Reports

WAE Design lets you generate reports that compare IP/MPLS topology and configuration information, demand routings, LSP routings, or traffic between two plan files. You can use these reports to:

  • Plan for upgrades—Compare plan files before and after topology and configuration changes are made to a current network. For example, you could compare the original plan file to a proposed new plan in which circuits or nodes are added or upgraded.

  • Mitigate congestion—Compare plans before and after making configuration changes to mitigate congestion due to a failure or planned maintenance, such as metric changes or LSP additions and reroutings.

  • Validate simulations—Compare the simulated traffic under failure in one plan to the measured traffic after a failure has occurred in another plan to validate the accuracy of the simulation.

  • Audit plans—Review any changes between two plan files.

  • Identify demand and LSP reroutes—Compare plans to determine which demands or LSPs experienced routing changes, for example as the result of an interface metric change or capacity upgrades.

Upon comparing plan files, a report of the results opens automatically. You can access this report later by choosing Window > Reports.

For More Information...

See...

Reports on LSP path routes

MPLS Simulation

Reports on L1 circuit routes

Layer 1 Simulation

Reports on demand groupings and demand grouping costs

Traffic Forecasting

Cost Modeling

Reports on infrastructure costs

Cost Modeling

This section contains the following topics:

Plan Comparison Reports

Comparison reports let you compare objects between two plan files to determine:

  • Which objects are present in one plan, but not in the other.

  • Which objects are present in both plans and which, if any, have different properties.

You can run four types of plan comparison reports:

  • IP/MPLS topology and configuration—Objects describing the topology (such as nodes, circuits, and interfaces), configured objects (such as LSPs and LSP paths), and related properties (such as IGP metrics and capacity).

  • Demand routings—Demand paths and the properties that indicate routing changes, such as Path Length and Max Latency. For a complete list of compared properties, see Table 1.

  • LSP routings—Properties of LSPs that indicate routing changes, such as TE Path Metric and Active Path Sim. For a complete list of compared properties, see Table 2.

  • Complete plan comparison—All tables in the table schema are compared, except for internal simulation caching tables. For a complete list of these tables, refer to the $CARIDEN_HOME/docs/table_schema file.

Report Columns

Each WAE Design table has key columns that uniquely identify objects. For example, the key columns in the Interfaces table are the Node and Interface columns, which represent the name of the node containing the interface and the name of the interface itself. In a Plan Comparison report, an object in one plan is identified with an object in another plan only if the key columns of the two objects match. That is, key columns determine if an object is present in both plans or in only one of the plans.

The Plan Comparison report displays three other types of columns. Table 1, Table 2, and Table 3 list the properties reported upon and their associated column type.

  • Information only (Info)—There are no comparisons made. Information is reported for the plan file from which you are running the report (Plan 1).

  • Differences (Diff)—Specific properties are compared for each object that has matching key columns across the two plan files. Objects are then identified as belonging in either Plan 1 only (file from which you are running the report), in Plan 2 only (plan file to which you are comparing), or in both Plan 1 and Plan 2. If the object exists in both plan files, but has different properties, a Diff column shows T (true) if there are any differences or F (false) if there are none.

    Differences are based on the current state of the open plan files. For example, if a circuit has failed, the demand routings change to route around the failure.

  • Summary Differences (Summ Diff)—These are not columns within WAE Design tables. They are T/F (true or false) values, depending on some differences in the table objects that are not represented in the table columns. For example, if a common LSP path is configured differently between plans, this difference is represented in a summary difference column in the LSP section. If demand routings differ, this is represented in a summary difference column in the Demands section.


    Note
    For easy reference, the following tables list columns in the order of type first: Key, Info, Diff, and Summ Diff. Properties within each column type are alphabetical.
Table 1. Plans Comparison Report: IP/MPLS Topology and Configuration

Compared Table

Compared Columns

Comparison Column Type

Summary Difference Description

Interfaces

Name

Key

Node

Key

Remote Node

Info

Affinities

Diff

Area

Diff

Capacity

Diff

Circuit

Diff

Description

Diff

FRR Protect

Diff

IGP Metric

Diff

IP Address

Diff

PC Min BW

Diff

PC Min Links

Diff

Resv BW

Diff

TE Metric

Diff

Circuits

InterfaceA

Key

InterfaceB

Key

NodeA

Key

NodeB

Key

Name

Info

Active

Diff

Capacity

Diff

Delay

Diff

Nodes

Name

Key

Active

Diff

AS

Diff

BGP ID

Diff

ECMP Max

Diff

IP Address

Diff

IP Manage

Diff

Model

Diff

OS

Diff

Vendor

Diff

LSPs

Node

Key

Source

Key

Active

Diff

Destination

Diff

Exclude

Diff

FRR Link Protect

Diff

Hold Pri

Diff

Hop Limit

Diff

Include

Diff

Include Any

Diff

Load Share

Diff

Metric

Diff

Metric Type

Diff

Setup BW

Diff

Setup Pri

Diff

Unresolved Destination

Diff

LSPs Path Diff

Summ Diff

T (true) if there are any differences in the LSP Paths table for this LSP. If two LSPs have differences in their named path hops or LSP paths, these differences are propagated to this column.

LSP Paths

Node

Key

Path Option

Key

Source

Key

Exclude

Diff

Hold Pri

Diff

Hop Limit

Diff

Include

Diff

Include Any

Diff

Path Name

Diff

Setup BW

Diff

Setup Pri

Diff

Standby

Diff

Named Path Diff

Summ Diff

T (true) if there are any differences in the Named Paths table for this LSP path.

Named Paths

Active

Key

Name

Key

Source

Key

Named Path Hops Diff

Summ Diff

T (true) if there are any differences in the Named Path Hops table for this named LSP path.

Named Path Hops

Name

Key

Source

Key

Step

Key

Interface

Diff

IP Address

Diff

Node

Diff

Type

Diff

Unresolved Hop

Diff

Table 2. Plans Comparison Report: Demand Routings

Compared Table

Compared Columns

Comparison Column Type

Summary Difference Description

Demands

Destination

Key

Name

Key

Service Class

Key

Source

Key

Destination Site

Info

Source Site

Info

Active

Diff

ECMP Min %

Diff

Max Latency

Diff

Path Metric

Diff

Path Diff

Summ Diff

T (true) if there are any differences in routing of the demand.

Table 3. Plans Comparison Report: LSP Routings

Compared Table

Compared Columns

Comparison Column Type

Summary Difference Description

LSPs

Name

Key

Source

Key

Active Path Sim

Diff

Destination

Diff

Routed

Diff

Shortest TE Path

Diff

TE Path Metric

Diff

Actual Path Diff

Summ Diff

T (true) if there are any differences in routing of the actual LSP path.

Simulated Path Diff

Summ Diff

T (true) if there are any differences in routing of the LSP.

Report Sections

The Summary section shows the number of objects in each plan file, the number of objects in both plan files, and the number of objects with property differences (Example Plan Comparison Report Summary).

Example: Nodes A, B, and C are in Plan 1, and B, C, and D are in Plan 2. Nodes B and C have matching key columns. The B nodes have identical properties, but the C nodes have different IP addresses. Therefore, in the Summary section, the In Both Plans column shows 2, and the Different Properties column shows 1.

An individual section is generated for each object that appears in only one plan file and if there are differences between the properties, a section is generated showing these differences. Thus, there is the potential of generating one to three sections per compared table: one for objects appearing only in Plan 1, one for objects appearing only in Plan 2, and one listing objects existing in both plan files, along with their differences noted with a T (true) or F (false).

Figure 1. Example Plan Comparison Report Summary

Other than Summary, the report sections and columns (properties) that appear depend on the options selected when generating the report.

  • If you select to show only properties with differences, only those columns with differences in properties appear in the report. If only one value is different, all objects are listed (not just the one with the different property).

  • If you select to show all properties compared, all compared properties appear in the report whether there are differences between the two plan files or not.

Creating Plan File Comparison Reports

Procedure

Step 1

Open the two plan files you want to compare.

Step 2

In either of these two plan files, choose Tools > Reports > Compare Plans.

Step 3

Choose the plan file to which you are comparing the open plan.

Step 4

Choose the type of comparisons you want to generate:

  • IP/MPLS topology and configuration

  • Demand routings

  • LSP routings

  • Complete plan files

Step 5

Choose whether to show only properties with differences or whether to show all properties compared.

Step 6

Click OK.

Traffic Comparison Reports

Traffic Comparison reports compare traffic values within a single plan or between two plan files. You can compare traffic on one object at a time (nodes, interfaces, circuits, demands, LSPs, multicast flows, and flows). Each object has a different set of comparisons from which to choose. For example, interface traffic and capacity can be compared, and LSP traffic and setup bandwidth can be compared. Another example would be to compare the simulated interface traffic in a plan file before a failure to the measured interface traffic of a plan file in which a failure occurred. Such a comparison lets you determine which interfaces show the greatest differences.

For each plan file compared, the current traffic level and either the selected service class or queue are used. They can be different in each plan.

The Summary section shows a high-level summary of what is being compared. Additionally, a section of the difference on the selected object and traffic columns is generated and named accordingly.

Creating Traffic Comparison Reports

Procedure

Step 1

If comparing traffic from the open plan file to another, open the other plan file.

Step 2

In each plan file, choose the travel levels and choose either the service class or queue traffic to compare.

Step 3

Choose Tools > Reports > Compare Traffic. This plan file is identified as Plan 1 in the Compare Traffic dialog box that opens.

Step 4

Choose the object type on which to compare traffic (interfaces, circuits, nodes, and so on).

Step 5

Choose the traffic column in the current plan that you want to compare (Plan 1).

Step 6

The default Plan 2 is the current plan file. To change this, choose a different plan file for Plan 2.

Step 7

Choose the traffic column being compared for Plan 2.

Step 8

Click OK.

Viewing or Exporting Reports

Upon generating a report, it opens automatically. From there you can select the various sections of the report from the left navigation pane.

To view a report after having closed it, choose Window > Reports. All reports generated on that plan file appear and are selectable from one report window.

If you want to save these reports for later use, you must save the plan file. However, running the report again overwrites the report. To preserve the information, you can export the data by report section. Right-click any of the sections in the left navigation pane and choose Export Tables.