Over the last few years, Nokia Broadband Devices have embraced TR-369 / USP as the device management protocol of the future and aimed to lead by example by migrating our end-of-end solutions to use USP. As the embodiment of this vision, Nokia is the first to deploy a TR-369 Wi-Fi Management solution commercially, the Corteca Home Controller.
The Corteca Home Controller is a groundbreaking and flexible solution for CSPs based upon open standards using USP for Wi-Fi, device and application management. It provides operators with a highly efficient cloud platform for managing broadband devices, in-home Wi-Fi connectivity, and the applications running on those devices. With the Home Controller, operators can deliver a managed Wi-Fi service across a multi-vendor environment that improves the overall in-home Wi-Fi experience for its subscribers. Nokia offers a B2B marketplace for operators to select the applications they want to deploy with a growing catalog of partners spanning various use cases, such as cybersecurity, online gaming, diagnostics, work-from-home, and many more!
We recently sat down with David Parker, the Product Line Manager for Corteca at Nokia, about their experience using CDRouter to take their product through BBF.369 certification. Here’s what he had to say.
QA Cafe (QA): What drove you to implement USP on the product?
David Parker (DP): Our customers regularly ask for a device management solution that can resolve many of the common limitations of TR-069. Understanding the broad acceptance and industry adoption of TR-069, the decision to adapt our product line to TR-369 was clear. The device management feature evolution is natural, and the fundamental dual-stack with TR-069 support allows our customers to control how and when they adopt. The flexibility for customers to adopt USP for greenfield deployments, to proactively migrate existing deployments, or to indefinitely operate a hybrid TR-069/TR-369 solution is key. It allowed Nokia to push boldly to modernize a large-scale end-to-end solution without sunsetting legacy integrations.
QA: Why did you seek USP certification?
DP: Nokia pursued USP certification of our products to assist with solution hardening and provide an external validation proof point. Certification will teach you a lot about your products. Robust TR-369 support for multiple controllers, low latency telemetry access, bulk data, and software module management are commonplace customer requirements. USP certification provides a clear and direct proof point of conformance and assures that Nokia devices will satisfy customer device and Wi-Fi management requirements for years to come.
Additionally, USP certification is valuable for conveniently finding and fixing gaps in your devices in the lab to increase confidence in integration testing with 3rd party controllers. For example, our solution had been thoroughly tested against the Nokia Corteca Home Controller and the Motive HDM server per test plans defined for specific end-to-end customer requirements. As the Corteca integration does not require complete USP conformance, using CDRouter and the USP Conformance suite, we can quickly find and fix several failure cases, which will ease future integration with 3rd Party USP controllers in multiple controller scenarios.
QA: How did CDRouter help you achieve certification? What other tests were valuable and able to improve the product?
DP: The most important thing that our team has benefited from USP certification testing is the incorporation of CDRouter as a regression framework, which enables orderly test-driven development and support for the iterative development process.
The Corteca development journey has been an ongoing balance of time-to-market and investment in a standardized implementation. For several quarters before finally obtaining USP Certification, our development teams were able to include USP Certification conformance testing within our daily testing practice. During the early days, while the end-to-end system was getting ready for customer use, certification may not have been a critical priority, but we always knew our certification readiness pass percentage. From this baseline, when the time came to proceed with certification, the effort to resolve remaining failure cases was minimal due to CDRouter debug capabilities.
QA: What features of CDRouter stood out to you? What features do you use daily?
DP: The multi-level, detailed logging support and packet capture support of CDRouter provides a clear path through root cause analysis. Failure causes are often self-explanatory, and execution times for the USP conformance suite are quick. The optimization of test execution time for hundreds of test cases is phenomenal, including CDRouter’s parallel test capabilities, letting us test multiple CPEs at once, saving time every day, and allowing for convenient validation of many devices in a short time.
QA: Beyond USP, what other testing do you do most often with CDRouter?
DP: CDRouter has become a regular fixture for the Nokia Product Testing team. We regularly use CDRouter’s test suites for IPoE, PPPoE, DNS, IGMP, IPv6, and TR-069 for both TR-098 and TR-181 data models.
QA: What has been your experience with QA Cafe support?
DP: We were very close to a 100% pass rate, but there was one particular test case failure that the team was having difficulty resolving from CDRouter log analysis. For this case, and under a tight schedule, QA Cafe support reviewed the CDRouter log output and was able to quickly identify the root cause. With this understanding, the team was able to conclude remaining failure and meet our certification schedule and quality goals.
QA: Anything else you want to mention?
DP: As we all know, the certification process tends to be tedious and often painful. When prescribed testing frameworks are not well maintained or brittle, both the preparation process and formal lab activities can uncover surprises, result in delays and erode morale. Nokia's experience with USP certification was quite the opposite. Due to the clear certification requirements and the well-maintained and flexible CDRouter conformance suite, our USP certification was relatively painless. So much so, that shortly after when it came time to plan a second round of USP certification, R&D was not only eager to work on the project, but they offered to pull-in the schedule!
