cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
1287
Views
0
Helpful
1
Replies

Facebook Forum - Improving Application Performance and Availability with Performance Routing

morao
Level 1
Level 1

fb_forum_jean.JPG

Event Date: November 17, 2011

Time: 9:30 am to 10:30 am PST.

For local times check:

http://www.easytz.com/?t=2011-11-17-17-30&d=60&l=5972-463d-2651-3f21-4bda-233-3eb-1c64-5803-2b84-42e8-1008-4aaf

Where: On our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CiscoSupportCommunity

RSVP via http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=288023504552390

Confounded  on how to improve your Wide Area Network Application Performance Today?  Is your VoIP and Video over the WAN just not getting the priority it  requires? Wondering how to locate the best performing path and  dynamically route around backup Service Provider performance issues in

real-time? Are you looking to also get more utility value from your  idle Service Provider Link at the same time? Cisco Performance Routing  (PfR)Can Help.

We will be  covering all these topics and of course  taking your questions. We will  have our Cisco PfR Technical Marketing Expert Jean-Marc Barozet hosting  this Facebook Session. Our Cisco PfR Product Manager Ernest Mikulic will  also be attending. Both are part of Cisco's Network Operating Systems  Technology Group (NOSTG) where all of the Performance Routing (PfR)  Technology Marketing, Research, Design, and Engineering takes place.

What is a Facebook Forum?

Facebook forums are online conversations, held at a pre-arranged time on our Facebook page. It gives you an opportuniy to interact with a live Cisco expert and get more information about a particular technology, service or product.


How Do I Participate?

On the day of the event, go to http://www.facebook.com/CiscoSupportCommunity. Once you go to our Facebook fan page, be sure and click "Like" to become  a member of our Facebook community! You can now participate in the discussions and aask questions.

1 Reply 1

ciscomoderator
Community Manager
Community Manager

Here's an archive of the event in a Q&A form.

Jean-Marc, Let's start with the basic question. Help our audience understand - What is Performance Routing (PfR)?

PfR is an Application Based optimization technology that can make performance based informed decisions on the best network path to take for one critical business application, flow, or an entire circuit of data its destination. It does this in real-time evaluating multiple choices of varied network and application performance characteristics. PfR can take into account the network performance, delay, loss, jitter, link loading, and more. Traditional routing protocols typically rely solely on cost (total bandwidth) once reachability has been established, in that there is a neighbor relationship between two routers that exists across a wan link or path.

How does PfR improve application performance and availability as it says on it's /go/PfR Cisco.com home page?

PfR is a path selection technology that simply put, will follow and enforce any application performance or availability policy you create on a 7x24 basis. Where normally critical business applications are impacted by the network performance of the path they must follow by default, PfR will constantly check the performance of any number of alternate , or backup paths and automatically re-route your chosen applications or traffic to those alternate paths to be sure they are always on the peak performing path at all times.

Jean-Marc, Barozet Can performance routing work with any protocol?

Yes. PfR works natively with BGP, Static Routes, and the EIGRP protocol as well. PfR can also work with any other Cisco supported IGP through our Protocol Independent Route Optimization (PIRO) Enhancement added to the technology which was originally added to Cisco IOS starting in 12.4(24)T.
See: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/pfr/configuration/guide/pfr-piro.html

Jean-Marc Barozet, When PfR does detect poor or degrading network conditions, how does it then route my business critical applications, or all my selected network traffic around them?

In short, PfR manipulates the routing protocols, removing and inserting very specific routes to ensure that any Application Traffic controlled by a PfR Policy is moved directly where, and when it needs to be.

PfR also monitors the original Application path for performance conditions to be restored, and when or if they are, PfR will restore the Application Traffic back to it's original path (In-Policy) automatically.

How I can verify that PfR is optimizing my application performance? Is there a way to review historical data what PfR did?

You can check directly on the router with a few commands that give you all the application metrics. And you can also use the new PfR NetFlow v9 export. We work with NetFlow partners.

Do you have a ROI calculator for PfR?

Since PfR prevents the brownout, you are preventing the damage before even it happens. To give you an analogy, think about what would have happened in an auto crash without a good airbag? PfR works like an airbag. It prevents major brownouts and blackouts.

Jean-Marc Barozet, In addition to addressing brownouts and blackouts, is PfR able to load balance traffic on a Per-Application Flow or Per-Traffic class basis between two or more network access edges?

Yes. PfR is very good at Load Balancing Application Traffic and is widely used in many Service Provider, Enterprise, and Commercial Load Balancing applications today. Customers can even combine a Load Balancing Policy setup and a Application Performance Policy setup for the same Application Traffic Class, though we would consider this requires a bit of an advanced user skill level to mix these two together.
Our SAS Inc. Case Study highlights the great benefits one customer found doing just this.
See: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps6537/ps6554/ps6599/ps8787/case_study_c36-604913.html

Jean-Marc Barozet, What kinds of customers use performance routing today and why?

We have customers of many market segments and number of verticals, as such it may be a challenge to isolate the answer to this entirely. Our customer cross the gamut from Commercial Services, Commercial Value Added Resellers, Enterprise headquarters, branch office, telecommuter, regional, international, and internet Edge facing parts of their businesses and applications. We also have Managed Service Providers, and Hosting Service Providers as customers as well. PfR is also used in some areas of the US Government and Emergency Services. Here you can see PfR crosses Government, Service Provider, Enterprise, and Commercial markets. The verticals within those are just as varied as the need for highly performing and available business applications and their networks that go with them.

Jean-Marc Barozet, What cisco hardware is PfR available on today?

PfR is supported on Cisco ISR Series, Cisco ASR 1000 Series, and Cisco 7600 Series Platforms.

What kind of Management Interfaces does PfR Support?

PfR does have two standards based management interfaces available today. Those are first of all we support RFC 3954 NetFlow Export v9 based PfR Data and Event Notifications, plus additionally a new PfR SNMP Read MIB. We are working with Cisco Net

Where are there the best links to PfR documentation? Are there any Wikipedia like document sites availible?

You can find all information on

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/PfR:Home

http://www.cisco.com/go/pfr

Is there an email alias I can reach for more information about the PfR Technology at Cisco?

You may contact us at pfr-customers@external.cisco.com

To find the actual discussion on Facebook visit:

http://www.facebook.com/CiscoSupportCommunity/posts/10150462697681412

To find the archive on Facebook in the “Notes” section, visit:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=280479415324002

To find an archive on CSC, visit:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3487702#3487702

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: