The circuits you sell, seen from both ends
A circuit lives in fragments across every device it crosses. NacTrack reads each fragment and puts the circuit back together, end to end.
Why a circuit is hard to follow
- An xconnect is configured on both sides, with an identifier that has to match.
- A VPLS instance groups several attachment circuits spread across several devices.
- In both cases no single device holds the complete view.
- A mismatched identifier, or an attachment circuit forgotten during a migration, stays invisible until a customer calls.
- NacTrack collects both ends and joins them: the circuit, its remote device, its state at each end.
- The attachment circuits of each VPLS instance are listed, with the device that carries them, on IOS XR and Huawei. On IOS XE VFI they are not yet: the command they come from is not in the collected set, so the instance reports 0 of 0 rather than an invented figure.
The same service, seen from both ends
A circuit exists nowhere in one piece. Each device knows its own half, and cross referencing is what puts it back together.
WHAT IS READ
- Customer Athe attachment
- Ingress PEone of the two ends
- MPLS corethe transport
- Egress PEthe other end
- Customer Bthe attachment
The same circuit is called xconnect by one vendor, VLL by another and VPLS by a third. The identifier the two ends share is what allows them to be matched despite the vocabulary.
Coverage, stated
Xconnect circuits, VPLS instances and MPLS LDP sessions are captured on Cisco IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR and Huawei VRP. Those are the platforms these services are actually deployed on across our customers.
On other vendors the device is inventoried and its configuration kept, but circuits are not parsed. This is the most platform dependent module in the whole product.
- Xconnect circuits with the remote device
- VPLS instances and attachment circuits
- MPLS LDP sessions
- State captured at both ends
- Cisco IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR and Huawei VRP
