XCA Edge - Use Case - Expereo · BASIC REPORTING. About this document This document introduces a general use case of the Expereo XCA Edge solution. As it deals with a linear and chronological

XCA EDGE Use case BASIC REPORTING

About this document

This document introduces a general use case of the Expereo XCA Edge solution. As

it deals with a linear and chronological example, it is a perfect tool to understand the

underlying concepts of our product. It will also help you if you need an overview of all

the benefits you could get from XCA Edge.

Note that this use case only covers one of the several usages of XCA Edge.

However, there is a good chance that a large part of this use case applies to your

own configuration. If not, please have a look to the other use cases.

Moreover, if you need more specific information, please refer to the XCA EdgeAdministrator Manual. It contains a more precise description of the XCA Edge

features, and provides per-page explanations of the graphical user interface.

Abstract

Foo&Sons is a growing multi-national company. It has a strong need for high quality

connectivity, for both inbound and outbound connections. The company IT manager

is concerned about traffic to Foo&Sons website. It is becoming more and more

crucial to the business and already faces quality problems. Foo&Sons also needs to

maintain proper connectivity to specific remote web sites and portals, as it provides

an access to cloud-based applications to its employees.

Therefore, Foo&Sons needs a better understanding of its transits / IX peerings

usage. XCA Edge provides the company with a set of reporting tools to evaluate its

per-transit or per-destination traffic load. XCA Edge will help the company to build a

smart peering strategy or evaluate its need for new transits.

Situation Solution

Lack on information on transitsusage.No way to check if links aresaturated.

Use the transits related reportingtools to evaluate how is the trafficdivided into the several transits.

Lack of information on trafficdestinations (to eventually set upnew IX peerings)

Use the destinations related reportingtools to evaluate the per-destinationtraffic.

Confidential - This document can be distributed by Expereo only. Page 2 of 11

1. Introduction

1.1. Context

Foo&Sons has been using XCA Edge for several months now. Through its main data

center, Foo&Sons provides its collaborators with an access to cloud-based

applications. These applications, mainly provided by CloudService, are critical to

Foo&Sons business. Foo&Sons data center also houses a website that is at the core of it

sales.

So far, Foo&Sons needs an Internet access which allows both a good link quality to

cloudservice.com services but also must be efficient enough to distribute traffic to any

Internet user.

To have the best access to CloudService website, the company established several

peerings through a well chosen Internet eXchange point. Foo&Sons data center is

also connected to high performances transits, through which its web pages are sent to

the users.

Figure 1: Foo&Sons network architecture

1.2. Issues

Foo&Sons do not want to face any link quality problems. As the company is

currently growing, more and more users should connect to its websites, and

Foo&Sons might also hire several new employees. The network administrator has

already recorded several link overloads, while other links were unused. Hence, he

wants to solve several problems:

• Saturated links,


• Low Transit/IX peering usage, under established SLAs,

• Traffic bursting over contracted CDR.

Before considering establishing new peerings/transits, the network administrator

needs a perfect visibility over its currently used bandwidth, and evaluate how is its

traffic distributed in terms of source or destination subnets/AS.

He has to meet several needs:

• Monitor its links to CloudService services (availability, response time, ...),

• Check its current bandwidth usage over each transit/IX peer, and if no link is

saturated,

• Evaluate the subnets with which its exchanges the most important traffic

(inbound or outbound),


2. Use case steps

2.1. Step 1: Monitoring setup

First of all, the network administrator needs to set CloudService servers as explicitly

monitored. This will allow to monitor CloudService servers availability.

Actually, XCA Edge can trigger automatic alarms whenever a remote subnet link

properties do not comply with a given set of rules. Alarms have several levels of

severity, from informational to critical error. The network administrator can

configure if an alarm might be notified by email or SMS. A map, available in the

Geolocation / Map section, gives a geographical view of remote subnets statuses.

Note that only monitored subnets are eligible for XCA Edge automated routing optimization.

The network administrator will have to perform several tasks:

• Set up manual probes towards CloudService servers,

• Define the monitored parameters of the enclosing subnet,

• Set up subnets locations.

The mandatory steps to achieve this procedure are exposed in the "Optimized IPSec

WAN" use case. Please refer to this document if you need more information.

2.2. Step 2: Evaluating the per-destination traffic

We now consider that all probes, transits, routers are properly configured. The

network administrator accesses the Traffic / Destination section. This section

provides two reporting tool that help understanding which destinations are the most

important to Foo&Sons business.

The network administrator accesses the "Top X" reporting page, as depicted by

Figure 2. This includes two pie charts illustrating the per destination distribution of

its traffic. Several display options are available:

• Aggregate destinations per subnets or per AS,

• Sorting,

• Period over which data is aggregated,

• Choose the number of top subnet/AS explicitly depicted on the graph. Others

are displayed in gray and designated as "Others"

The left pie chart shows the inbound traffic distribution: this indicates from where

the inbound traffic is coming from. Within the AS mode, the Foo&Sons administrator

notices that the top 5 AS include almost 40% of the total inbound traffic.

Consequently, having a good connectivity towards these AS will be determining to

Foo&Sons business.


Figure 2: The per-destination traffic

On the right pie chart, the network administrator can check the most targeted

destinations by outgoing traffic. As with the inbound graph, that will help him to

plan new transits contracts.

Finally, the bar graph in the middle illustrates the inbound/outbound traffic ratio.

The Foo&Sons network administrator knows that the first from displayed

destinations is reachable through the IX point, but no peerings were established. On

the right side of the screen, he can select in the drop-down list a filtering transit. He

notices that the same destination is almost routed exclusively through only one

transit, and consequently causes a cost increase.

Therefore, the network administrator envisages to establish a new peering with the

corresponding AS owner. This will reduce the currently used transit overload and

improve the traffic performances towards theses destinations.

2.3. Step 3: Checking the per-transit bandwidthusage

The network administrator now accesses the Traffic / Transits section, and clicks on

the History tab. This page displays two temporal graph (outbound and inbound) of

the per-transit bandwidth usage (Figure 3). He selects the last month period with a

24h data aggregation. He selects the Mbps type to display the bandwidth usage in

Mbps, and then clicks on Apply.


Figure 3: Transit load over time

On the right, he selects the data to be displayed. By checking the CDR boxes, he

can evaluate if the bandwidth usage bursts over the CDR. The 95th percentile, used

to charge traffic exceeding the CDR, can also be displayed. When the 95th

percentile is getting close to the CDR limit, the network administrator might

consider two solution: either contracting new transits or use XCA Edge optimise the

traffic routing.

The network administrator notices that the IX transit load is very high compared to

the other transits. As the IX transit has a limited capacity, he wants to solve this

overload. By using the per-destination report, he can estimate which destinations

take the most important part of the bandwidth, and notice that several destinations

could be routed through the normal transits.

These destinations could be rerouted through the transits by announcing proper

routes within the IX point. However, before taking any decision, he accesses the

load balancing report. This will provides him with a better view over each transit/IX

transit usage.

2.4. Step 4: Evaluating the per-transit and per-next hop load balancing

To perfectly understand how the traffic is divided between the several transits or IX

point next hops, the network administrator can use the Traffic / Transits / Load

balancing tool (Figure 4). It displays two pie charts analogue to the ones of the top

X reporting pages, as the left chart is for inbound traffic and the right one for

outbound.


On the top settings bar, the network administrator can select a period displayed. He

can also aggregate data per next-hop or per transits.

First, he chooses to evaluate a per transit distribution of the traffic.

Figure 4: Per-transit load balancing

The network administrator notices that the IX transit takes a large part of the

traffic, as supposed in the previous step. However, he wants to check if the load is

balanced between the several next-hops within the IX point.

On the IX transit, several next-hops can be used. The network administrator selects

the next-hop mode. Using this mode, he can estimate with which next-hops he

exchanges the most important traffic. To evaluate this load balancing within a single

IX transit, he applies a filter thanks to the right panel drop-down list.


Figure 5: Per-next-hop load balancing within one IX point

He notices that that one of the next-hops uses a large part of traffic, this next-hop

is the one from CloudService. As this peer usage is going over the contracted CDR,

the network administrator thinks about reducing this peering usage. So far, several

solutions might be considered.

Concerning incoming traffic, the network administrator could, as a example, choose

to set up a connection to an other IX on which the same peer is connected to. The

network administrator could configure the router so that they announce that the

route is longer through one IX than another, and therefore force the traffic from

distant subnets to use the other IX.

Outbound traffic routing could be automatically optimized thanks to the XCA Edge

Routing Decision Engine. Please refer to the "Mixed IPSec / MPLS-VPN network

optimization" use case for more information on available routing optimizations.

However, rerouting the traffic could not be a good solution. This might impact the

traffic performances. Therefore, the network administrator would like to evaluate

each link (transit or IX peering) performance.

2.5. Step 5: Dealing with overloadingdestinations.

To take the right decision, he accesses the Probing / Summary menu (Figure 6). As

explained in the "Optimized IPSec WAN" use case, he is able to compare each

transit performances towards these destinations, and notices that the IX transit has

the best RTD and faces no packet loss. As these destinations represent a large part

of the traffic, the network administrator choose not to reroute the traffic through the

normal transits.


Therefore, he plans to upgrade its IX point connection by increasing the contracted

CDR.

If the normal transits had better or equivalent performances, rerouting the traffic

would have been interesting. XCA Edge provides a set of routing optimization tools

that are described within the "Mixed IPSec / MPLS-VPN network optimisation" use

case. Please read this document to understand how XCA Edge can optimize your traffic

routing.

Figure 6: The Probing / Summary section


3. Conclusion

The reporting tools have been useful to perfectly understand how is Foo&Sons

traffic distributed, either over destinations or transits. The network administrator is

now aware of its current situation and has been able to take wise and steady

decisions. He has all necessary information to plan new transit contracts or

peerings.


Documents

XCA Edge - Use Case - Expereo · BASIC REPORTING. About this document This document introduces a general use case of the Expereo XCA Edge solution. As it deals with a linear and chronological