Provider Connectivity Assurance 24.09 Release Notes

Executive Summary

Welcome to our end of summer release of Provider Connectivity Assurance! We've made some great strides in addressing customer feature requests, improving operational support, and advancing new analytical capabilities:

1. Crosstab support for multiple directions in a single dashboard widget!
2. Cisco Telemetry Ingestion implementation has been refined to provide an easier onboarding experience
3. Sensor Collector Support File can be generated via API to help with troubleshooting Roadrunner (now renamed to Sensor Collector) health
4. New dashboard report email format with option to unsubscribe
5. Metric forecasting to get a sense of what might happen up to 14 days in the future (Limited Availability)

Headline Features

Crosstab support for multiple directions

TWAMP test sessions offer excellent visibility into performance across layer 3 networks, and as the acronym suggests, its provides two way/bi-directional data. Our customers also LOVE the ability to abstract test session details and leverage metadata terms that hold more meaning to them in their visualizations.

Combining these two facts, we've added the ability to see performance in both directions across metadata source and destination labels for a simplified user experience.

Cisco Telemetry Ingestion

Telemetry Collectors are how we support the ingestion of other Cisco and third party data. There are numerous updates in this area:

Telemetry Collectors UI

Configurations can now be created via the user interface

Telemetry Collectors Generic Transformations

Generic transformation configuration for common XR and XE sensor paths to ensure better name consistency:

• Cisco Telemetry
  • cisco-telemetry-xe-cpu (4)
  • cisco-telemetry-xe-interface (86)
  • cisco-telemetry-xe-memory (6)
  • IOS XR DMM (8)
  • IOS XR Environment (5)
  • IOS XR Interface (17)
  • IOS XR IPSLA (20)
  • IOS XR Policy (16)
  • IOS XR SLM (5)

Telemetry Collector Standalone Mode

Standalone mode for testing Telemetry Collector configurations without sending data into Analytics that supports data capture and replay functions (hint: this is also great for helping to determine expected license counts)

Sensor Collector (formerly known as Roadrunner)

Some of solution sub-components are also having a name change to make them more descriptive of their function. Roadrunner has always been our data collector - a way to get our performance measurement results from the sensor to analytics - so now it'll go by the name "Sensor Collector".

Besides the name change, we made a few other improvements in this area:

Sensor Collector settings under Sensors

Sensor Collector configuration was called "Connector Configuration" and was reserved for administrator users under the application "Settings" page. In preparation for an upcoming custom roles feature, we proactively moved this out to the "Sensors" page.

New Sensor Collector provisioning flow

To minimize confusion over the different types of Sensor Collectors, we've added a new prompt to help guide users when they are setting things up.

• CSV mode watch a directory for files from sources like our NIDs and Legacy Orchestrator
• Gateway mode receives streamed data from sources like Sensor Agents and Flex

Sensor Collector Technical Support File

When customer encounter ingestion problems, one of the first things our support team checks is whether the data is being collected and sent out from the customer premise. Checking the health of the Sensor Collector meant either asking the customer to gather information from the virtual machine hosting the collector OR asking for VPN access to gather it themselves.

Following in the Sensor Agent footsteps, you are now able to remotely initiate the generation and retrieval of a technical support file for the Sensor Collector containing enough information to troubleshoot issues. For now this is only via REST APIs, with graphical support in a future release.

Dashboard Report Email Format

The format was updated to reflect our new branding changes as well as include an option to unsubscribe!

Metric Forecasting (Limited Availability)

Leveraging historical data, the solution is able to provide users with a preview of performance up to two weeks out. Unfortunately this feature is only limited availability at time of release while we gather feedback from select customers.

(^ mockup ^)