Cisco s Tunnel Builder Vendor Solution

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Cisco’s Tunnel Builder Vendor Solution

Despite their admirable factors, self-healing networks pose three distinct problems. The first is their difficulty to configure; another is their difficulty to manage and the difficulty in reserving required bandwidth. The MPLS workgroup and the IET addressed these problems and have developed several Management Information Bases (MIBs) and test procedures to confront them.

It took the innovation and foresight of Cisco to integrate these elements into a central management system product: Tunnel Builder.

In Figure 4.19, we see that most Cisco routers are managed through the command language interface (CLI) in a network with thousands of interfaces; this method could prove challenging and cumbersome (see Figure 4.20).

Figure 4.19: Typical Router Configuration

Figure 4.20: CLI Becomes Complex on Larger Networks

Through the use of Telnet and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Cisco built a centralized management station that runs on a Sun platform. The Sun workstation interfaces directly with the devices to be managed.

Engineers can access network data directly at the Sun platform or remotely through an HTTP interface (see Figures 4.21–4.25).

Figure 4.21: The Cisco Tunnel Builder Solution

The software running to support this system is called Tunnel Builder. It provides a simple graphical user interface (GUI), which is easily understood and easily controllable. Figure 4.22 shows the Tunnel Builder block diagram.

Figure 4.22: Tunnel Builder Block Diagram

Tunnel Builder has a very user-friendly computer/human interface, as shown in Figures 4.23–4.25. The CHI shows the paths and failovers.

Figure 4.23: Tunnel Builder Demo Setup, Part 1

Figure 4.24: Tunnel Builder Demo Setup, Part 2

Figure 4.25: Tunnel Builder Demo Setup, Part 3

Tunnel Builder promises to be a tool that addresses many of the concerns about MPLS self-healing, configuration, maintenance, and traffic engineering. For more information on Tunnel Builder, visit the Cisco site at www.cisco.com/warp/public/732/Tech/mpls/tb/pres.shtml.

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