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March 2011
Analyzer LTE
Analyzer LTE Training
The content of this manual is provided for information only, is subject to change without notice, and
should not be construed as a commitment by Actix. Actix assumes no responsibility or liability for any
errors or inaccuracies that appear in this documentation.
Copyright Actix 2011. All rights reserved. All trademarks are hereby acknowledged.
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Analyzer LTE Training
Contents
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 5
SCOPE OF THE COURSE ............................................................................................. 5
WHO SHOULD ATTEND THIS TRAINING COURSE? ............................................................... 5
PREREQUISITES ..................................................................................................... 5
Hardware requirements ................................................................................... 6
AIM OF THE COURSE ................................................................................................ 7
HELP FILE ............................................................................................................ 7
SPOTLIGHT ............................................................................................. 10
SOLVING COMMON NETWORK PROBLEMS WITH SPOTLIGHT.................................................. 10
Spotlight features ......................................................................................... 11
Whats in Spotlight? ...................................................................................... 11
Navigating around Spotlight ........................................................................... 13
What can you do with Spotlight? .................................................................... 14
GETTING STARTED................................................................................................ 15
EXPLORING WORKSPACE ......................................................................................... 16
Summary Dashboard .................................................................................... 16
LTE Report ................................................................................................... 18
Issues Panel................................................................................................. 20
CELL COVERAGE ANALYSIS ...................................................................................... 21
LTE FAILURE: DROPPED CONNECTION ANALYSIS ............................................................ 23
DATA SERVICE ANALYSIS ........................................................................................ 30
THROUGHPUT ANALYSES ......................................................................................... 32
Example 1: High Throughput Analysis ............................................................. 33
Example 2: Low Throughput Analysis .............................................................. 35
ANALYZER .............................................................................................. 39
WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH ANALYZER? .......................................................................... 39
GETTING STARTED................................................................................................ 40
EXPLORING WORKSPACE ......................................................................................... 41
VIEWING DATA .................................................................................................... 44
Displaying on chart ....................................................................................... 44
Displaying on Map ........................................................................................ 47
Displaying in a Table ..................................................................................... 48
PERFORMING LTE ANALYSES .................................................................................... 50
StateForm ................................................................................................... 50
Protocol Stack Browser .................................................................................. 55
PERFORMING CUSTOMIZED LTE ANALYSES ................................................................... 56
About Queries .............................................................................................. 56
Binned Query ............................................................................................... 57
Histogram.................................................................................................... 58
Crosstab Query ............................................................................................ 59
REPORTING NETWORK PERFORMANCE ......................................................................... 62
Creating Custom Single File Report ................................................................. 62
Creating Custom Multiple Files Report ............................................................. 65
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Superstream ................................................................................................ 69
Repository ................................................................................................... 71
SAVING YOUR WORK ............................................................................................. 77
Saving Screen Layouts .................................................................................. 77
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Analyzer LTE Training
Introduction
Scope of the course
The Analyzer LTE Training Course provides a comprehensive overview of Spotlight and Analyzer for
LTE. The goal of the course is to give an understanding of the capabilities of the system and how it
can help users to improve quality of service for their network subscribers. Advanced users will be
introduced to new network applications.
The instructors for this course are experts in using Actix solutions to increase productivity, and are
familiar with the challenges faced by engineers working in cellular/PCS environments.
Class size is limited to ensure that everyone receives extensive one on one instruction. Participants
have many opportunities to ask questions relevant to their particular optimization needs. Upon
completing the course, participants will be able to use what they learned in class to identify and
solve real network problems.
The Analyzer LTE Training Course begins with a high-level presentation of the Actix platform
interface and its capabilities. We will then cover how existing optimization processes can be
tailored to the specific needs of the participants.
Engineers looking to further understand the application of log file data in optimizing
networks.
Prerequisites
Familiarity with network infrastructure and operation of the air interface.
A general understanding of drive test and call trace collection and post-processing
methodology and advantages/limitations with each dataset.
Access to Actix software and a familiarity with the Actix software platform.
Basic computer literacy, including familiarity with Windows and MS Office applications.
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Hardware requirements
A computer that should meet these minimal hardware requirements:
Item Requirement
Processor 1+ GHz
Framework SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 and .NET 1.1 &
3.5 are installed automatically in the standard Actix
installation.
Operating System Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server with Service Pack
3 or later.
Windows Server 2003 Standard, Enterprise, or
Datacenter editions with Service Pack 1 or later.
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition SP1.
Windows Small Business Server 2003 with SP1 or later.
Windows Vista with SP1 or later.
Actix software runs on 64-bit Windows as a 32-bit
application.
Memory 1+ GB
Hard Disk 2 GB
Other Requirements Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 or later.
Microsoft Office XP or above (required by Actix
Software)
Table 1 Hardware requirements
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Analyzer LTE Training
Appreciate common network problems and how they are classified in Spotlight and
Analyzer.
Configure Spotlight and Analyzer to work with your data and methodologies.
Appreciate different analyses methods (Event Based and Radio Network Analyses) in
Spotlight.
Appreciate manual analyses (create and customize your own methods, queries and
reports, repositories and screen layout) in Analyzer
Use Spotlight and Analyzer to analyze problems in data sets of differing sizes.
Appreciate the role thresholds perform in Spotlight and Analyzer, and how to modify them.
Spotlight related
From the Repository Analysis - Drilldown, you should be able to:
Drilldown problem by File or Time to message level with or without loading the whole file.
Help File
This training manual mainly contains LTE-related information and features in Spotlight and
Analyzer. For basic features of Spotlight and Analyzer, or information regarding how to
troubleshoot network in other technologies, please refer to HELP in Spotlight or Analyzer, which
can be accessed by clicking on the Help menu in the main menu. You can look up information
about a particular topic either by choosing an item from the index or by entering keywords to
perform a search.
Specific information such as attributes (engineering parameters) can be found in Attribute
Reference. You can look up an item in the alphabetized list, or you can open the Context Help
window, and then click on an item in the Workspace.
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Key features
The following key features are available for LTE in Spotlight and Analyzer:
Flexible voice and data service KPIs: Spotlight and Analyzer support powerful top
down KPIs allowing operators to evaluate the quality of different voice and data services as
perceived by end users.
Full RF analysis: Spotlight and Analyzer provide automated drop call diagnosis and
integrated radio network analysis to diagnose cell coverage, missing neighbor, and
interference or pollution problems.
Data session analysis: Spotlight and Analyzer provide detailed data session analysis to
identify if poor data service performance is due to poor radio quality or congestion on the
core or radio network.
IP packet inspection: Analyzer provides full IP layer decodes and session analysis to
provide full inspection into the IP traffic layer.
Performance Reports: Analyzer allows you to create and customize reports for you to
quickly create RF analysis and acceptance reports.
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Spotlight Analyzer
Creating projects using LTE templates, settings, Setting preferences, aggregating data
LTE thresholds and loading logfiles and loading logfiles
Viewing Data by selecting the related category Viewing Data by displaying in maps,
and issues. The detailed diagnostics and charts, tables or reports to facilitate easy
information will be displayed in customized maps analysis
and StateForms to facilitate easy analysis
Yes
If more detailed
Performing customized LTE analyses analyses required
by opening pre-defined analyses and/or Reporting Network Performance by
customizing new forms and to further preconfigured or customized report(s)
investigate the issue in Spotlight Create a custom report and repositories
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Spotlight
Solving common network problems with Spotlight
With the Seek-See-Solve approach, Spotlight is designed to allow you to follow your own
investigations throughout the various analysis pages and reports. However, a typical path through
Spotlight is to start from the Summary Dashboard, examine the summary map and then the
appropriate report for the loaded data, which might indicate the presence of one or more
problems. Spotlight breaks these problems down into two groups:
important issues, where the quality of service has been reduced without necessarily
ending any calls.
Cell coverage, interference problems and LTE visualization can be investigated from the Radio
Network Explorer analyses (links to these are shown as Important Issues in the Issues panel of
the Summary Dashboard). These then point you at specific problem events which you can examine
and diagnose using the Event Explorer (links to these failure events are shown as Critical Issues
in the Issues panel).
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Spotlight features
The Spotlight features available for LTE are radio network analyses, event-based troubleshooting
and reporting.
Event-based troubleshooting
Automated root-cause diagnostics for the most common subscriber problems such as
call drops, call setup failure, location update failures, handover failures and low throughput
issues.
Reporting
Integrated, professional-quality reports, including embedded maps.
Whats in Spotlight?
New Project and Template Creation
A step-by-step wizard guides the user to create a new project using an existing template
or provides a link to the new template configuration wizard.
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Data Configuration
A step-by-step wizard guides the user to configure thresholds and cellrefs, and also to
select data to process into the repository.
Summary Dashboard
From the Repository Dashboard, the user can choose a problem (critical or important
issues) to further investigate using either Event-based or Radio Network analyses.
Spotlight Report
Identifies critical and important issues, and provides links to summary statistics of the
loaded data files.
Event Investigation/Analyses
Provides a breakdown of the critical and important issues by filename and handset
identifier. These tabular pages are reached through links on the Summary Dashboard.
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Return to Event Explorer page Filter out files and Return the
or restore page if you are stream from all current page to
currently in this page. analyses. its default
appearance.
Return to Summary Open the Choose an Load additional files Display help for
Dashboard page. Engineering Process to the current the current page.
dialog, allowing you to project repository.
select another Spotlight
project.
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Starting up Spotlight
Yes
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Getting Started
Before you begin, ensure that you have a valid
Spotlight/Analyzer license, a cellrefs that contains your
network information and a set of data you want to
investigate. It is crucial that you follow the
following steps to avoid inaccurate results or have
to go through these steps again for
reconfiguration later.
Lets begin by performing the following steps:
1 Start up Spotlight.
2 Create a new project by click on the New
Project button.
3 In New Project Step 1: Key in your project name, select a
suitable LTE template and click on the Next button proceed to New
Project Step 2.
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5 In step 3: click on Add Files button to load your log files or data.
If you prefer to load the entire folder, click on Add Folder button.
Click on Done button to begin saving settings and loading files.
Exploring Workspace
Summary Dashboard
After the data is loaded, an overview page or Summary Dashboard is
displayed. A Summary Dashboard shows an overview of the data loaded
in the current Repository project on a per device basis. If you have
configured multiple devices during the template configuration phase, a
separate tab per device will appear in the dashboard.
As you can see below, this page is divided into three parts:
Top Panel, Issues Panel, and Map.
Top Panel
Click on the globe to
change your background
map properties
Issues
Panel
Map
Top Panel
This panel contains a summary table of the loaded dataset information. You can view the LTE
report (Data Service Analysis Report) or go to the Event Explorer (event-based analyses, i.e.
dropped connection, failed connection) page or Radio Network (radio network analyses, i.e.
coverage, low throughput) page.
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Issues Panel
This panel lists all the critical (event based KPIs) and important issues (radio network analyses)
that need further investigation. Click on any KPI that you might want to further investigate.
Map
The map is an integral part of the interface representing the drive route with the default attribute
plotted (RSRP or the application throughput).
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LTE Report
The Spotlight LTE report (Data Service Analysis Report) shows a quick overview of your
network performance. It is divided into a Report sheet and different activities (FTP, HTTP)
sheet(s), which consists of FTP, HTTP download information (statistics based on status and types
of analyses) and application throughput.
The report sheet contains a technology independent overview of all the activities, while the activity
sheet contains radio KPIs for all technologies.
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Issues Panel
This panel lists all the critical and important issues occurring in the dataset and allows you to
investigate an issue or troubleshoot a problem in more detail.
Category
First, you have to select a category, indicating which type of analysis or information you want to
be displayed on the issues panel. For example if you select LTE as your category, all event-based
critical issues and radio networks important issues will be displayed (as shown below). If you
choose DSA Task Summary as your category, you will get a list of tasks summary which contains
the FTP, HTTP, Web browsing Uplink and Downlink success rate and throughput measurements.
Well go through these categories again later in the Throughput Analysis chapter.
Critical Issues
The critical issues section provides an overview and the link to the drive in terms of failure
events. To investigate the KPIs and the cause of the dropped connection, click on the link to go to
the Event Dashboard.
Important Issues
On the other hand, the important issues section provides an overview and the link to the
corresponding radio network analysis page. For further investigation, click on the link to go to the
Radio Network Dashboard.
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3 It is wise to filter out the unimportant information, i.e. numbers of samples < 50 or
distance > 15km. To do so, create a filter by clicking on the Filters(#) link.
Set your criteria and click on Add Filter. Click OK to apply filter.
Sort the column again after youve applied the filter.
4 Select an interesting sector to view in detail. The map and left panel will be updated
accordingly. The red circle represents your pre-defined boundary in Thresholds settings
and any data points outside this circle represent overspill.
You can also change the cell-site properties to plot on the map according to the serving
PCIs color.
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5 Make use of the additional features to help you visualize the coverage footprint of your
network.
To create a filter
Additional Features
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2 In the Event Explorer page, the top panel contains of site information with numbers of
failures (depending on the problem), a side panel with a list of diagnostics (in a table and
also detailed information) of what causes the fail, and a map to help you to visualize where
the problem occurred.
You can click on the column header to sort your information, or click
on an individual row to view a particular failed event. You can even
perform a specific analysis, filter your information, or choose a
specific attribute or event to be plotted in the map.
3 Lets say we want to confirm if the dropped connection is caused by interference First of
all, scroll down (side panel) to read more about the detail event diagnostics.
According to the diagnostics and measurements, when the connection dropped, the quality
was bad (-20 dB) but the signal
strength was reasonably OK (-89
dBm).
The CQI value was low and > 86% of
these CQI values were lower than 10.
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4 This will bring us to the Drilldown page. As you can see, Spotlight displayed the
appropriate forms, Protocol Stack Browser (PSB) and map plotted with the related
attributes. This will help you to understand what has happened between 5 seconds before
and 30 seconds after the connection was dropped. Lets take a closer look at each of the
forms and the map.
Scroll down and select the attribute you want to delete one
at the time. Delete Event_Task_Fail, Event_Task_Start
and Event_Task_End.
Click OK to save.
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5 Examine Task Chart. There is a lot of Ping information displayed on the chart and it is
almost too cluttered to view. To get a cleaner view, edit the chart by clicking on to
toggle to Design mode.
6 The Time Chart is looking cleaner now.
Move your mouse over the chart to view individual measurements.
Just before the drop,
the throughput and CQI
value fell from average
to 0.
7 Now lets take a look at the Protocol State Browser. If we scroll up to view what
happened before the connection was dropped, notice that about 1 to 2 seconds before the
drop, the neighbor cells has much better signal strength. Requests for changing serving
cell have also appeared a few times. There should have been a handover but unfortunately
no handover occurred.
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8 Continue to look at the map. You can plot an extra attribute on the map by clicking on the
Attributes icon. From the Edit Attributes dialog, Add the attribute from the Available
Attributes column and click OK to show it on the map.
Click on a beam to see the current serving PCI (solid line) and which one
is the neighbor cell (dash line).
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If for some reason the layers are overlapped or you want to rearrange them, click on the
Layers icon to reorder them.
9 Click on a point in the map and now take a look at the StateForm next to the map.
All measurements and related information will be displayed on the StateForm. Again, if you
want to modify the form, right-click on the form and toggle Design Mode. Edit the form,
save it and toggle back to View mode. For example, change the RI attribute to
Throughput.
10 It is useful to synchronize your view, i.e. to show the same map and StateForm
information at the same time. Click on a point in the map to synchronize with the
StateForms display. You can even step through the whole drive route by clicking on the
play button. If necessary, change the speed of playback using the slider.
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11 Make use of the additional features to help to you to visualize and further investigate your
dropped connection.
To create filter
Additional Features
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The followings issues and tasks you can investigate in a DSA Failure page (default) are:
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From the Select Category drop down list in Summary Dashboard you can select these three
DSA categories:
DSA Failure DSA All Services and Tasks DSA Summary
We will perform some Throughput Analyses by viewing the DSA All Services and Tasks
category in the next chapter.
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Throughput Analyses
This analysis allows you to analyze and investigate the throughput by using the DSA
Services and Tasks page. Click the Display All # Task link to view the related
information in Event Explorer page. In the following examples, well be
viewing the FTP DL link.
In the side panel in Event Explorer page, you can find a list of FTP tasks with throughput
measurement and status. The four typical statuses are:
OK = Successful or completed
D = Dropped
C = User Cancelled
Interrupted and User Cancelled tasks are neither
failed nor successful, and therefore are not taken into
account in the KPIs.
Click on any of the headers to sort your information accordingly. For example, to identify
worst/best performing tasks, you could also sort by Throughput (Tput DL). To only view
successful or completed tasks, you should sort by Status.
If you continue to scroll down, below the Drilldown-Throughput-Status table, you can see some
useful data service statistics. The information displayed depends on the task type (upload or
download), as well as the technologies that the UE experienced during the task.
Once you are ready to proceed, click on the Drill Down checkbox and follow by clicking the Begin
Drilldown button to begin your analysis. Well continue to analyze high and low throughput in the
following sections.
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The duration of task reported by the In the beginning of the task (before the FTP download), the
logging tool is about 30 seconds CQI value was average and Modulation was not very high.
(which is the time difference between After the handover, the radio quality was gradually improved
Task Start and Task End events in
and when the transmission began, the application throughput
the StateForm), but the duration of
the data transfer is only 4.19 seconds and CQI value were high, MIMO usage was up to 100% and
during the UE was in LTE connected Frame Usage was at 100%. See the next page for more
mode (see StateForm). detailed information.
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Move your mouse over any point of the transmission to view detailed information.
High throughput
High throughput
(18 Mbps for application throughput and 26 Mbits/s for Layer 1 DL throughput).
Very good modulation (64 QAM and most of the time MIMO usage at 100%) during FTP
download.
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In the Drilldown page: The average throughput achieved on LTE is low but
OK (about 3 Mbit/s). Modulation and Coding Scheme
values range from 0 to 20, with an average of 9. The
spread of values is explained by the Task Chart,
where we can see that the radio conditions were
good initially and worsen progressively until the UE is
redirected to UMTS.
On the left side panel of the Drilldown page, the Key Issues section explains the reason of
the low throughput is due to a reselection to HSDPA from LTE during the transmission. The
redirected reselection from LTE to UMTS caused the UE to be idle for almost 21 seconds.
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Low throughput
Lets take a look at the Task Chart:
The FTP download started in LTE. It Following the redirected reselection The task completes
started with a slightly above average from LTE to UMTS, the UE stays idle normally in HSDPA.
throughput, good CQI, high MIMO for a while before reconfiguring to
usage and good Frame Usage. HSDPA.
High throughput in the beginning, but degraded very quickly till 0, at which point the UE is
redirected to UMTS. Once the reselection was completed, it continued to transmit in a
lower throughput in HSDPA.
Fairly low Frame Usage in HSDPA mode, and inverse relationship between CQI and Frame
Usage in HSDPA (i.e. the Frame Usage goes up when CQI goes down) whilst the
throughput remains flat; which could indicate that the throughput is not limited by the air
interface.
Good system bandwidth allocation (~90%) in both LTE (number of RBs) and HSDPA
modes (number of codes).
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Example 1
When the radio quality degraded, so did the throughput value, the CQI values and MIMO usage.
Now take a closer look at the correlation between the MIMO usage and the Frame Usage. Since
more data is being transmitted using MIMO, less frame usage is required (lower frame usage %).
When there is almost no MIMO transmission, the Frame Usage % increases to almost
100% because the network has to transmit more frames to compensate the rate.
See example 2 for correlations between the CQI, Resource Block allocation and Frame Usage.
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Example 2
The following Task Chart shows a more erratic application throughput (between 0 and 10 Mbit/s)
but CQIs value is about average (less dramatic than the throughputs value).
Now take a closer look at the correlation between the CQI, Resource Block allocation and Frame
Usage %. As the CQI value increases, the # of RB decreases and so does the Frame Usage.
As for the radio condition, the radio link quality is good (good RSRQ and RSRP value).
In other words, the air interface is good (and so can deliver more throughput) but the network has
nothing to transmit at this particular time. That explains the erratic application throughput.
In this case, we can conclude that radio link quality is not the limiting factor here.
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Analyzer
What can you do with Analyzer?
A flowchart depicting/describing the best practice when troubleshooting a network problem using
Analyzer:
Starting up Analyzer
Exploring workspace by
examining the loaded data
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Getting Started
Before you begin, ensure that you have a valid Analyzer license, a cellref
that contains your network information, and a set of data you want to
investigate. It is crucial that you follow the following steps to avoid
inaccurate results or have to go through these steps again for
reconfiguration later.
1 Start up Analyzer.
2 Select Tools Preferences from Main
Menu. Locate CellRefs File Location in
Change Preferences dialog box and change your
Cellrefs filename. Normally it is a .txt file.
3 To make sure youve loaded the correct
cellrefs, click on View Display New Map
from the main menu to display a new map.
If an empty map is displayed, right-click on the map, select
Zoom Go to Layer LTE_Cell- Beamwidth PCI or LTE_Site- Site_Name.
The cell sites are now visible.
Change map unit by right-clicking on map, Map Units Distance Kilometer (or other unit)
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Exploring Workspace
After the data is loaded, a blank workspace is displayed with the Attribute
Explorer docked on the left panel. If you recall, in Spotlight, you get a
summary of your data, issues and problem encountered with diagnostics
and a map. Within Analyzer, you perform manual analysis and therefore no
pre-defined screen layout is displayed.
Here is where you can load your data file, create a repository and
perform dataset operations for a quick overview of your network.
Attribute Explorer
Here you can view and search your attributes in your data file. You
can also create and save a group of attributes you often use in
Favorites.
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Expand the Loaded Data Files node by clicking on to see all the available attributes
in your data file(s).
2 You can select and display the attribute(s) on map, chart, table, workbook etc to view your
data, the same way you view the data in Spotlight.
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Viewing Data
You can view your data the same way as you do in Spotlight. In Analyzer you
have to decide which attribute(s) to be displayed and how you want to view
your data in a way that helps you to troubleshoot or investigate an issue.
Displaying on chart
To take a quick look at the radio condition of the drive data, select and
display the RSRQ attribute in a chart. The attribute is located at LTE
Downlink Measurements LTE_UE_RSRQ. Right-click on the attribute
and display on chart.
Here you can see the distribution of the radio quality throughout the drive along
with the timeline.
This will affect the view on maps, tables and charts, but will not affect the results of crosstab and
event queries.
In this training, we would like to perform manual analysis with detailed information but not the
aggregated data. To change the settings, go to Tools Preferences and change the binning
mode to Message.
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Data Aggregation
There are four methods to aggregate data in Analyzer. These different binning modes are based on
time, location, distance and message.
In order to perform a detailed manual analysis, you should change the binning mode to Message
and make sure Message = 1 so that you can view every message in your data.
Take a look at the chart again. Data is now displayed more densly on the chart.
Drag and drop the LTE Event Data RRC LTE_RRC_RRCConnectionDrop attribute to the
same chart to see when the connection was dropped.
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It looks like the channel interference plus noise ratio value degraded tremendously right before the
drop as well.
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Displaying on Map
Display the same attributes (LTE_UE_RSRQ and LTE_RRC_RRCConnectionDrop) on the map
to visualize the area, radio condition and location of the dropped connection.
Zoom in to take a closer look at the 1st drop.
Click on Cell/Sites icon to color the sector based on PCI.
This will help you to identify the serving sectors based on their own color.
Click on the Direction icon to display the direction of the drive route.
Arrange the chart next to the map.
Click at any point in the map to synchronize the measurement with the chart.
At this point, we may also want to replay the file around the time
of the problem in order to see the serving sectors and how RSRQ
ended up being so low when the connection dropped.
Anyhow, the information is still very limited if we only view on the
map and chart.
Display more attributes on table, open a StateForm (or any pre-
configured analyses), or a Protocol Stack Browser in Analyzer to
help you to obtain more information.
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Displaying in a Table
Display the following attributes in a table:
LTE_UE_PCI
LTE_UE_RSRP
LTE_UE_RSRQ
LTE_RRC_RRCConnectionDrop
To go to the next
dropped connection,
press Ctrl- .
It seems like there are lots of empty rows in the table and you have to keep scrolling down to find
the next measurement. This problem can be resolved by selecting the
Hide empty rows checkbox to hide these empty rows.
You can now see the actual measurement of each attribute on table.
If you wish, you can also display these attributes on Workbook (Excel).
Rearrange the map, chart and table in your workspace so that you can see them
Clicking at any point in the table to synchronize table with the map and chart.
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To solve this problem, we can create a filter to remove the empty rows by eliminating
messages with attributes not set to a value. This can be done by creating a filter query, or
more conveniently by using Attribute Spy.
Attribute Spy
Attribute Spy is a smart feature that allows you to display the attributes set at a message, as well
as to perform some basic operations on them. A lot of the time you might not know what other
attributes are associate to the attribute you have just displayed on a map. For example in our
previous filter example, LTE_UE_CINR.
To find out information of an attribute at a particular selected point, and even any other associated
attributes, you can select the View Display Attribute Spy from the Main Menu. The
AxaAOAttributeSpy Class window will be opened.
In your CINR chart or table, click on any point that contains the LTE_UE_CINR attribute. The same
attribute will be selected in the Attribute column in the window. Right-click on the attribute and
select Filter Stream where IsValid(LTE_UE_CINR) to eliminate all the empty rows.
Note that after youve applied the filter, the bottom right of
your screen will be updated. Display the attribute in a workbook
again. This time no warning message pops up.
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StateForm
StateForm allows you to view multiple performance metrics simultaneously.
Used in conjunction with the replay tool, maps, tables, and charts, you can
quickly ascertain the values of several radio parameters for problem identification.
To open a pre-configured LTE StateForm, select:
Lets open the LTE Radio Charts (same as the Task chart in Spotlight) and take a closer look.
To do so:
1 Select View Forms Data Testing DataServiceAnalysis_LTE Radio Charts
StateForm.
2 If the StateForm contains some Ping information (too crowded to look at), toggle to
Design mode and remove the event tasks such as Fail, Start and End.
See Step 4 in Spotlights LTE Failure: Dropped Connection Analysis if you cannot
remember how to remove the event tasks.
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3 Arrange your StateForm, chart, table and map in the Workspace so that you can see them
all side-by-side. Click on a point in the map or chart to synchronize your view and
information.
At this point of time, we still cannot conclude what really caused the connection drop.
4 To further investigate this, we should probably look at the neighbors radio condition by
displaying the best neighbors RSRQ, RSRP and PCI on a table. We should also check out
the RRC and Layer 3 messages for the handset by opening the LTE Handset PSB. Well
take a look at this later in other chapters.
If this is not enough, try customizing your own StateForm (See example below).
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If you do not have the StateForms window open, click Tools StateForms Editor.
1 To start a new StateForms file, right-click inside the StateForms Editor and select
Design Mode. The StateForms sheet can now be edited and objects can be added.
Array Scan
Toggle
Delete Copy Label Attribute Chart
Design
Mode
5 To display the value for LTE_UE_PCI label, click the Attribute Value button then
click and drag a rectangle to the right of the LTE_UE_PCI label.
6 Select the LTE_UE_PCI Attribute Value object and make the following modifications:
Specify Min+Max: True
Bar Range Min: 0
Bar Range Max: 0
Attribute: LTE Downlink Measurements LTE_UE_PCI
Show Value Text: True
Autosize Font: False
Font Size: 9
7 Repeat steps 2 and 3 for LTE_UE_RSRQ and LTE_UE_RSRP.
8 To create the Attribute Bar for LTE_UE_RSRQ, click on the Attribute Value button
then click and drag a rectangle to the right of the LTE_UE_RSRQ attribute value object.
Repeat the same for LTE_UE_RSRP.
9 Select LTE_UE_RSRQ Attribute Bar and make the following modifications in the Attribute
Window:
Specify Min+Max: True
Bar Range Min: -25
Bar Range Max: 10
Bar Color:
Attribute: LTE Downlink Measurements LTE_UE_RSRQ
Show Value Text: False
Show Min Text: True
Show Max Text: True
Show Minor Ticks: True
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Bar Color:
Attribute: LTE Downlink Measurements LTE_UE_RSRP
11 To add the Group Box object, click on the Group Box button, then click and drag a
rectangle around all of the items in your form.
12 Select the Group Box object and make the following modification in the Attribute Window:
Caption: Network Parameters
Fore Color: Dark Blue
Autosize Font: False
Font Size: 14
Default Font: False
Font Bold: True
13 Click the Save As button and save the StateForms file in the StateForms directory and call
it LTE NetworkParameters - Trainings.axl.
14 Return to the View Mode by clicking on the Toggle Design Mode button.
15 Test your new form by displaying a parameter from your logfiles stream on a map. Click
on any point on the map, and see the parameter values for PCI, RSRQ and RSRP appear
on your StateForm.
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Before the connection was dropped, you can see that about a few seconds before the drop, the
best neighbor cells has much better signal strength. Have a look at the difference between the
serving cell and the best neighbor cell.
We also noticed that right after the drop, PCI 122 appeared to be the serving cell and the radio
conditions were good.
Maybe it is time to take a look at the RRC and Layer 3 messages to further investigate the cause
of the connection drop, and find out for instance whether the UE has requested a handover in RRC
Measurement Report messages before the drop occurred. To do so, we can open a Protocol Stack
Browser or a Message Browser.
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About Queries
Queries are a means of searching and filtering data based on events and thresholds you define.
Queries operate on binned data and are written using Boolean expressions and arithmetic
operations containing data parameters. Analyzer supports six types of queries:
Binned Query Analysis (using functions and inequalities to define a new parameter
based on existing parameters)
Cross Tab Query Analysis (to group data and display statistics for each group. The
groups can be sorted, and a query can contain several options for grouping data)
Event Query (to extract key performance statistics for a user-defined time or message
window before or after a defined event such as dropped connection)
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Binned Query
So far, weve managed to display the serving and best neighbor cells PCI, RSRQ and RSRP on
tables, and it was useful to look at a particular point of data. It will be nice if we can also see the
signal strength difference between the serving cell and the best neighbor cell throughout the whole
drive.
To do so, create a binned query that computes the difference between the serving cells RSRP and
the best neighbor cells RSRP:
1 In Analysis Manager (if you are not there yet, press Ctrl-A), double-click on Binned
Query icon to go to the Expression Builder.
So, our formula should look something like:
Difference = Best Neighbor Cells RSRP Serving Cells RSRP
A positive value will indicate that the best neighbor is stronger than the serving cell.
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6 Apply the query by right-clicking your query and display on a chart, map or table.
In the example below, weve displayed the query on a map, along with a connection
dropped attribute. From the chart, we can see a big signal strength difference right before
the connections were dropped.
Histogram
A histograms results expressed as a percentage may provide a more meaningful comparison to
results expressed as a count. In the example below, we will use a histogram to look at the channel
to interference plus noise ratio (CINR).
We will select a range from -50dB to 10dB and divide it into 30 columns.
To create a histogram:
1 In Analysis Manager (if you are not there yet, press Ctrl-A), double-click on Histogram
icon to open the Histogram Wizard window.
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Crosstab Query
The crosstab query is used to group data and display statistics for each group. The groups can be
sorted, and a query can contain several options for grouping data. It is flexible and you can
combine many different data groups together (you are not limited to one format group as you are
in binned and histogram queries).
In this example, we would like to see CINR distribution and the correlation between CINR, RSRP
and RSRQ. To create a crosstab query:
1 In Analysis Manager (if you are not there yet, press Ctrl-A), double-click on Crosstab
Query icon to open the Crosstab Query Wizard window.
Click on the New Dimension button. The query dimension allows you to group and order
your results using the attribute you select. Use attribute chooser to select LTE
Downlink Measurement LTE_UE_CINR to add the CINR as the dimension. We will
create a dimension for CINRs histogram (set with 3 dB difference).
Click on Edit Dimension to open the Expression Builder to set your criteria.
2 Now apply the query on a Statistics Explorer to see if your query works.
Always do so before you continue to build a bigger query!
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3 dBs
difference for
each column
3 Next, create two new statistics: Avg RSRP and Avg RSRQ.
Use the attribute chooser to select LTE Downlink Measurement
LTE_UE_RSRP and LTE_UE_RSRQ to add the CINR as the statistics so that the state()
function is applied when an attribute is selected.
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4 Lastly add a global filter to only retrieve data with status = connected.
Status = Connected
In the next chapter we will learn how to create a Single File Report using this crosstab
query. You will then use the report for other log files.
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Note Excel will launch and the Workbook will contain three
sheets, which can be accessed by clicking on the corresponding tab
at the bottom sheet window.
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Add Additional Parameters to the Report Add to the existing report different
parameters from the same data stream using the Display on Workbook (Active) command.
Update the Report page to show results for all parameters included.
Create a Comparison Report Add to the existing report the same parameter from a
different data stream using the Display on Workbook (Active) command. Update the
Report page to show results for both data sets.
Embedded an Excel Macro in a Report Any Excel format or technique may be applied
to a report, including macros which automate specific tasks within Microsoft Excel. For
example, create a report that provides a comparison of a parameter at common locations
in two different logfiles.
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Report Sheet
3 If everything looks correct in the Report sheet, go to the Crosstab Formatted Sheet and
remove all data in that sheet.
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Superstream
A superstream is a new stream created by merging two or more sets of data into one large data
set. Beware that the size can be huge (since the superstream contains all attributes, even those
that we might not need in our analysis).
To create a superstream:
1 Select Tools Create Superstream from the Main Menu or press Ctrl-U.
2 Key in a meaningful name for your superstream and select the streams you want to
merge.
3 Click on the Settings >> button if you want to merge your data with a common attribute
or a correlated parameter, which, in this example is the LTE_UE_RSRQ attribute.
Note This merge method is useful when merging the data for two
devices (for instance a handset and a scanner) that were logged
concurrently, but for which the timestamps are not aligned. If the
two streams correspond to two log files logged consecutively, then
it is better to use the default Use timestamps method of
superstreaming.
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4 Click OK. A new stream, Super Streams containing the same attribute nodes will be
created in Attribute Explorer.
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Repository
The repository function provides a mechanism for handling large volumes of data, by loading the
results of queries into a relational database mainly applicable to crosstab, event and binned
queries.
In the Actix terminology, databases are called repositories. A repository is based on a template,
which specifies how the results are to be structured into data sources (called devices) and which
attributes and queries are to be included in each device. The repository stores the binned data for
the attributes as described in Repository Binned Data.
Some of the engineering process modules use repositories to store data but hide the details of
creating repositories and loading data into them behind the task pages. However, Analyzer Classic
includes features that advanced users can use to create new repositories directly, and to open,
close, and delete existing repositories, and to load data into them.
When a repository is open, it is displayed in the Open Repositories folder in the Attribute
Explorer. Data is loaded into the devices based on the stream name filter and stream type
specified in the Define Devices page of the Repository Template.
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3 Continue to click on Next > till youve reached the Name and Description step.
Key in a meaningful name for your repository template and a description about the
template.
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Creating a Repository
To create a repository based on the template you have just created:
1 Select Repository Create Repository from the Main Menu.
2 Key in a meaningful repository name.
Select the template you have just created and click on Create & Open button to create
the repository node in Attribute Explorer.
Select the template youve just
created:
3 In the Attribute Explorer, expand the Open Repositories node and right-click on the new
repository you have just created (in the example below this is LTE Training Repository)
to load your logfiles.
Right-click on your new
repository node and select Load
Data to load your logfiles
4 Click on Add Files... to select your data files to be loaded into the repository.
Click OK to start loading the files.
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5 A File load results window will be displayed and the Result column will show the status
of the file. OK means files are successfully loaded.
If you prefer to display the result directly into a workbook, right-click on the Open-
Repository Your New Repository All Queries Crosstab Queries Your
Crosstab Query Name and display it on Workbook.
2 A workbook in Excel with a report for all log files will be created where the repository is
loaded.
3 Save and name your report as Report for Your New Repository.
4 If everything looks correct in the report, remove all data in that sheet.
5 Save the file again and close the file after you have saved it.
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2 Select the All stream from Your New Repository stream name and click OK to display
your repository report. Do you notice any difference?
Note
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Window layouts
To save your workspace click File Save Workspace As and give the file a name. The Analyzer
file structure includes a Workspaces folder that can be used to hold the saved workspace(s),
though you can save a workspace to any location.
A workspace created with Analyzer may be opened directly from the Windows Desktop. To start up
Analyzer with a set of commonly used queries, simply save a workspace with the queries of
interest, but no data files. The workspace may then be saved as a shortcut on the Windows
Desktop. Double-click on the Desktop shortcut to open Analyzer with all of your frequently used
queries in place.
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