The study reviews the limitations to traditional capacity planning techniques, explains route analytics, and shows the advantages that network planners can gain from route analytics’ capacity planning and modeling capabilities.

Many organizations struggle to do effective capacity planning because relatively shallow statistical data does not support the deep analysis that must be done to guarantee that capacity plans are technically and financially sound.

Route analytics technology brings much deeper insight to IP network and service capacity planning. Functioning as the basis for understanding the network’s traffic behavior, the network’s live routing protocol data provide unprecedented networkwide routing and traffic visibility. Route analytics provides an operationally accurate level of planning visibility, including details of the composition of the traffic and a continuous traffic history across the network. 

This broad, deep insight provides the foundation for easy-to-use capacity planning and trending tools. The algorithmically accurate nature of route analytics understanding of network routing and traffic means that it can also provide powerful scenario modeling to anticipate the impact of specific planned changes in the network.

Route analytics automates the collection of bottom-up accurate data on the behavior of routing and traffic over time. It can provide easy-to-use capacity planning tools that leverage stored network history, and offers analytical details on the composition of projected traffic and the reasons why certain trends occur.

Modeling of planned routing and traffic changes allows network planners to validate that planned capacity changes will have the desired effect and also creates options to use existing and underutilized network assets, resulting in savings.

Another benefit of route analytics is that it increases both the accuracy and the efficiency of capacity planning processes, while decreasing capital expenditures and providing a basis for clear and detailed business justification of capacity upgrades.

Pressure on network managers to deliver predictable application availability and performance, especially with the emergence of more-sensitive converged services like VoIP, makes the automation, accuracy, depth of analysis, and modeling capabilities of route analytics essential to ensure that planning processes result in sound business and technology decisions. Route analytics give network planners unique visibility to optimize, validate, and justify their plans, delivering better overall value to the business.

In related news, business communications service provider Broadview Networks (News - Alert) recently deployed Packet Design’s VPN Explorer, an IP/MPLS VPN routing analysis solution, to manage Broadview’s IP network, providing customers with VoIP, Internet, VPN, and MPLS-enabled data communications. In late 2010, Packet Design (News - Alert) introduced the first network management product to provide a real-time picture of MPLS-TE tunnels in order to measure netflow. TE Explorer lets service providers manage netflow through their tunnels, which carry critical customer traffic across MPLS core networks.