troubleshooting: Telecom companies are actively seeking ways to minimize expensive on-site troubleshooting. Remote diagnostics, automation, and AI-driven solutions are being leveraged to solve issues without the need for technicians to be physically present, reducing operational costs and downtime.
Deploying the 5×9 LMS Probe on x86 based platforms, where significant resources are available for containers, posed no issues. However, to enable the deployment of the LMS Probe container on ARM based CPE equipment, which typically has limited CPU and memory resources, 5×9 completely rewrote the core framework to minimize its CPU and memory footprint. As a result, successful deployments have been achieved with multiple CPE vendors, including Kontron, Ericsson Cradlepoint and Kaon Broadband.
BBF Demo
During the NetworkX event in Paris, 5×9 Networks, as part of the Broadband Forum (BBF) consortium, conducted a live demo featuring two products: the Lightweight Monitoring System (LMS) and the virtual Broadband Network Gateway (vBNG). While the focus of this blog post is on LMS, it’s worth briefly mentioning that the 5×9 vBNG platform was used to terminate broadband connections in a complex, multivendor fixed-line environment (more details on the environment are provided on picture below).
Picture 2 – BFF innovation demo scheme
For the demo, the Kaon Broadband CPE hardware, branded for Deutsche Telekom (DT) and running the PRPL Linux distribution, was used to host the 5×9 LMS container-based Probe. The LMS container probe was remotely deployed on the CPE and initiated via Incognito’s User Services Platform (USP) using the TR-369 protocol. Upon boot, the 5×9 container communicated with the LMS central component, Node Manager (the system’s brain—see previous blog posts for more details), which was hosted as a tenant in the 5×9 Cloud multi-instance Node Manager deployment.
Picture 3 – CPE container visible on Node Manager
The Node Manager had prepared the measurement module software with all the required configurations, which the probe downloaded and used to begin performing measurements accordingly.
Picture 4 – Container Probe measurement configuration
At the end of each measurement cycle, performance results from the Probe were uploaded to the Node Manager, where they were stored, visualized, and checked against predefined or machine learning-based thresholds for alarming purposes
Picture 5 – DNS performance results from CPE
Conclusion
The combination of the 5×9 Lightweight Monitoring System, new ARM-based CPE hardware, and modern Linux CPE distributions, all powered by TR-369 User Service Platform, provides a robust solution for deploying active measurement probes directly on business and residential CPE devices. This setup offers real-time visibility into network, service, and application performance from the customer’s premises, enabling proactive issue detection and resolution.
By periodically monitoring key metrics such as HTTP, DNS, bandwidth, latency and packet loss, operators can identify and address potential problems before they affect the user experience. Automated remote diagnostics help reduce the need for costly on-site troubleshooting, boosting operational efficiency.
This solution integrates seamlessly with existing network management systems, enhancing service reliability and customer satisfaction. Its lightweight design ensures the 5×9 LMS Probe can be deployed on resource-constrained CPE devices, making it adaptable for various use cases—especially when 5×9 LMS is utilized across other network layers, including Access, Edge, Core, and Data Center. Additional value can be created by exposing certain LMS capabilities to Customer Support engineers and Customer Care agents, enabling them to act on quantifiable measurements rather than assumptions or often misleading subjective customer observations
In summary, this combination of technologies allows network and service issues to be resolved proactively, resulting in improved service quality and a smoother user experience for both business and residential customers.
And finally, a big thanks to Incognito and Kaon for the productive collaboration!
Author: Mario Jurcevic, 5×9 Networks
