Simulation Menu Overview

The Simulation menu is used to run various failure scenarios. You can perform simulations on both new and existing designs to determine resiliency in the backbone. By default, NorthStar Planner simulation mimics the actual hardware. However, you can also adjust simulation parameters for experimentation and “what-if” purposes.

In Failure Analysis, path provisioning simulates the hardware's implementation of bandwidth allocation and demand routing on the existing topology. You can run interactive simulations or simulation scripts (predefined or user-created). In addition, you can try simulating path placement for several iterations to see what impact demand path placement and demand routing order have on the network.

By default, NorthStar Planner failure simulation will mimic the actual hardware ( for example, in routing, max hop, etc.). However, you can adjust simulation parameters for experimentation purposes.

These can be accessed by selecting Tools > Options > Failure Simulation, and are described in detail in Failure Simulation Options. In addition to Path Placement controls, these options also control certain aspects of the Failure Analysis and Reporting.

Failure analysis reports can be generated for the following cases:

• Single Line Failure Report - simulation report for each single line failure

• Link Failure Report - simulation report for each link failure

• Node Failure Report - simulation report for each single node failure at every site for each vendor

• Random Daily Failure Report - simulation report for randomly generated multi-link or multi-vendor failure scenarios

• Replay Up-Down Sequences Report - simulation report for any link/node/vendor up or down sequence