LiveAction Brochure

LiveAction®

All-in-one QoS software for every stage of your Cisco® QoS implementation

LiveAction—Expert-level Cisco QoS Made Easy

LiveAction software provides an intelligent and refreshingly different approach to network management. Combining extensive device knowledge with rich network visualizations, LiveAction captures your actual router and switch configurations to build a highly interactive “mental model” of your network. For the first time, you can literally “see” flows, routes, and QoS policies operating in real-time across your network topology and deep inside your devices. The result is a true and relevant understanding of your network for fast and accurate QoS management and troubleshooting for Unified Communications, Telepresence, and other collaborative and mission critical services.

LiveAction software provides complete capabilities for managing your QoS implementation through its entire lifecycle.

1. Baselining and Auditing—Before startinga QoS project, you’ll need to assess the state of your network and existing QoS settings.

2. Monitoring—Monitoring provides a detailed visual reality check of your QoS performance and effectiveness before, during, and after deployment.

3. Troubleshooting—Being able to find and fix problems quickly is essential when running real-time and other mission-critical services on IP-based networks.

4. Provisioning—With LiveAction software you can create, edit, and deploy QoS policies based on Cisco best practices using graphical templates and a policy editor.

5. Maintenance and Tuning—Perform ongoing maintenance and tuning of your QoS policies to maintain network performance and reliability.

Access the information and understanding to discover and validate existing QoS policies quickly by using built-in rules and industry best practices. Also analyze application traffic and QoS performance both in real-time and with historical data.

Benefits• In-depth network awareness gives IT

staff the awareness, know-how, and confidence to make intelligent decisions

• Reduces the time and cost of understanding network performance and QoS deployments

• Over 90% reduction in time to find and analyze QoS policies

“Single-Click” QoS auditWith one mouse click, LiveAction will instantly list every QoS policy inside every device you are managing. It also compiles comprehensive reports showing policy performance statistics and historical graphs, policy mappings, and explanations of issues and problems that are affecting your policies.

Perform in-depth real-time and historical QoS traffic monitoring for baselining or trending. Also, proactively monitor and alert based on key threshold violations that impact QoS.

Benefits• Granular network awareness and alerting

for quicker notification of impending network issues

• Increased network availability and reduced end-user complaints

Visual awareness and monitoringThe most detailed and visually intuitive monitoring tool ever developed for Cisco devices. With LiveAction, you can literally see and trace your traffic flows from end-to-end across the network in both real-time and using playback of captured data. Drill down to device level and interface level for even more information on flows, routes, QoS Policies, and IP Service Level Agreements (SLA) tests and results.

Solutions for managing your Cisco QoS implementation

2 http://www.actionpacked.com

What is LiveAction?LiveAction is QoS software that provides in-depth network awareness and end-to-end traffic flow visualization so users can achieve proactive and rapid troubleshooting, remediation, and validation of their QoS issues. LiveAction successfully completed interoperability verification and testing (IVT) with Cisco and supports the entire QoS management workflow from beginning to end, providing baselining, auditing, monitoring, troubleshooting, and provisioning as well as maintenance and tuning. It is also the only management tool available with real-time, point-and-click configuration of Cisco technologies such as QoS, NetFlow, IP SLA, Medianet, AVC, ACLs, and Policy Based Routing.

Enable faster and more effective troubleshooting by providing system-wide awareness and visibility of QoS policies, traffic flows, routes, and performance issues. Also leverage in-depth, real-time and historical network awareness.

Benefits• Interactive and real-time network

awareness allows quicker troubleshooting of issues and validation of changes

• More than 50% reduction in time-to-find performance problems and restore or improve service quality

• 30% reduction in trouble ticket volumes and “break-fix” churn to allow more efficient IT operation and improved end-user productivity

Instant, visual troubleshootingNo other management tool provides a faster and more visual approach to troubleshooting congestion on your network. LiveAction highlights congested devices (large circle) and interfaces (smaller inside circles) with an amber color so you can pinpoint problems instantly. Click the interfaces for more information and use LiveAction’s configuration tools to fix problems on the fly.

Create and edit QoS policies using graphical templates and a policy editor built around Cisco best practices. Also gain immediate feedback to validate your QoS changes using highly granular, real-time traffic visualizations and statistics.

Benefits• Accelerates IT enhancements and

maintains the required level of service needed to meet business priorities

• 90% reduction in time to understand and edit complex QoS policies

• 50% reduction in time to locate performance problems

Graphical, interactive QoS policy editingLiveAction is the only network management tool that provides a fully graphical interface for creating and editing Cisco QoS policies. The software’s built-in wizards and templates ensure speed, accuracy, and compliance with Cisco best practices.

Simplify maintenance and tuning byproviding proactive system-wide awareness and visibility of QoS policies and performance issues. The easy-to-use graphical QoS policy editor enablesfine-tuning of existing policies and highly granular queuing statistics let you know exactly how they are performing.

Benefits• 30% reduction in trouble ticket volumes

and “break-fix” churn to allow more efficient IT operation and improved end-user productivity

• Accelerates IT enhancements and maintains the required level of service needed to meet business priorities

• 90% reduction in time to understand and edit complex QoS policies

Maintain optimal QoS settingsChanges in network traffic may occur due to the introduction of new users, new applications, or even changes in company policies and direction. With LiveAction, you can track these factors and adjust your policies to reshape network traffic and then fine tune and validate your policies and bandwidth allocations accordingly.

http://www.actionpacked.com 3

LiveAction is a flexible software platform that enables you to choose the products you need immediately and add new ones at a later time. There are six single module LiveAction products available: Flow, QoS Configure, QoS Monitor, LAN, Routing, and IP SLA. Each can be ordered separately or combined into a customized package to fit your needs. For the best value you can also order one of our all-in-one QoS Expert Provisioner for a comprehensive QoS management system.

All-In-One QoS: Up to Six Products in a Single GUI Platform

Proactive QoS troubleshooting, remediation, and validationLiveAction provides a complete QoS management product and eliminates the need to resort to other tools or the command line interface (CLI) to complete a QoS troubleshooting session. With LiveAction, IT engineers can immediately identify and locate problems, take corrective action on the spot, and then validate any changes made all within a single LiveAction session.

Single-click QoS audit and performance reportsLiveAction generates a highly accurate and intelligently organized report in seconds with just a single click of your mouse. This report will show you everything you need to know aboutyour QoS policies in great detail including configuration settings,performance issues, drops, and policy errors.

In-depth awareness with end-to-end flow visualizationLiveAction is the only tool that provides real-time, end-to-end flow visualizations across your network. Clicking on a flow highlights its entire path hop-by-hop. You can also examine historical views to see and analyze flows and at any date and time in the past. Use Medianet performance monitoring to passively measure voice, video, and transactional data

Point-and-click configuration of Cisco technologies In addition to its intuitive graphical interface, LiveAction comes with extensive device expertise to make configuration fast and accurate. Graphically edit ACLs, policy-based routes, NetFlow configuration, IP SLA tests and responders, and QoS policies.


Topology LevelLiveAction generates clear and detailed topology views of your network allowing you to literally “see” device connections, routes, flows, interface bandwidth, and more all in real-time. The interactive display lets you pan, zoom, and drag individual network elements across the screen for an even better view.

Interface LevelNeed even more detail? Click down to the interface view and observe actual traffic performance in real time. View pre-and-post-QoS activity and see the effects of your device configuration changes in seconds.

Device LevelDive deep into the setup and activity within your switch or router. See routes and routing tables as well as flows entering, traversing, and exiting the device. View the whole picture or use filters to display specific items.

Hierarchical ViewLeft side of screen shows devices and interfaces in a hierarchical view. Scroll right for additional details.

Devices and Live Network TopologyView shows devices (large circles), interfaces(small colored circles), interconnections,flows, interface bandwidth, congestion, andmore. Click on a device, interface, or flow formore details. Click and drag to rearrange orresize items for even better visibility. Devicescan also be logically grouped to streamlinemanagement of larger networks.

Status BarBottom of screen includes status indicators for CPU, memory, flow buffers, alerts and more. Alerts can also be sent via e-mail for remote notification.

Product TabsClick on these tabs to switch from QoS to Flow, Routing, LAN, or IP SLA. Each tab provides a different overlay and user options specific to the selected view.

InterfacesTop half indicates input.Lower half indicates output. Numbers indicate bandwidth.Green=activeDark green=QoS policy appliedAmber=congestedGray=down

FlowsCurved lines indicate traffic flows.

Rich Visualization with Multiple Levels of Detail


LiveAction Features

Flow

LiveAction Flow starts with a network topology view that provides a unique end-to-end flow visualization of live traffic across the network. Users can quickly drill down to individual devices or interfaces for more detail on flow characteristics such as IP addresses, DSCP values, byte rates and count. This makes it easy to visualize trouble spots on the network and gain a better understanding of traffic patterns.

• Cisco Performance Routing• Cisco Medianet performance monitoring• Cisco Application Visibility and Control• Cisco ASA network security event logging• Topology-based traffic flow view• Supports NetFlow v5/v9, IPFIX, sFlow, and J-Flow• Aggregate flow or individual flow views• Display end points as host IP address, host

name, application port name or number• Ability to filter flows• Start, stop, and pause flow data• Adjustable flow polling rates• Flow graph — by port, source or

destination address• Built in DNS name resolution• Historical views, reporting, and playback• Flow dashboard

QoS Configure

LiveAction QoS Configure enables IT engineers to create, edit, and apply QoS policies for Cisco routers and Layer 3switches on live networks with consistency and confidence. Use the QoS wizard and built-in templates to apply policies based on Cisco best practices or use the QoS GUI editor to create and edit your own policies from scratch.

• Cisco Medianet• Cisco Application Visibility and Control• Full MQC QoS configuration support

including WRED, CBWFQ, and Priority Queueing• Read existing QoS policies inside routers• Apply or remove QoS configurations across

multiple interfaces• Push policies to multiple devices• Hierarchical policy creation for advanced

configurations• Custom NBAR and NBAR2 based matches

including high level attributes, HTTP URL, MIME, HOST and RTP protocols

• Built-in ACL editor• CLI command preview• Built-in rules for QoS settings that highlight violations• Graphical inbound/outbound QoS editors• System-wide QoS audit

QoS Monitor

LiveAction QoS Monitoring provides the ability to track QoS performance on a per-class basis in real-time or for historical time periods. Engineers can gain a deep understanding of traffic and QoS behavior using LiveAction’s application (NBAR), class or queuing views. Monitoring and alerting of priority queue drops provides proactive notification of potential voice quality issues.

• Cisco Medianet• Cisco Application Visibility and Control• Rate-based NBAR graphs• Pre- and-post-QoS graphs• Peak and average rate statistics• Class and interface drop graphs• Congestion indicators• Built-in CBQoS MIB viewer• Custom NBAR definitions• GRE tunnel visualization• Automatic QoS graph resync on policy changes• Unknown port discovery• View QoS graphs across routers• Historical views and reporting• Low level graphs of CBQoS statistics


LAN

LiveAction LAN is a technology module that provides real-time Layer 2 visualizations for networks, including trunk interfaces, port channels, VLAN associations and bandwidth percentages.

• VLAN trunk, port channel names• VLAN associations within a device• VLAN highlighting through a network• Input/Output bandwidth of each VLAN and

port interface• Spanning Tree Protocol visualization and reporting• Find IP/MAC addresses• Trunk and access bandwidth information

through network polling• Layer 2 QoS statistics including CoS, DSCP

and IP precedence• Dropped packets, interface warnings

through network polling at the VLAN level

Routing

LiveAction Routing provides real-time routing visualizations for Cisco networks that can identify reachability problems, routing loops and asymmetric paths that can affecttraffic quality. In addition, the module’s policy-based routing viewer/editor providesa high degree of control over traffic policy allowing users to route traffic easily and predictably over user-specified paths.

• System topology view of active routes• Device route table views in graphical and

tabular form• Virtual routing and forwarding tables• Export - Exports route, route table, device

forwarding tables to CSV files• Troubleshooting - Shows routing loops and

asymmetric routes, unstable conditions, black holes, error summarizations

• Policy-based routing (PBR) - Configuration/ Editing of PBR and Set statements, edit existing route map configurations, check for compliance with PBR rules, displays PBR usage, displays static routes and PBR issues, exports route map statistics

IP SLA

LiveAction IP SLA makes Cisco IOS IP SLA operations easily accessible for generating and monitoring synthetic network traffic to baseline network performance, test policy changes, or proactively monitor key network paths. Synthetic traffic types include data (HTTP, FTP, DNS, DHCP) and voice that can be used to measure latency, loss, jitter, and mean opinion core (MOS) for VoIP. Its highly interactive graphical interface delivers the functionality and flexibility of IP SLA features without the need to learn and use Cisco device command lines.

• Test Types: DHCP, DNS, ICMP Echo, FTP, HTTP, Jitter, UDP Echo, video

• Latency, MOS performance measurements, loss, jitter,

• DHCP: destination, source, circuit ID, remote ID, subnet mask

• IP SLA VO (video operations) for Medianet• IP SLA topology view (real-time)• Set up responder at destination• Edit, save, delete test configurations• Export to CSV file• Historical reporting• Large-scale wizard-based IP SLA

provisioning in full-mesh and hub/spoke configurations• IP SLA dashboard


Devices Supported

Cisco Series Routers• 800, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2600, 2600XM, 2800, 2900, 3600, 3700,

3800, 3900, 7200, 7600, ASR 1000• Recommended IOS versions 12.3 or higher or 15.0 or higher for use

with the software. (IOS XE 2.6.0 or higher for ASR 1000 series). Earlier IOS versions may work but are not officially supported.

• General release IOS versions are recommended, although early and limited release versions will also work.

Cisco Series Switches• Catalyst 2900, 3500, 3700, 4500, and 6500 series switches• Nexus 7000• Some aspects of QoS can be set up on Layer 3-routable interfaces and

VLANs (no Layer 2 QoS configuration) • NetFlow can be used with Catalyst 6500 and 4500 switches. Please

consult Cisco’s feature navigator for specific hardware requirements.• MQC-based QoS configuration on Catalyst 4500 and Nexus 7000

Cisco Security Devices• ASA 5500 Series running 8.3 (NetFlow support only)

Non-Cisco Devices (Flow analysis only)• Alcatel, Extreme, Brocade, Hewlett-Packard, Juniper, NetVanta, nProbe

System Requirements

• Network connection• Server and client PC operating system (Windows) 64-bit—Server 2003 SP2, Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate• CPU—2+ GHz minimum, quad-core recommended• System RAM—8 GB or more recommended• Disk space—1.5 TB or more recommended

© 2012 ActionPacked! Networks. All rights reserved. LiveAction is a registered trademark and ActionPacked! and the ActionPacked! logo are trademarks of ActionPacked! Networks. Cisco is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. sFlow is a registered trademark of InMon Corp. Information subject to change without notice.

B0001-007A-1012

Contact ActionPacked! Networks

ActionPacked! Networks155 Kapalulu Place, Suite 222Honolulu, HI 96819

Phone and eFAX: +1 888-881-1116 Email: [email protected] Web site: www.actionpacked.com


What users are saying about LiveAction...

“This tool is great for applying QoS consistently and immediately validating the results.”

“I have tested a lot of products that did NetFlow. This one is the easiest, most straightforward, and it gives the most information.”

“The visualization is great! You can make changes in real time and see the results.”

“If you run or need to run QoS on your network, I could not possibly give any other product for QoS management a higher recommendation than LiveAction.”

LiveAction Brochure

Technology

Transcript of LiveAction Brochure