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Cisco® Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensors (formerly Accedian Skylight Sensors) form a physical or virtual instrumentation layer for Provider Connectivity Assurance, a proactive service assurance solution that provides granular, real-time, and service-centric visibility to communications service providers, enterprises, and public sector organizations, enabling them to monitor and assure their owned or leased network infrastructure, services, and connectivity.
Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensors are used to gain granular and precise insights into network connectivity and performance by either injecting synthetic test traffic (active testing) or sampling existing traffic (passive testing). Depending on the sensor type, services ranging from Layer 2 to Layer 7 can be monitored 24/7/365 to prove compliance with Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) or to detect deviations from baseline results. The sensors feed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to the Provider Connectivity Assurance analytics engine, which scales to billions of KPIs per day.
To instrument various types of networks, the Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensors come in different form factors, both software and hardware. This data sheet describes the software-based sensor options:
● Sensor Agents: Containerized (Cloud-native Network Function [CNF]) test agents are lightweight, software-based active test points. Agents include Actuate, Throughput, Trace, and Transfer.
● Sensor Control: Virtual machine (Virtual Network Function [VNF]) high-performance test system for large-scale, software-based active testing.
● Sensor Capture: Virtual machine (VNF) high-performance test systems for large-scale, software-based passive traffic and application monitoring.
● Sensor SFPs and Modules: Physical (Physical Network Function [PNF]) high-accuracy and wire-speed pluggable test points for large-scale and high-bandwidth tests, used to physically distribute test points for the Capture software sensor.
Any combination of sensors can be used, depending on the use case, network topology, and scaling requirements of the user. For automated provisioning, test functions are available via APIs and can be integrated into an existing workflow system or with the Cisco Crosswork® Network Automation platform (Cisco Crosswork Network Controller and Network Services Orchestrator (NSO)).
Pluggable hardware sensor options can serve as an optional physical instrumentation layer for the Sensor Control software. The hardware sensors leveraging the Sensor Control software are the Assurance Sensor SFPs and Sensor Modules. More information about these sensors can be found in their respective data sheets.
Table 1. Features and benefits of Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensors: Agents, Capture, Control
Feature |
Benefit |
Service-centric visibility |
Real-time visibility of end-to-end network and service performance to quickly identify and resolve issues, minimizing the impact of downtime on the end-customer experience. |
Standards-based test and measurement support |
Scalable and proven industry standards-based test and measurement. Standards-based test support of IETF RFC5357, ITU-T Y.1731, and IEEE 802.1 to leverage built-in responders in already deployed infrastructure. |
400+ metrics and 50+ performance KPIs monitored |
Large set of monitored and tested performance KPIs addressing connectivity, quality, and performance. |
Granular accuracy and reporting |
Microsecond KPI accuracy and millisecond reporting granularity offer best-in-class visibility detail of service quality. |
Open APIs |
Open APIs for sensor and test configuration supporting both REST and RESTCONF/YANG (integrated with Cisco Crosswork Network Controller and NSO). |
Automated assurance |
Real-time metrics feeds and alerts, enabling fully automated and closed-loop assurance use cases. |
Assured connectivity, everywhere
Instrumenting the “point of interest” is vital for accurate network and service assurance. The sensors should be deployed at the precise location and layer, physically or virtually, where the visibility is desired, and the back-end metrics collection and analytics can scale with the size of the deployment to maintain real-time dashboards and alerting functions.
The Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance platform is built to scale, providing multiple options for sensor deployment, and can be fully automated and integrated with Cisco or third-party workflow engines.
Flexible deployment options:
● Pure software sensors for x86/ARM architectures supporting automated deployment with Docker tools or Kubernetes Helm charts
● Software (VM) plus Network Interface Card (NIC) hardware assist for high-accuracy timestamping
● Horizontally scalable for large hub-and-spoke and mesh-type assurance scenarios
● Option to use pluggable hardware (Assurance Sensor SFPs or Sensor Modules) to instrument existing infrastructure, either in-line with the service or out-of-line on a spare port
● Option to use larger form-factor hardware sensors
Real-time visibility:
● Users can create custom dashboards with custom widgets for the presentation of real-time service performance insights and reporting.
● Leverage Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to help ensure that the right user groups see the data they are supposed to see.
Table 2. Assurance Sensor deployment support and high-level feature set
Assurance Sensor |
Platforms supported |
Feature sets supported |
Agents |
Docker, Kubernetes x86, and ARM |
Layer 3 Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP), ECHO, Traceroute, TCP throughput, HTTP(s) |
Capture |
VMware, KVM |
Layer 4 to Layer 7 in-memory real-time flow analysis |
Control |
VMware, KVM |
Layer 2 to Layer 4 Ethernet operations, administration |
SFP (hardware with Sensor Control) |
SFP 1G / 10G |
Layer 2 to Layer 4 ETH-OAM, TWAMP, ECHO, wire-speed Y.1564, passive metering |
Modules (hardware with Sensor Control) |
Standalone 1G/10G 2-port |
L2-L4 ETH-OAM, TWAMP, ECHO, wire speed Y.1564, passive metering |
Software sensors do not require any licenses. The sensors are included in the following Provider Connectivity Assurance platform RTU licenses.
Table 3. Provider Connectivity Assurance platform licenses
Description |
PID |
Essentials RTU License |
SKY-ESS-RTU |
Advantage RTU License |
SKY-ADV-RTU |
In addition to the RTU, licenses are needed per test session.
Table 4. Provider Connectivity Assurance test session and flow licenses
Description |
PID |
Comments |
Essentials Test Sessions Software License |
SKY-ESS-TEST |
Test session if you are using a Essentials RTU license for active testing |
Advantage Test Sessions Software License |
SKY-ADV-TEST |
Test session if you are using a Advantage RTU license for active testing |
Advantage Flow SW Lic - incl. 100K Flow Analysis per minute |
SKY-ADV-FLOW |
Flows for Assurance Sensor Capture |
Advantage Telemetry software license |
SKY-ADV-TELEM |
License for telemetry ingestion |
Table 5. Assurance Sensor characteristics and capabilities
Sensor type and feature |
Capacity |
Sensor Agent Actuate – RFC5357 TWAMP Light/TWAMP Control |
500 sessions – 5000 pps per agent |
Sensor Agent Actuate – RFC862 UDP/ICMP Echo |
500 sessions – 5000 pps per agent |
Sensor Agent Throughput – RFC6349 |
1 test actively running, scheduling capability for sequence of tests |
Sensor Agent Transfer – TCP L7 – HTTPS/FTP/TCP |
250 sequentially executed, or scheduled |
Sensor Agent Trace – Traceroute layer 3 |
1 test actively running, scheduling capability for sequence of tests |
Sensor Capture |
Over 5,000 applications that can be detected and classified |
Sensor Control – RFC5357 TWAMP Light/TWAMP Control |
4,000 sessions – 80,000 pps per instance |
Sensor Control – RFC862 UDP/ICMP Echo |
4,000 sessions – 80,000 pps per instance |
Sensor Control – ITU-T Y.1731, IEEE 802.1ag ETH-DM, ETH-LB, ETH-VS |
4,000 sessions – 80,000 pps per instance |
Key active performance test types using Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensors
Using the Assurance Sensors, the Provider Connectivity Assurance platform provides the following measurements and testing capability including:
● TWAMP: Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol
● ETH-DM: Ethernet Delay Measurement
● ETH-LB: Ethernet Loop Back
● ICMP Echo: Internet Control Message Protocol Echo
● UDP Echo: User Datagram Protocol Echo
● ETH-VS: Ethernet Vendor Specific
● TCP throughput (RFC 6349)
● Traceroute
KPIs include:
1. Continuous SLA-type monitoring (Sensor Agent Actuate and Sensor Control)
One-way delay, PDV, and IPDV (jitter)
● Min/max/average
● Median (p50)
● Percentile 25/75/95/96/98/99
● Standard deviation
One-way packet statistics
● Packets lost (number and %)
● Loss bursts min / max
● Reordered packets (number and %)
● Packets duplicated (number and %)
One-way packet field and QoS metrics
● IP TOS max (DSCP diffserv)
● IP TOS min
● TTL max/min
● MOS / R-value
2. Continuous passive application monitoring (Sensor Capture)
Protocol layers parsed
● arp
● bootp
● cifs
● citrix
● citrix_channels
● databases
● dce_rpc
● dhcp
● dns
● ftp
● http / http2
● icmp
● ipsec
● kerberos
● ldap
● non-ip
● other-ip
● rdp
● smb
● socks5
● sql
● ssh
● tcp
● tls
● udp
● vnc
● voip
Applications recognized and categorized for performance and bandwidth analysis
● 5000+ common SaaS applications (cloud services)
● Custom application definition filters
3. Scheduled or one-shot active test KPIs (Sensor Agents Transfer, Throughput, and Trace)
● DNS lookup time
● HTTP(s) / FTP / TCP service response time
● Asset download time
● TCP throughput uplink / downlink
● TCP window size variation
● Path RTT (during TCP test)
● Traceroute hop IP, DNS name
● Traceroute hop count, path change
See more in Technical Documentation.
Table 6. Sensor Agent minimum requirements
Feature |
Description |
Disk space |
100 MB |
CPU |
0.05 CPU |
Memory |
200 MB |
Software |
Docker 22.05 or later on x86-64 or ARM64 |
The above are minimum requirements; see the release notes for the Sensor Agents for different scaling options.
Table 7. Sensor Capture minimum requirements
Feature |
Description |
Disk space |
4 GB |
CPU |
2 cores |
Memory |
8 GB |
Software |
KVM (libvirt) or VMware ESXi 6.5 or later |
The above are minimum requirements; see the release notes for Sensor Capture for different scaling options.
Table 8. Sensor Control minimum requirements
Feature |
Description |
Disk space |
10 GB |
CPU |
1 core |
Memory |
4 GB |
Software |
KVM (libvirt) or VMware ESXi 6.5 or later |
Above are minimum requirements, see release notes for Sensor Control for different scaling options.
To order the Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance platform, please visit the Cisco Ordering homepage.
All software Assurance Sensors are included in the platform RTU licenses.
Table 9. Provider Connectivity Assurance platform licenses
Description |
PID |
Essentials RTU License |
SKY-ESS-RTU |
Advantage RTU License |
SKY-ADV-RTU |
Technical support plus software updates are included with subscription software.
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Do you have blind spots in your observability? Do you have critical applications and services you are managing and prefer a more proactive approach to management rather than a reactive one? The Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance platform offers a range of Assurance Sensor options that can meet your needs, providing granular visibility and monitoring that will enhance your approach to assuring digital experiences. For additional information, visit cisco.com.