Basic Key Performance Indicators

For example, you could monitor a service provider network for three basic key performance indicators (KPIs):

• Availability measures the “reachability” of one measurement point from another measurement point at the network layer (for example, using ICMP ping). The underlying routing and transport infrastructure of the provider network will support the availability measurements, with failures highlighted as unavailability.
• Health measures the number and type of errors that are occurring on the provider network, and can consist of both router-centric and network-centric measurements, such as hardware failures or packet loss.
• Performance of the provider network measures how well it can support IP services (for example, in terms of delay or utilization).

Each KPI is defined in more detail later in this chapter.