Solution and Deployment Architecture

The Route Explorer solution consists of two major components:

• Route Explorer: a self-contained, 1U rack mountable appliance that includes all the functionality needed to provide monitoring, visualization, diagnostics and analysis of complex IP networks across multiple routing protocols, spanning multiple areas and autonomous systems (AS)
• Client software: a standard, off the shelf web browser, and either a X-Windows or VNC client

The Route Explorer appliance is configured as a passive routing peer that does not inject routes or forward any traffic. Route Explorer records the routing protocol updates (e.g. OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, BGP) from its peers, then computes a network-wide routing topology to serve as the basis for monitoring, visualization, diagnostic and analysis tools. The client software can be deployed in a separate network (such as a management network) as long as it has IP connectivity to the Route Explorer appliance.

Architecture of the Route Explorer Appliance

Running on a hardened real-time operating system, the Route Explorer appliance is self-contained, and includes the following components:

• 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet (FE) and Gigabit Ethernet (GE) interface support
• Passive, listen-only routing protocol interfaces for:
  • OSPF
  • IS-IS
  • EIGRP
  • BGP including full mesh and route reflector client support
  • MP-BGP/RFC 2547bis
• Real-time Route Recorder that captures the complete stream of routing updates received on all active interfaces, and stores them in a persistent Routing Event data store.
• Routing Analysis and Presentation Engine utilizing Packet Design’s patent-pending algorithms to process high volumes of raw routing events into visualization and report analysis formats
• Multi-user client-server and NMS interfaces for configuration, monitoring/visualization, reporting and alarming:
  • HTTP and HTTPS for web-based reports
  • X-Windows and VNC for configuration, monitoring, analysis and visualization
  • SNMP and Syslog client interfaces for traps and syslog-based alarm generation