Cisco MPLS OAM Operational Excellence reflects Cisco’s commitment to improved MPLS OAM management capabilities for both enterprise and service providers. Results include simplified manageability of complex MPLS networks and dramatic reduction of operational costs.

• Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert - At-A-Glance (PDF - 679 KB)

Cisco IOS Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) enables Enterprises and Service Providers to build next-generation intelligent networks that deliver a wide variety of advanced, value-added services over a single infrastructure.

• IOS IP/MPLS Embedded Management Q&A (PDF - 746 KB)

Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert

Cisco Systems, through the development and launch of Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert, demonstrates its continuing commitment to provide expanded operation, administration, and maintenance (OAM) capabilities. Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert is a breakthrough application that substantially reduces the operational costs of managing a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network environment.

Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert reduces the time for diagnosing complex MPLS outages in some cases from hours to minutes. This dramatically improves the reliability and availability of the network. Results include greater revenues and greater profitability.

Cisco MDE is 10 to 20 times faster then manual troubleshooting

Cisco MDE dramatically and consistently reduces the time required to diagnose network problems. The Miercom independent testing report1 support this with their findings. The Miercom report states that "Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert is 10 to 20 times faster than an experienced MPLS CCIE-level engineer uses a manual process."

Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert reduces the time for diagnosing complex MPLS outages in some cases from hours to minutes. This dramatically improves the reliability and availability of the network. Results include greater revenues and greater profitability.

Simple and Easy- to-Use

Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert features an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) that presents a simple input screen requiring only six pieces of information. This makes Cisco MDE ideally suited to use by Helpdesk, Level 1 and 2 network operations staff. The Cisco MDE application produces the finding in a results screen illustrating the problem location graphically.

(See Figure 1) It also summarizes the nature of the problem and how it can be fixed. It provides all troubleshooting step details, including all IOS command line interactions.

Figure 1. Example of a Cisco MDE results screen illustrating the cause of the VPN problem

Capabilities

• Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert significantly reduces mean time to repair (MTTR) for MPLS VPN problems to help customers minimize their operating expenses and maximize their network performance.
• Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert can be used to diagnose problems even when no physical fault alarm has been generated or detected, as is the case with many configurations or logical setup errors.
• Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert utilizes the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft standardized MPLS OAM tools embedded in Cisco IOS Software.
• Cisco MDE's unique and differentiated value comes from capturing the expert knowledge from experienced Cisco MPLS technical support engineers and developing a repeatable, reliable, and easy-to-use automated workflow application.