As IoT networks are being deployed, it becomes obvious that they introduce several challenges.
Taking into account the nature of IoT (e.g. many of the networks ‘islands’ use an open environment – such as open wireless frequencies – and allow end users to add/remove devices – such as in a Home Automation application, a network can be comprised of devices from different vendors running different protocol versions or interpretations, etc.).
As a service provider of IoT systems and services you want to stay ‘on top of things’ about the proper functionality of your remote networks.
Our Network Visibility system provides just that!
This centralized solution captures data from the remote IoT networks in a transparent, raw form using on-site probes (GW devices or APIs) and saves it on your own dedicated database.
The data is then analyzed based on the protocol and versions standard and malfunctions and anomalies are clearly brought up to the operator attention via alarms and logs trigger through user defined scripts (all even before the end-user notices that something is wrong in his system….).
Some of the several features of the Perytons Network Visibility solution are:
- View overall network status over a map including overall networks events and alarms, possibility to dive-in to each of the sites for detailed auto diagnostics results
- Issue manual analysis of problematic selected sites
- Data in the remote IoT network is captured in its RAW (PHY level), making the system agnostic to communication protocol evolution or vendor interpretations
- Supporting a variety of standard communications protocols as well as customization for proprietary protocols
- The system uses an ‘out-of-band’ approach so you do not rely on the integrated QoS options of each remote network (that can, by itself, be vulnerable to system malfunctions, etc.)
- Analysis, troubleshooting and monitoring are all done in the center thus making implementation of new protocols, versions, upgrades and modifications easy and quick
- Automatic diagnostics operations can be scheduled to be performed on each of the remote networks on predefined time intervals
- Special user-defined-scripts that run on the captured data for analysis purposes, can be easily added and change as remote networks evolve
- Identify potential problems like RF/physical medium interferences, incompatible devices, faults, etc.
- Run parallel off-line/back-office detailed analysis on the saved raw data to allow to learn about network behavioral analysis resulting in new scripts definitions, etc.
System Topology
Whether based on wireless or narrow-band wire-line protocols, the Perytons™ Network Visibility solution facilitates Internet of Things remote network analysis and preemptive monitoring. The system helps ensuring meeting Service Level Agreements and assists to guarantee customer satisfaction.
The system topology figure shows the different components that incorporate the Network Visibility system as follows:
1. Remote capture agents are located in each of the remote networks. When instructed these agents can perform actions like noise measurement, passive scan, gather the network data and more; all in a non-intrusive manner. The remote agents can be implemented on dedicated hardware devices – gateways (this solution is usually part of initial network implementation phases such as R&D tests and beta sites) or as part of the already existing network-controller/gateway/setop-box and by implementing SW based Perytons APIs.
2. The remote capture agents connect to the centralized Perytons Communication controller over Internet, 3G or other broadband backbone. The communication controller routes commands and data from/to the remote agents and stores the captured data (in its raw form) in a centralized database.
3. The network administrator sets scheduled scripts that automatically run by the Diagnostics Server, on the data captured in each of the sites. These scripts are used to automatically identify potential problems such as incompatible device that was added to one of the networks, RF interference or any other scenario defined by the scripts. Diagnostics results are kept in the database as statistics charts and generate events and alarms to the help desk operators.
4. Help desk operators get a network status picture over the system interactive map as well as a summary of the events and alarms. The operator can locate the problematic sites (even before the end-user is at all aware of any network existing problem), manually initiate detailed analysis, help the customer to solve problems over the phone, or escalate the problem to the field engineers.
5. Data, stored in the centralized database, can be easily shared with R&D, back office or field teams and used for detailed investigation of the remote network.
The Perytons Network Visibility system is built using the Perytons Protocol Analyzers core building blocks. These include the enhanced analysis engine, sophisticated scripting and excellent user interface with different sections options and view perspectives.
All protocols supported by the Perytons Analyzers family of products are supported by the Perytons Network Visibility, including (802.5.4, ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, Goolge Thread, Bluetooth Smart, PLC-PRIME G3-PLC and more).
Using the Perytons SDK Add-On proprietary protocols or layers can be quickly added.
We are aware of the fact that different scenarios and options may require different implementations and adaptations. Please Contact us to discuss possibilities.
Multiple Networks Map View
The Perytons™ Network Visibility Solution – Map View is a good starting point for monitoring and analyzing of the remote IoT networks. It provides a summary of pending alarms and events generated by the remote agents or by the diagnostics server. It also provide a first level status intuitive picture of the supervised networks through color coded icons that represent each of them. The user can easily identify problematic networks and engage in a more detailed investigation process that involves a desired network.

The Perytons™ Network Visibility Map View can be zoomed in and out allowing the user to focus on a geographical region, a specific network or group of networks under his/her responsibility.
Each remote network location can be defined according to its longitude and latitude coordinates as well as user-defined name and description. The connecting agent through which the remote network is monitored is also configurable.
When right-clicking on a selected network, several monitoring and detailed analysis options are revealed and through the main menu the preemptive monitoring settings can be defined.
Focusing on a specific network - available tools
When selecting a specific network among those shown on the Multiple Networks Map View the user can initiate monitoring actions such as starting and stopping a channel static scan, remote RF noise measurement for RF based networks and perform a detailed data traffic analysis through the variety of integrated views.
Some of the main actions available for a selected Remote Network are:
• Start and stop a data capture process
• Noise measurement
• Activity detection
• Show statistics data
• Show messages in Time View
• Show messages in Message and Message Tree View
• Show the Remote Network Topology
• Show Message Sequence Transactions between multiple devices
• Enable usage of advance tools like message comparison, find and search based on pre-defined criteria, etc.
Preemptive Monitoring
With the Perytons™ Diagnostics Server, the user can define scheduled actions and discover network potential problems even before they actually affect the overall operation. This feature helps meeting the committed SLA (Service Level Agreement) and ensures customer satisfaction and continued loyalty.
The diagnostics server contain a task scheduler and a user defined scripts. The scheduler executes the scripts over new data received from the monitored networks.
With the scripts, pre defined scenarios, message filtering, and statistics information can be calculated and accumulated with previous results. The script output is alarms/events, overall remote network status (e.g. good, warning, error) as well as updated user defined statistics charts.
Some of the preemptive monitoring options that can be set to any of the Remote Network are:
• Setting scheduler based actions for selected or all the remote networks
• Definition of scripts to enable numerous options and possibilities like:
• Send an automatic e-mail message to a specific addresses when a specific criteria of data received from a defined network is received
• Export specific captured data (meeting specific criteria) to an external file or log
Overview
Perytons Analyzer main screen with variety of windows showing the traffic from the large picture down to the last bit
Message Sequence
Message Sequence window showing the sequence of messages between selected devices
Network Topology
The Network View shows auto-detected message topology with the various devices their status and active connections
Time View
Time View window showing messages along time axis with variety of grouping options time markers bookmarks and more
Tree View
Tree View shows the message fields in hierarchical XML like view and over the original and deciphered hexadecimal data
Statistics Window
Statistics Window shows the data in pre-defined as well as user created statistics charts
Data Capture
Single channel as well as synchronized multi channel capture is supported in 2.4GHz as well as in Sub 1 GHz bands
Security
Encrypted data is deciphered by auto detection or user managed encryption keys
Message Compare
Message Compare allows to quickly find the differences between any two messages
User Defined Scripts
User defined scripts are small pieces of code allowing to customize the analyzer generate alarms create statistics chart and generate traffic in response to the system under test behavior
Message Creation
With the Traffic Generator add-on messages can be easily created and then sent over the air to stimulate the system under test
Tabular Mode
In tabular mode user can select the fields to be displayed in Message View and sort the messages according to any of these fields
Search for Activity
Search for activity allow to make passive and active scan after ZigBee or IEEE 802.15.4 traffic and to map the noise level and interference on each of the channels
6LoWPAN Analysis
When analyzing 6LoWPAN or ZigBee IP the Perytons analyzer decode the protocol layers and reassemble the web page or XML file that has been transferred between the devices
Using Notes
Notes can be added to any message or device indicating events of interest and can then shared with colleagues for further analysis
User Preferences
User preferences allow the user to set analyzer colors timers and other properties for optimized performance and look