RouteExplorer™ Tutorial – Monitoring and Alerts

Get an instant assessment of your IP network’s health with Route Explorer’sunified routing topology map and real-time routing updates

Route Explorer’s real time monitoring of routing protocolsin multiple domains simultaneously enables you to instantly see the currentstate of your entire network in a simple and easy to understand map.  Link or router outages are highlightedin red and can be seen at-a-glance. The example below (Figure1)shows an enterprise network running OSPF. The network-wide topology map at left shows a major outage.  The zoomed topology map at right showsa down router.  A pop-up menu onthe down node shows that it is an Area Border Router connecting four areas.

 

 

Figure 1

For instant orientation when an outage is detected in themap, Route Explorer shows the most recent event history in the Online UpdateMonitor (see Figure 2).  Route Explorer shows the event historyas a timeline, the number of route announcements and withdrawals in the lastupdate period (user selectable value, usually ten seconds), and the state ofRoute Explorer’s adjacencies and peers. To facilitate early diagnosis on the type of outage or routinginstability in progress, Route Explorer optionally shows the complete list ofevents captured in the last update period.

Figure 2

Online monitor summarizes all protocols actively beingmonitored by Route Explorer.  Inthe example above, BGP, OSPF and ISIS are active.  Individual IGP areas or BGP ASes can also be monitored intheir own separate topology maps and online update monitors.

 

With instant updates from Route Explorer on the currentstate of your network, including link or router failures, route floods, or lostpeerings, you get an early indication of service outages, shortening the totaloutage time and saving operating costs.

 

HOW TO:

  1. Open an X Windows or VNC session to the Route Explorer.  See Route Explorer User Guide.
  2. Click on File->Open Topology.  Select an online and recording topology in your network.  The online topologies are indicated by green lettering in the list of topologies
  3. Look for red links or nodes for any down adjacencies or routers in your network.  typically only the Route Explorer adjacencies will be shown in red, and then, the link will be half red.
  4. Open the “Online Update Monitor” from the tools menu (if not already open).
  5. If you have a multi-protocol network, select the IGP tab at the top left.
  6. Look for events in the bar graph.  A quiet network may not show any.
  7. If BGP is active click the BGP tab.  Look for events. 
  8. See detailed event list for the current time period by clicking “Events” button at the lower center of the window.
  9. If multiple ASes are being monitored, use the topology explorer (“TEx” button) to open individual ASes or IGP areas and associated Online Monitor.

 

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