Network-Wide Capacity Planning

Traffic Explorer gives network managers the information they need to accurately predict and plan for future capacity needs across their entire network. Engineers can view and analyze aggregate, per-application or per Class of Service (CoS) historical traffic trends including overall network volumes, per link volume or utilization anywhere in the network, even breakdowns by exit router or Nexthop address.

Going well beyond the typical link-based traffic statistics provided by other tools, Traffic Explorer lets engineers analyze and manipulate a network-wide traffic matrix, showing traffic volumes between every source/destination pair in the network. Detailed capacity projections can be accomplished by exporting the full traffic matrix to a spreadsheet, adjusting any source/destination traffic volume based on internal initiatives or forecasted loads, and then importing the updated matrix to see the impact on network-wide link utilizations.

New application or CoS deployments can be accurately “tested” on the as-running network, before they are deployed, by adding the expected traffic loads between appropriate nodes to existing traffic volumes, and viewing the combined traffic load on every link. Engineers can quickly identify potential hot spots and determine whether traffic can be re-routed around the congested links, saving unnecessary bandwidth upgrades, or whether additional capacity is required.