Network simulation

Feature description

When you use the network simulation feature, you can simulate changes to the network environment in advance to obtain the impact of the changes on the network environment, thereby reducing change risks. During the operation, you need to create a snapshot for the target resources, then perform simulation actions, and finally obtain simulation results from the report.

• Simulation task: Each simulation task is equivalent to a business plan and is bound to target simulation resources.

• Simulation snapshot: It is used to save the configuration state of target resources at a specific point in time.

• Simulation action: It refers to modification actions on route tables to simulate changes. You can create multiple snapshots for a single simulation task, and each snapshot performs a different simulation action.

Limits

Currently supported simulation actions: add or delete route entries in the transit router.

Procedure

1. Go to the Network simulation page and click Create Simulation Task:

   • Simulation Task Name: for example, task1.

   • Simulation Target Type: currently, only Cloud Enterprise Network (CEN) is supported by default.

   • Simulation Target Instance: select the target CEN instance that you want to simulate.

2. In the Execution History Snapshots column of the target simulation task, click Create a new snapshot.

3. On the Execution Snapshot History page, click Create Snapshot. A snapshot entry is added to the list below.

4. In the Actions column of the target snapshot, click Execute Simulation:

   • Category: the default value is Route Simulation.

   • Add Simulation Action: After you select the target transit router and target route table, the existing routes in the route table are displayed below, and you can add or delete routes.

     • Add route entry: Click Add route entry, enter Destination CIDR in the dialog box, select Blackhole Route, and then select Next Hop from the drop-down list.

       After a route entry is added, the simulation action is added to the Confirm Simulation Checklist panel on the right. You can click Add route entry again to add multiple route entries.

     • Delete route entry: In the Available Simulation Operations column of the target entry, click Delete, and the deletion action is added to the Confirm Simulation Checklist panel on the right.

   After you confirm that the information is correct, click Execute Simulation at the bottom.

5. After the simulation action starts to run, you need to wait a few minutes, depending on the complexity of the network environment. After the process is complete, you can click View Report in the Actions column of the target snapshot to obtain the simulation result.

6. In the simulation report, you can view the details of the Route Changes and Node Changes after the simulation actions are executed.