Packet Design's 'VPN Traffic Explorer' Gives Service Providers Critical Visibility into Layer 3 MPLS-VPNs
Solution Monitors Traffic Data Across MPLS Core (Not Just at Edge), Lets Providers Be More Responsive,
Plan Upgrades, Anticipate Customer Trends

VPN Traffic Explorer, a comprehensive solution for managing Layer 3 MPLS-VPN service delivery, lets service providers determine the exact path each customer's traffic travels, know which customers are the heaviest bandwidth users, and analyze customer traffic by class of service (CoS) not just on a few links but everywhere in the network. Armed with this new level of VPN-centric management knowledge, providers can resolve customer problems faster, do far more effective capacity planning, and pinpoint trends to better tailor existing services and sell new ones.

VPN Traffic Explorer combines Packet Design's foundation technology, route analytics – which provides visibility into real-time, network-wide routing paths – with the ability to map VPN customer traffic flows directly onto those paths. The product supports the newest versions of router-based flow data, including Cisco's NetFlow version 9, which recognize not only IP but also MPLS, the mechanism used by service providers to forward customers' VPN traffic across their network cores using private "tunnels."

Illuminating the MPLS 'Cloud'

Previous solutions aimed at Layer 3 MPLS-VPN service management gather traffic data from the provider's edge routers, showing how much traffic each customer is sending. But they provide no insight inside the MPLS core, which typically exists one "hop" in from the edge and where problems can impact the quality of service for many customers.

"Existing edge-based products have offered some insight into customer site connectivity problems," said Jeff Raice, Packet Design's executive vice president of marketing and business development, "but the MPLS network core, where service issues have the greatest impact on the most customers, has remained an impenetrable cloud. With only partial, localized information at their disposal, service providers have had no way of knowing which routers and links are carrying a given customer's traffic, how that customer's traffic breaks down by CoS on any given link, or how adding new customers or increasing their traffic levels will affect other customers.

"Furthermore, edge-based solutions typically have heavy 'footprints,' requiring probes or traffic data collection at every edge router or every customer link to provide even minimally useful amounts of information. This has made effective MPLS-VPN monitoring, troubleshooting and design practically impossible because of high equipment costs and huge volumes of uncorrelated, link-by-link data."

VPN Traffic Explorer provides visibility across the service provider's entire network, from the provider edge (PE) routers where the customer traffic enters their network, through the provider (P) routers in the MPLS core, and out the other side to the PE router connected to the customer's destination site. Traffic on every network link can be monitored and analyzed, either in aggregate across all customers or by individual customer. Service providers can view individual customer VPN topologies, visualize the complete end-to-end path between any two sites, and analyze a customer's site-to-site service by route reachability, traffic utilization and CoS breakdown across all links connecting those sites. They can rapidly assess overall network health or be alerted to congestion or CoS-specific issues. And they can rewind the network's routing and traffic state to a previous point in time when an intermittent problem may have been occurring, as well as compare current traffic loads against a historical baseline.

How VPN Traffic Explorer Works

VPN Traffic Explorer consists of a small set of network appliances and does not require a widespread deployment of hardware probes or bandwidth-intensive device polling. A VPN Explorer appliance passively monitors routing protocols (MP-BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP) and computes real-time, network-wide and per-VPN topologies. Flow Recorders collect traffic-flow statistics and LDP (Label Distribution Protocol) data from a small set of core routers. Routing and traffic-flow data are aggregated and analyzed by a Flow Analyzer, which generates and updates traffic reports (e.g., link utilization by CoS per customer, peering statistics) and issues alerts (e.g., utilization or CoS threshold exceeded). Finally, a Modeling Engine lets users independently interact with the network model to monitor, analyze, troubleshoot and perform what-if analyses.

Fix Problems Faster, Accurately Plan Capacity Needs, Discover Valuable Business Trends

VPN Traffic Explorer's network-wide visibility and broad feature set delivers significant benefits to service providers:

• Comprehensive, per-customer VPN monitoring enables fast problem detection and resolution. VPN Traffic Explorer monitors and alerts on critical changes or failures anywhere in the network, allowing service providers to identify, isolate and resolve customer issues rapidly – often before the customer ever notices. It identifies over- and under-utilized links, sends alerts if particular CoS traffic on any link exceeds user-defined thresholds, and reveals traffic issues across the entire network – including which customers are affected or might be causing the problem. VPN Traffic Explorer baselines each customer VPN and alerts on network changes that may affect the customer's service – e.g., a routing change that impacts site-to-site reachability – allowing the provider to proactively respond to the problem or prevent service degradation. With a complete view of each customer's VPN infrastructure, providers can improve service delivery, increase customer satisfaction and reduce payouts due to service-level agreement violations.
• Accurate capacity planning and VPN network modeling. Beyond giving providers a comprehensive view of their service delivery, VPN Traffic Explorer lets them project current traffic trends to gauge future capacity needs and accurately model changes to their VPN network. Only VPN Traffic Explorer allows users to plan and model changes on the "as running" network – with actual traffic loads and customer VPN topologies – rather than using a quickly outdated network snapshot and crude traffic approximations. Such knowledge takes the guesswork out of capacity planning, letting network engineers quickly determine when critical links will reach capacity, understand the impact on network-wide capacity if customer traffic continues to grow at current rates, and have credible information to justify needed upgrades. For example, users can simulate a customer's rapid traffic growth, the addition of a new customer VPN or site, or new peering relationships. Before-and-after comparisons help operators evaluate the potential impact of these changes before they happen, avoiding implementation surprises and preventing future problems.
• Enhanced business intelligence. Beyond the provider's operations and engineering centers, VPN Traffic Explorer also provides a rich source of business data for the sales and marketing departments through its understanding of individual and overall customer trends. Detailed information on customer usage can be mined to determine site-to-site traffic volumes, break down traffic by CoS per site, and identify bandwidth-hogging applications and the most active servers and users. Providers can access this data using an XML API and deliver it to their key clients via a customer portal or customized emailed reports. Furthermore, service providers can identify key trends, such as which customers are growing fastest, who will need a service upgrade and when, how various service classes (e.g., Gold, Silver) are trending and which customers are using them. This knowledge can be used to up-sell individual customers, create new service bundles or customize existing service offerings to gain competitive advantage and increase revenue.