Planner Workflow
Use the Planning menu to view the offline network and its elements on the Topology map. In addition, you can analyze the impact of adding new demands or traffic before they are placed onto the real network and simulate failure scenarios.
The following workflow explains how to use Planner to simulate network failures and analyze response:
-
In
an offline network, you can make changes
and
forecast the impact of
the changes without
affecting
the
live network.
To
get an offline version of your network,
do
one of the
following:
- Import your live network directly by clicking More > Import from Live Network on the Working Models page (Planning > Networks > Offline Models). For more information, see About the Working Models Page.
- Get an offline version of your live network in the JSON format using devices’ configurations and output of other operational commands.
- Compress the JSON file using gzip and upload the gzip file from your local system by clicking the + icon on the Working Models page. For more information see Create an Offline Network.
The offline version of your live network is listed on the Working Models page.
-
On the Working Models page, select the imported
or newly created
network model
and
click the
Open
button to view the topology map of the network.
Depending on the size of the network (that is. the number of devices, links, interfaces, and LSPs), it could take few minutes before all the elements appear on the topology map. So, allow a few minutes before opening the network model after creating it the first time.
-
Save the network model by clicking More > Save Model
or by
navigating to Actions within the network model.
This step is necessary to be able to run failure simulation.
- (Optional) Open the offline topology map and make changes to the network by adding devices, links, tunnels, demands, and interfaces, or modifying existing tunnels, as required.
- Click More > Save Model to save the topology changes. For more information, see About the Offline Topology Page.
-
On the Working Models page, select the
modified network
model
(or the original model if not
changed),
and click the Simulation button.
The Exhaustive Failure Simulation page is displayed listing the options for simulation. Use the simulation options to create a failure scenario in your offline network and to see how your network reacts to the failure scenario. For information, see Exhaustive Failure Simulation.
A report is generated after you run the simulation.
-
On the Working Models page,
select the model and
click the Reports button
to view the report
generated by the simulation run and understand how your
network
would
react to the
failure scenario. For more information, see View Reports.
Depending on the size of the network, the simulation could take a few seconds or few minutes to complete.