Architecture

System Architecture for Marklab

This diagram illustrates the architecture of Marklab, designed to evaluate mobile network performance across different network components.

System Components:

  • MARK (Measurement Node):
    • Equipped with Teltonika TRM240 & TRM250 modems.
    • Connects to the network via Ethernet for management purposes and cellular connectivity for measurements.
  • Visited Network (Foreign Mobile Network):
    • The modems attach to the Radio Access Network (RAN).
    • Traffic is routed through the Serving Gateway (SGW).
  • Home Network (Core Network of the SIM Provider):
    • Data is forwarded through the IPX (Interconnect Packet Exchange).
    • Reaches the Packet Gateway (PGW), which interfaces with external networks.
  • University of Würzburg (Measurement & Control Backend):
    • Application Server: Handles experiment execution and data collection.
    • VPN Server: Secures remote access to the measurement node.
    • Management Server: Coordinates measurement tasks and device configurations.
    • SIM Provider: Hosts multiple SIM profiles for flexible network testing.

Data Flow & Network Interaction:

  1. The MARK node connects to a visited network via TRM240 (LTE Cat 1) or TRM250 (NB-IoT, LTE-M, 2G).
  2. Traffic is processed by the SGW and forwarded via the IPX backbone to the home network.
  3. The PGW handles data transfer between mobile networks and external systems.
  4. Measurement results are collected and analyzed at the University of Würzburg backend.

This modular system enables comprehensive QoS analysis, latency measurements, throughput testing, and SIM-based network evaluations.