Broadview Networks Deploys Packet Design’s VPN Explorer to Manage Converged Services Network
IP Routing and MPLS VPN Visibility Increases Network Operations Efficiency, Reduces Mean-Time-to-Repair
Santa Clara, Calif. (Vocus) December 20, 2010
Broadview Networks, a business communications service provider, has deployed VPN Explorer, an IP/MPLS VPN routing analysis solution from Packet Design, Inc. Broadview will use VPN Explorer to manage their IP network, which provides business customers with VoIP, Internet, VPN and MPLS-enabled data communications.
Broadview Networks installed VPN Explorer earlier this year to monitor its large router network, which runs the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Multi-Protocol BGP (MP-BGP) MPLS VPN routing protocols. VPN Explorer uses a technology known as ‘route analytics’ that lets the company's network engineering staff look at otherwise hidden aspects of routing behavior – undetectable by conventional SNMP-based management tools – and understand its impact on network reliability, redundancy, and customer service delivery.
George Carey, managing director of ISP Operations for Broadview Networks, said the need for more visibility into IP and MPLS VPN routing has increased with the growth of Broadview’s service portfolio and the expansion of the network. “Our IP backbone network has grown to support many diverse services, including more than 50,000 OfficeSuite™ hosted IP phone stations, SIP trunking, multi-site MPLS networks, Internet access, and managed network ad end user security services,” said Carey. “Our customers are primarily businesses that entrust us with their critical data and voice communications, and that are very sensitive to any service disruptions. For example, on a typical business day we handle upwards of a million busy-hour voice call attempts. As our customer base grew, our staff needed greater management visibility to continue delivering the best-in-class service experience that our clients are used to receiving.”
VPN Explorer Helps Speed Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
VPN Explorer has made a significant impact on the time it takes to investigate and resolve issues, particularly with complex MPLS VPN services. “Increasing efficiency through better intelligence and automation is a mantra within Broadview. MTTR is a key performance indicator that we constantly aim to improve in order to advance our customer responsiveness and lower operations costs,” said Carey. “Traditional network device management solutions didn’t really help us troubleshoot network problems because they could only tell the status of individual routers. We have found Packet Design’s network management solution to be an excellent tool for automating the collection and analysis of network-wide IP and MPLS VPN routing information. It has made a real difference in speeding up our response and resolution times for customer issues.”
Broadview’s Carey said he liked the fast up-time that Packet Design’s solution gives them right out of the box. “We were able to install it in about 15 minutes and it was running smoothly and productively in practically no time. Also, since it’s vendor-agnostic and uses standards-based routing protocols, we didn’t need to perform expensive software customization in order for VPN Explorer to operate in our network environment.
Broadview’s engineering team has found VPN Explorer’s historical troubleshooting capabilities to be particularly useful. VPN Explorer maintains a complete, recorded history of all routing and MPLS VPN changes over time, which can be rewound using an interactive History Navigator tool. This allows engineers to visualize and diagnose the precise routing operation of the network at a past moment in time when a customer issue was occurring.
“Often, by the time a customer has reported an issue and opened a trouble ticket, the symptoms are no longer occurring,” said Carey. “Now, with VPN Explorer, we have total visibility into network operations at any moment in time, which allows us to locate and identify any relevant network issues affecting a customer’s traffic, or to eliminate altogether the network as a cause, and move on to other potential root causes. And because time is money, this can add up to real cost savings over time.”
About Packet Design, Inc.
Packet Design, Inc., pioneered the field of route analytics and is the leading supplier of network appliances that provide routing-layer visibility into IP networks. The company's products create an accurate layer 3 topology map, analyze routing events, and provide a unique end-to-end, "path-aware" view of network traffic (including MPLS-VPN customer traffic), letting network engineers quickly pinpoint network problems and accurately model changes. Packet Design solutions help manage networks in hundreds of organizations, including many of the world's largest service providers, global enterprises (financial, retail pharmaceutical and other firms), government agencies and educational institutions.
Packet Design was founded in March 2003 by serial entrepreneur and former Cisco Chief Technology Officer Judy Estrin and former Cisco Chief Scientist Van Jacobson. For more information, visit http://www. packetdesign. com.
Company contact:
Jeff Raice
Packet Design, Inc.
408-490-1034
Jeff(at)packetdesign(dot)com
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