What changes are coming about that make the Looking Glass tool advantageous?
As part of AT&T’s strategy to converge all services onto a single IP/MPLS network, we will begin transporting all traffic using MPLS in the short-term future within the US initially. As part of this strategic plan, we will be removing the Internet routes (BGP routing) from the core of our US IP Network to enhance its core routing stability, make the core routers more efficient, and thus prepare the this network to carry private VPN traffic. As a result of the Internet Route Free Core (IRFC) initiative, traceroutes originated from customer routers will no longer show any hop details across the backbone. Using the Looking Glass “Traceroute” command will allow you to still see the hops across the network after this change takes place. The IRFC is expected to go into effect sometime in the coming year. As always, Customer Care will have more sophisticated tools available to support them in assisting customers in investigating any performance issues.
