Routing Health Analysis
A Must Have for Managing Converged Networks
Page 1
Routing Health Analysis
A Must Have for Managing Converged Networks
Executive Summary
To take advantage of what has been for many years a cost efficient infrastructure enterprises are now deploying
mission-critical applications onto their IP Network. The early adopters have seen that mission-critical applications
demand more control over the distributed decision making power of the IP network. Once mission-critical applications
are deployed the reliability and performance of the network is at risk. With mission-critical applications such as VoIP,
transactional data, IP Video, storage and security authentications, running on the network, real-time monitoring and
diagnostics are needed in order to guarantee quality of service. Managing a converged IP Network demands more
control and the only way to achieve this is to tap into the intelligence of the IP control plane. It is evident that the
market is starving for a new technology that will complement Network and Application Management Systems allowing
the network manager, for the first time ever, to understand how the network routing functions in real-time. This
knowledge and visibility are fundamental to operate a robust network that will guarantee high quality of service to
business-critical applications.
Network and Application Management Systems are very well positioned to provide valuable device-level attributes and
information on the status and availability of applications and services. But both fail in providing insight into the routing
health of the IP network. Network managers need to have real-time knowledge of how the IP network is behaving
because mission-critical applications, unlike data, cannot cope with the constant route changes, i.e. the packets must
arrive in the same order without loss, otherwise quality is compromised.
Route Analytics technology emerges to fill the gap current Network Management Systems (NMS) fail to address. It
provides full visibility into the IP Network. It listens to the control plane information without polling allowing network
topology discovery to be accurately available in real-time, making it possible to understand how the network is
behaving. Route analytics also provides valuable information that allows network managers to constantly monitor the
health of their network.
This paper explains how Route Analytics fills the gap Network and Application Management Systems fails to address in
order for you – the network manager – to confidently run your converged IP network. Having insight into the routing
health of your IP network allows you to reduce network downtime; improve user satisfaction, lower operating costs,
efficiently plan network growth, proactively perform network maintenance, increase productivity and run mission-
critical applications.
Network Challenges for Modern
Businesses The migration to converged networks and business
It is IP Routing protocols that determine how data is critical services has all added to the pressure on IP
shipped around the network. IP based technology does networks. Unfortunately, traditional NMS tools have not
this on a best effort basis which is fine for e-mails, web- kept pace with the new challenges facing networks and
browsing or non-critical data. But what about mission- do not have insight into the routing health of the
critical data including transactional data, stock trading network. New solutions are needed that can keep pace
and VoIP? It is imperative that the routing with the dynamic nature of mission-critical networks and
infrastructure and protocols are set up and functioning provide full real-time network wide visibility. Often to
correctly to ensure that the network meets the needs of compensate for the lack of network visibility, network
mission critical services. For instance, if there are any managers often have to over provision to maintain
routing instabilities in the network this can lead to part networks service quality. Having the ability to look
of the network being degraded (running slow) or not inside the network ‘cloud’ and understanding how the IP
available at all. This results not only in lost productivity routing works is invaluable in helping network operators
but also in lost revenues. support the needs of their business.
Infonetics estimates that an average business can lose up
A report by IDC on layer 3 management stated that
to 2% of its annual revenues due to service degradation
routing instabilities and faults accounted for over 50% of
or network outages. For the average business this can
all application performance problems. These were not
equate to a cost of over $12M per year. For financial
just failures but intermittent routing troubles that are
institutions such as banks and brokerage firms and
often very difficult and labour intensive to determine the
businesses critically dependent on their network the cost
route cause. To avoid such problems, network
can be even higher and run into the millions of dollars per
managers need to have visibility into the cloud.
hour. Clearly there is a rapid ROI for a solution that can
reduce downtime and network degradation.
Page 1
Routing Health Analysis
A Must Have for Managing Converged Networks
detect, diagnose and correct network and application
Visible Intelligence faults. The most common technology approach used in
Why do we refer to IP Network as “The Cloud” and more
these NMS systems is Simple Network Management
importantly, how do we get full visibility into it? Protocol (SNMP) based polling. This technology is very
mature and has worked quite well for non-mission-
The answer to the first question is simple: IP networks
critical networks but lacks real-time diagnostics
do not have one central point of control. IP networks are capability required for today’s converged networks.
connectionless requiring its components – IP Routers - Since many application problems are due to intermittent
to make independent forwarding decisions on a per-hop issues, polling-based systems would not detect these
basis. Up until now, the independent nature of IP routers types of faults as the failure may easily occur between
has enabled IP networks to re-route application data polling cycles.
around changes to the network, which has traditionally
been considered IP’s greatest strength. In fact, IP For example, a interface-flap would be easily missed
networks are very dynamic making it very difficult to see using a polling-based system. A futile approach to
changes in real-time thus it is so often referred to as the improve the situation would be to increase the polling
“cloud”. frequency which would flood the network with
unnecessary load and inundate the network manager
To successfully run mission-critical application(s) on the with unusable data.
network, visible intelligence is needed so that network
degradation/outage can be avoided or resolved quickly. Sniffer-based technologies collect application flow
Network Managers need to understand how the network information and are typically deployed in key congestion
routing functions and see changes to the routing in real- points in the user’s network. The captured flow data can
time. offer rich statistics but is limited to detecting network
issues which happen to occur in the specific location of
The next section will explain how Route Analytics can the sniffer deployment. In order to utilize this
allow Network Managers to gain visibility into the IP technology most effectively, a large number of sniffers
Cloud. need to be deployed throughout the network which can
be an extremely costly approach.
Challenges of Existing Technologies Ping and traceroute are still the most commonly utilized
The routing protocols are the key element for making
tools for troubleshooting network and application related
routing decisions in an IP network. Route Analytics
faults. Test packets are introduced into the network and
provides new insight into the operation of these
the behaviour is measured providing the user with
networks by unlocking the mystery of the routing
information pertaining to the reachability of a
protocols. Gaining visibility into the IP layer provides
destination or the path taken by the test packet. The
network managers with the ability to examine why
limitations of this technology are its non-holistic
certain packets take a particular path, how application
approach and the additional load that is placed on the
data traverses the network, the specific hops along the
network. For example, traceroute packets will only
path, and real-time path changes.
specify the path taken by the probe packets, which may
not necessarily match the path taken by application
By providing insight into the routing health of the
data. Similarly, ping packets will not verify if a service
network, Route Analytics bridges the gap between
from a host to the server is available but only that the
standard network management and application
ping packet reached the destination. Moreover, it is
management systems allowing for superior fault
labour intensive and deciphering the results requires
diagnostics.
costly expertise.
Element management systems are excellent for
Finally, application management systems offer visibility
providing detailed information regarding any network
into the overall health of IP services such as VoIP and
device. This can include things such as the type of
IPTV. By introducing test data into the network, these
router, number of interfaces, the protocol being utilized
systems can measure specific metrics including delay
and the services running on a router. These types of
and loss which can be correlated to determine if the
systems are of most value when the scope of the
application is operating properly. The drawback of such
problem has been narrowed down to a particular
technologies is that they treat the network as a single
network element but offer limited assistance in
unit by only looking at the “input” and “output”
troubleshooting wide ranging network issues involving
conditions to make a diagnosis. As a result, application
multiple network elements and routing changes.
layer issues, which may actually be as a result of a
network layer problems, will not be readily identified by
Network management systems are typically used to the application management systems.
Page 2
Routing Health Analysis
A Must Have for Managing Converged Networks
Route Analytics offers a new approach to network statistics are also available at the user’s fingertips from
management and service assurance for today’s more the network wide view right down to the specific router
complex and ever changing IP networks. or link. The topology can be quickly determined by
listening to the routing protocol exchange between the
routers and extracting specific information in a non-
Route Analytics Technology: intrusive fashion.
Bridging the Gap
Route Analytics technology was specifically designed to In the absence of such a system, the network architect
provide visibility into the routing behaviour within IP connects to every router, digs out the necessary
networks. Route analytics systems passively listen to information and then manually assembles it. This is a
the routing protocol (OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP, BGP), the very tedious approach that does not take into account
“conversations” between the routers that determine how the dynamic routing of IP networks.
data is shipped throughout the network. Because all
routers view the route analytics system as another Route analytics offers a “single pane of glass” from
router, all routing related intelligence is, in real-time, which the user can gain access to a vast array of
sent to the system for easy analysis of the routing additional information (QoS and NetFlow) also critical for
health of IP networks. As a result, the route analytics the smooth functioning of an IP network.
system is instantly made aware of every event that
takes place in the network providing for the ability to Routing Health
detect a whole new class of network faults, even Since the route analytics system listens to routing
intermittent anomalies such as link flaps. “conversations” (Link State Advertisements - LSA’s)
between the routers, it has instant knowledge of all
A Route analytics system encompasses the following routing events taking place in the network. A network
capabilities: running at steady state exchanges a typical number of
routing related messages between all the routers
Provides real-time visibility into the IP cloud commensurate to its size and the connectivity. Should
Automatically discovers and builds a network this number reach an abnormal amount, it is a sign that
topology map the network has become unstable and is trying to re-
Monitors, analyzes and visualizes routing related converge. As a result, router resources are
faults and instabilities on network topology in real- unnecessarily used to calculate forwarding decisions
time rather than actually forwarding business critical data.
Scalable to meet the requirements of large-scale, This would result in dropped packets and service
meshed, multi-domain enterprise networks degradation and in extreme cases, network meltdown.
Significantly reduces the mean time to identify and Having the ability to correlate router resource limitations
remediate routing faults and application performance would be extremely difficult
Correlates routing events to performance statistics without having insight into the control plane information
to uncover application versus network faults of the routers – a unique capability of the route analytics
technology.
Route analytics will therefore provide the network
manager with an advanced system that has the End-to-end path visibility
capability to easily troubleshoot and action those hard to One of the key capabilities of the route analytics
find problems on mission critical networks that technology is the ability to visualize end-to-end
traditional NMS tools simply cannot find. application paths, a must for correlating application and
network management data. By visualizing the path
Route Analytics technology has three main taken by application data through the network, it is
functionalities accessed through a Single Pane of Glass possible to reduce the time for root cause analysis for a
to determine Routing Health and End-to-End Path potentially degraded service. This is because the
Visibility and carry out Network Engineering. application manager can, on the topology map, visualize
the specific routers and interfaces in the path which are
Single Pane of Glass carrying the application data in question. Moreover, the
Most NMS systems are limited in their offerings of a managers can rapidly verify that all critical paths for a
usable IP topology map. The route analytics systems specific application are running and performing as
can within seconds automatically discover and visualize designed.
an IP network in a dynamic and easy to navigate
topology map. Network engineers can visually Network Engineering
determine if network devices are available, their Route analytics can assist the network engineer to
interconnection and routing interplay. All vital routing perform network planning tasks including:
Page 3
Routing Health Analysis
A Must Have for Managing Converged Networks
Determining the effect of routing by modifying link With Route Analytics you can find out exactly how real
metrics prior to implementation application data traverses the network and ensure that
Examining the consequence of bringing down a the network meets the service requirements of your
router on traffic patterns using actual network data clients. Furthermore significant capital saving can be
Visually determining the level of path redundancy made because Route Analytics provides maximum
with live network data utilization of infrastructure resources.
Understanding the impact of link asymmetry prior to
deployment of latency sensitive services such as Network planning is improved because a topology driven
VoIP interface allows the user to see the impact of any
changes on networks using real network data.
Benefits to Modern Businesses
Having visibility into the cloud together with true real- Route Analytics Value to
time information on the routing instabilities that are the
cause of the majority of all problems affecting services is Network Team
invaluable. By implementing route analytics, businesses Network Operators, Network Engineers, Network
can improve network performance and realize significant Architects and Application Managers, all benefit from
advantages. Route Analytics. Route Analytics provides them with
valuable network knowledge that eases their ultimate
Route analytics provides a rapid ROI by improving task of building, deploying and managing a stable
network support to business operations through high network to support business-critical applications and
network availability and rapid root cause analysis. It services.
provides real-time network wide visibility and monitoring
enabling efficient utilization of IT resources. Its To better achieve their goals, each member of the
automated approach removes the reliance on tedious network team must have full visibility of the operation of
manual techniques for finding network problems and the network and understand the impact on their day-to-
troubleshooting. This results in a significantly reduced day tasks.
mean time to diagnose problems leading to higher
network availability and performance. Network outages The table below shows the benefits of route analytics
and performance trends can be analyzed through technology to the various functions within the
notification of changes to application and service networking groups.
baselines as a result of IP layer instabilities and
anomalies.
Network User Route Analytics Benefits
Network Operators: Real-time view of the IP Layer
Network relevant information at fingertips (routers, links - IP configuration and routing table info)
Day-to-day Network Operation Fault Alarms notify element status
Monitor Network Health Determine if network address is reachable
Visualize the routed path between any two points
Determine if routed paths are available
Quickly drill down from network wide, area wide to router specific
Network Engineers: Visibility into the routing protocol
Historic replay of network activities
Building and maintaining the Network IP Network Health at a glance
Troubleshooting and resolution of complex Check for routing anomalies
network issues Network relevant information at fingertips (routers, links - IP configuration and routing table info)
Deploying and configuring new Determine if network address is reachable
equipment Verify routed paths through the network
Investigate intermittent network Verify exit points from the network
anomalies Track IP topology changes and growth
Network Architects: Clear understanding of the production IP network
Plan network changes prior to implementation
Planning and designing the network to meet Network relevant information at fingertips (routers, links - IP configuration and routing table info)
business objectives Determine if network address is reachable
Verify routed paths through the network
Application Managers: Verify exit points from the network
Provides understanding of how the application data is moving through the network
Managing specific applications and services Set, and alarm against, application and service baseline
that use the network Determine how application and service data moves through the network
Determine if critical points in the application or service are available
Extract a list of routers and interface along the path
Page 4
Routing Health Analysis
A Must Have for Managing Converged Networks
Conclusion
The existing network management tools are ill equipped to deal with the dynamic nature of today’s converged
networks. SNMP based systems lack real-time diagnostics capability and since many application performance
problems are due to intermittent problems, polling-based systems are no longer able to deliver. Sniffer and probe-
based systems are similarly plagued with problems making them either too expensive due to upfront capital costs, or
require highly skilled personnel to make effective use of the vast amounts of data which is extracted.
Moreover, Application management systems treat the network as a cloud and can only determine application
performance by inserting data at the source and measuring the output at the destination. They, however, cannot
determine if the application related problem is caused by an application or is a result of the underlying network.
Devoid of visibility into the Layer 3 routing protocols, it is extremely difficult to determine if the network is at the
root cause of the problem.
Route Analytics fills the gap in existing management tools by providing visibility into the IP cloud. It has the unique
ability to analyze routing related issues and can assist in correlating application problems to network management
data. Route Analytics technology offers wide-ranging benefits from the ability to detect underlying network faults to
its inherently efficient cost structure. IP Route Analytics is becoming a necessary element for dynamic mission
critical networks and offers an attractive ROI.
Page 5