Why dedicated sensors for user experience monitoring
In a Formula 1 pit stop, four tyres are replaced in under 2 seconds. The cars reach peak speeds of up to 350 km/h. The development of a car can cost over $400 million. Every component is specially designed and optimised for peak performance. To achieve such precision, you measure.
To that end, F1 cars are fitted with a hundred or more sensors, generating gigabytes of data per race. The data is used for design aspects, optimising performance during a race, and in post-race evaluation. If adding an extra sensor to a gearbox can give you the insight you need to shave a couple milliseconds off your race time, you do it. For F1, that’s huge!
At Aruba, the UXI team also believes in the value of measuring. And our specialty is measuring user experience. Which, after all, is why our networks exist: so that users can really use them. Often, engineers find themselves in a position where a key value they need to understand is unmeasurable or inaccessible. In those cases, we make best effort attempts to infer the value we want.
For example, if you want to know gearbox performance characteristics, but you can’t fit a sensor into your gearbox, what are your options? Perhaps you could use models based on a car’s speed, acceleration, torque, etc., to infer information. If this is the only option you have, this is what you do. But every assumption you add to your models, and every element of complexity you include, could make your models less reliable.
The other option? Just put a sensor in the gearbox and measure exactly what you want to know.
At Aruba, we’ve made user experience measurable. We’ve built dedicated sensors that help you measure your network from a client and application perspective. You don’t have to infer it. You can measure it.
In fact, we’ve also added AI to help you determine what’s most important and needs your immediate attention. When you increase what you measure, you need an automated approach to extract maximum value from the increasing size of data sets you are collecting. That’s the topic for my next blog.
In closing, if you’re an F1 fan, let us see the pictures. And if you’re responsible for keeping network users happy and are using our UXI solution, let me know what else we can do to help.
