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Simulate Failure Scenarios

Paragon Planner allows you to simulate failure scenarios on a network to determine the resiliency of the network; see Simulation Menu Overview.

You can perform two types of simulations:

  • By using pre-defined scenarios. Use this type of simulation to analyze network performance by failing:

    • One network element type (node, link, site, linecard, and so on) at a time (single failure).

      For example, if you select to fail nodes, failure scenarios are executed by failing all nodes in the network, one node at a time.

    • Two or three types of network elements at a time (multiple failures).

      When you select multiple failures, failure scenarios are executed by failing two or three types of selected network elements randomly. The scenarios are executed for the number of times that you specify.

  • By manually selecting the network elements (interactive scenarios) to fail. In this type of simulation, you select specific network elements of a particular type (for example, nodes, links, interfaces, and so on) or a combination of different types of network elements to fail.

See Simulation Menu: Predefined and Interactive Scenarios for details.

To simulate failure scenarios:

  1. Open the network in which you want to simulate the failure scenarios, from the Network Browser window (File > Open Network Browser).
    The topology map of the network appears on the Map window.
  2. On the main menu, select Tools > Options > Failure Simulation to review the Failure Simulation Options and if needed, modify the options. See Failure Simulation Options section of the Tools: Options Menu.
  3. To simulate failure scenarios on the network, do one of the following:

    • For interactive failure simulations:

      1. Select Simulation > Interactive Scenarios... on the menu bar.

        The Interactive Scenarios... window appears.

      2. Select the network elements to fail.

      3. Go to step 4.

    • For predefined failure simulations:

      1. Select Simulation > Simulation Scenarios on the menu bar.

        The Simulation Scenarios window appears.

      2. Configure the simulation options explained in Table 1.

  4. Click Run.
    Paragon Planner triggers the failure simulation and after the simulation is complete, a message appears indicating that a failure simulation report is generated.
  5. View the failure simulation reports on the Reports window (Report > Report Manager > Simulation Report). See Report Manager: Simulation Reports for details.
  6. Save the network in Paragon Planner for future analysis; see Saving a File.
Table 1: Parameters to Configure for Predefined Simulation Scenarios
Tab Action/Description
Single Failure

Select a network element type (Node, Card, Link, Site, Slot, SRLG [Shared Risk Link Group]/Facility, or Parallel links) to fail one network element at a time.

Multiple Failures

Do the following:

  • From the Multiple Network Element Failure field:

    • Select Double to run simulation by failing two types of network elements at the same time.

    • Select Triple to run simulation by failing three types of network elements at the same time.

  • Click Cases to Simulate and enter the number of failures that you want to simulate. For example, if you select this option and enter 10 in the text field, Paragon Planner simulates the network ten times by failing a random combination of the selected network element types.

  • Click Exhaustive Failure to run simulation by failing all combinations of the chosen network element types. For example, if you chose to run an exhaustive failure simulation by failing two network elements—links and nodes— at a time. Paragon Planner fails a combination of two nodes, a node and link, and two links to simulate network failures.

  • Under Failure Types, select the types of network elements that you want to fail—Node, Link, Site, Slot, Card, SRLG/Facility, Parallel Links.
Report Options

Select the types of reports that you want to generate and enter an alphanumeric value in the Report Runcode text box.

The Report Runcode is an extension that Paragon Planner adds to the filenames of the reports that it generates. Runcodes help you to distinguish between reports that are generated by using the same data set in different sessions.

See the Report Options section of Simulation Menu: Predefined and Interactive Scenarios.
Advanced Options

Do the following:

  • Select the fast reroute (FRR) mode to be used during the simulation—Normal, FRR only, or Normal + FRR. See Failure Simulation Options section of Tools: Options Menu for details.

  • Under Replay Up-Down Sequence, click Browse...and select a custom simulation script to be run, instead of running the default simulation scripts provided by Paragon Planner.

  • From the Simulation field, select one of the following:

    • Every Event—A network element is brought up or down for every event (network-element up or network-element down) as indicated in the custom script.

    • When WAIT/RESET is Encountered—A network element is brought up or down based on a WAIT or RESET command present in the custom script:

      • WAIT—The network elements are retained in their current state (up or down) and traffic that was rerouted due to network elements going down are also retained in the new paths.

      • RESET—The network elements are reset to a state that they were present before the start of the simulation and traffic that was rerouted due to network elements going down are also rerouted through their original paths.

See the Advanced Options section of Simulation Menu: Predefined and Interactive Scenarios

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