New Frontiers in Monitoring and Troubleshooting of Next generation IP Networks

Dr. Biswajit Nandy: Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University and CTO, Solana Networks
Mr. Nabil Seddigh: CEO, Solana Networks

Over the years, IP networks have grown to be very complex distributed systems reflected in the control protocols and forwarding plane mechanisms utilized in routers and switches. At the same time, IP networking protocols and forwarding plane mechanisms continue to change and evolve in order to address emergent user application requirements and increasingly diverse operating environments. Trends include the following (i) Real time applications such as VoIP and IPTV have accelerated the introduction of QoS and Traffic Engineering capabilities in the control plane as well as the forwarding plane (ii) Various security threats are forcing researchers to rethink control protocols as well as data forwarding mechanisms. (iii) The mission critical nature of various applications in the modern IP network, demands rapid fault recovery following a network failure. All of the above, necessitate the need for a comprehensive and efficient infrastructure to facilitate monitoring and troubleshooting of next generation IP networks.

By and large, monitoring and troubleshooting on IP networks today is still essentially carried out using mechanisms that are focused on a nodal view of the network. i.e by examining individual elements and devices. Information from a network-wide perspective is hardly utilized in this troubleshooting. Tools such as Ping, Traceroute and various agent-based technologies continue to serve as the dominant approaches. There is limited visibility into various internal states of the network. As a result, controlling and trouble-shooting network issues becomes very challenging due to the interaction of routing policies, protocols and a variety of device-level configurations.

The objective of this tutorial is two fold: First, the tutorial will review control and management requirements for monitoring and troubleshooting of next generation networks. Some of these requirements include: (i) Obtaining visibility into the IP cloud (ii) The ability to monitor network state in an almost real-time fashion (iii) The ability to obtain an end-to-end service view for an application in the IP network (iv) The ability to pin-point root causes of application behaviour issues on the network - including soft and hard failures (v) The ability to estimate network state with a minimal of sampled network data. Second, the tutorial will discuss various new approaches to address the requirements mentioned earlier. Some of these approaches include: (i) The ability to combine forwarding and control plane information using route analytics technology (ii) Network tomography (iii) Network application behaviour mapping and diagnostics. The tutorial will cover techniques and technologies suited for Layer 2 and Layer 3 IP networks.

Intended length of the tutorial: Half day

Biswajit Nandy has over 19 years of experience in the area of computer networking and data communication. Dr. Nandy is Chief Technology Officer at Solana Networks (since 2004) and Adjunct Research Professor with Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University (since 2001). Dr. Nandy has a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada. The primary focus of his work has been in the area of IP networking protocols and architecture. As an Independent Contributor at Nortel Networks, he spearheaded various advance technology programs and R&D projects in IP networking. He was active participant in IETF and published extensively on IP-QoS performance issues in the form of research papers and IETF drafts. He worked as a Network Architect in Tropic Network with the MPLS/GMPLS team. He has authored and presented over 40 research papers in International Conferences and holds 14 granted US patents.

Nabil Seddigh has over 18 years experience in the telecommunications industry. In 2003, Nabil co-founded Solana Networks and has served as its President since that date. Over the past 5 years, Nabil and the Solana team have worked diligently to offer products and solutions for intelligent monitoring and diagnostics of next generation IP networks. During this time, Nabil has worked closely with network managers in numerous Enterprise Networks as well as Service Providers to conduct assessments and audits of their networks. Prior to Solana, Nabil worked with companies such as Tropic Networks, Nortel Networks and Telesat in areas such as MPLS, Quality of Service, Routing, Packet Classification and Network Management. Nabil obtained his M.Sc from Carleton University in Systems & Computer Engineering and his undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo. He is the holder of 13 issued US Patents with 3 pending approval, and has over 25 conference and IETF publications.