Packet Design's Traffic Explorer Helps Covad Wireless Keep 'Net' Working

Business Wire,  June 25, 2008  

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Routing/Traffic Visibility Let Wireless ISP Make Smarter Decisions About Network Expansion, Peering, Repairs

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Covad Wireless, which operates one of the nation's largest fixed-broadband pre-WiMAX wireless networks, has deployed a Traffic Explorer network management system from Packet Design, Inc., to track down network problems, improve change management and capacity planning, and make better decisions about how to work with other service providers.

Since its installation in late 2007, the Traffic Explorer has helped network engineers at the San Jose-based wireless Internet service provider (WISP):

* identify and justify settlement-free peering opportunities with other providers

* decide if downed links needed immediate repair or if they could wait until operations staff completed revenue-generating new customer installations

* prove to a major router vendor that its equipment was causing an intermittent outage

* find potentially problematic "asymmetric routing" on the network of a newly acquired smaller service provider.

Installed by Covad Wireless in late 2007, Traffic Explorer replaced generic NetFlow collectors and in-house-developed legacy management tools. These tools provided device-based traffic information, but no visibility into the network's end-to-end routing and traffic activity - and thus no way to understand the impact of routing changes on traffic.

"There was a lot more we wanted to know about our traffic," said Vikas Khanna, director of engineering at Covad Wireless, "but we didn't know how to go about getting the information."

At a meeting of the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) Khanna learned about Traffic Explorer, which maps traffic flows onto the network routes over which they flow, showing traffic as it moves in real time across the entire network topology. Service providers gain an end-to-end, "topology-aware" view of network traffic that helps them find hidden network problems, speed troubleshooting and ensure there is sufficient bandwidth to meet service-level agreements.

Traffic Explorer Used "Every Time There's a Network Issue"

Traffic Explorer comes into play at Covad Wireless "every time there's a network issue, from troubleshooting to general maintenance to proactive planning," Khanna said.

For example, when customers complained of slower than usual access speeds, Khanna's team logged into Traffic Explorer and saw immediately that one of the network's main backhaul links had gone down. "Before, even if we had suspected that link had been a problem and that our traffic wasn't flowing over optimal paths, the only way to make sure was to keep checking different systems until we confirmed it," he said. "Traffic Explorer either confirms our suspicions right away or tells us where the problem actually lies."

On another occasion, traffic was being misdirected to a peripheral part of the network which was built with lower capacity than the intended path. Traffic Explorer let network engineers quickly identify the router misconfiguration responsible for the problem, model changes to the router settings, and validate that the changes would correct the problem - all before actually putting the changes into effect. Before Traffic Explorer, Khanna said, "we'd have to go to specific routers and play around with different settings to see if they'd fix the problem, while affected customers bore the brunt of the service issue."

Covad Wireless also uses Traffic Explorer to improve its capacity and failure scenario planning. "We can define the capacities of links between given routers across our backbone, use Traffic Explorer to simulate failures on specific links, and visually see where the traffic will be rerouted," Khanna said. "We can even add varying amounts of new traffic to the network to pinpoint exactly when a given link will become saturated, so we know when we'll need to do the next upgrade."

Network Management Impacts the Bottom Line

In several cases, Covad Wireless' use of Traffic Explorer has translated directly to the bottom line.

"If you're a smaller provider," Khanna said, "the bigger providers won't even talk to you if you don't have enough traffic to justify the administrative cost of a direct, settlement-free relationship. You'll have to connect through another ISP and pay for their transit service. With Traffic Explorer we can go to potential peers and tell them exactly how much and what types of traffic we have going to a destination, validating a direct peering relationship. With transit costs averaging $20 per megabit from a decent upstream provider, that information can mean significant savings."

Covad Wireless' Network Operations Center (NOC) has also benefited from the use of Traffic Explorer.

"Before, when a link went down, the NOC would notify the engineering group and wait until we figured out what happened," Khanna said. "With Traffic Explorer, they can see right away if it's a backup link that has no immediate impact on customers. When that's the case, my group doesn't have to drop what we're doing, and field operations doesn't have to delay a revenue-producing customer installation to make a repair."