MPLS

White Paper
Cisco MPLS Tunnel Builder
Introduction
Cisco MPLS Tunnel Builder is a Web-based graphical application that simplifies visualization, configuration and management of MPLS tunnels on a network using MPLS Traffic Engineering
(TE). Without the use of a management tool, the complexities of a large network can limit the benefits obtained from the implementation of MPLS TE. Configuring and managing a large number of MPLS tunnels using the Command Line Interface (CLI) becomes tedious and error prone. Furthermore, the CLI on an individual MPLS TE node generally provides only partial information about nodes and links. The operator is forced to interact with multiple devices separately to produce a complete solution.
Conversely, Cisco MPLS Tunnel Builder provides an integrated graphical interface in which individual nodes and links can be configured and monitored within the context of a complete endto-end topology. Cisco MPLS Tunnel Builder integrates the configuration of the different Cisco
MPLS TE features (e.g. Auto-Route, Auto-Bandwidth, DiffServ-Aware Traffic Engineering, Fast
Re-Route, etc) on a single management tool.

Cisco MPLS Tunnel Builder can discover, configure and monitor links, nodes, and tunnels in an
MPLS TE-enabled network. Initially, the user only needs to identify a seed router that the Tunnel
Builder server can use to discover all nodes and links using the Setup panel. This discovery process results in a graphical topology that helps to visualize the network.

Once the network topology has been discovered, separate panels are provided for monitoring and configuring MPLS TE parameters on individual links, nodes and tunnels. The Links panel is used to display and modify the bandwidth pools and attribute configuration of each link. The
Nodes panel displays the Cisco IOS Software release, interfaces, the interface MPLS TE state
(not configured, running, etc.), static routes and global Auto-Bandwidth parameters.
The