Cisco Crosswork Planning Design 7.2.x User Guide

VPNs

Updated: August 14, 2026

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Explains how VPNs create secure connections across public networks by defining key properties and routing approaches.

A VPN is a network construct that

consists of a set of VPN nodes that can exchange data within it
has key properties that uniquely identify the VPN, and
defines how the traffic within the VPN is routed.

VPN properties

These are the key properties of the VPNs:

Name: Unique name of the VPN.
Type: Type of VPN. The options are VPWS, VPLS, or L3VPN.
Connectivity: Determines how Cisco Crosswork Planning calculates connectivity and associated demands for VPNs. The options are:
- Full Mesh: Connectivity is between all nodes in the VPN. Cisco Crosswork Planning ignores the RT import and RT export properties of the VPN nodes.
- RT: Connectivity is based on the RT import and RT export properties of its VPN nodes.
Service class: Service class associated with the VPN.

Once the VPN is created, it appears in the VPN drop-down list of VPN nodes.

Create VPNs

You can create new VPNs and then later add VPN nodes to them (refer to Add VPN nodes to VPNs).

Create new VPNs

Use this task when you need to establish new VPN connections in your network design plan. You can create different types of VPNs including L3VPN, VPLS, and VPWS with various connectivity and service configurations.

Procedure

	1.	Open the plan file (refer to Open plan files). It opens in the Network Design page.
	2.	From the toolbar, choose Actions > Insert > VPNs > VPN. Alternatively, in the Network Summary panel on the right side, click in the VPNs tab. The VPNs tab is available under the More tab. If it is not visible, then click the Show/hide tables icon () and check the VPNs check box.
	3.	In the Name field, enter a unique name for the VPN.
	4.	From the Type drop-down list, choose a VPN type. The options are L3VPN, VPLS, and VPWS.
	5.	Select the Connectivity type. The options are RT or Full Mesh.
	6.	Select the Service class for the VPN.
	7.	Click Add.
	8.	(Optional) Add VPN nodes to the newly created VPN. For more information, refer to Add VPN nodes to VPNs.

The new VPN is created with the specified configuration settings and appears in your plan file.

VPNs table

The VPNs table lists the VPN properties, its associated service class, traffic, and the number of VPN nodes within that VPN (Table 1). For information on QoS measurements, refer to Simulate Quality of Service (QoS). For information on the Worst-Case columns not listed here, refer to Table 1.

Note

Because the traffic and QoS calculations are based on all interfaces within the VPN for the service class specified for that VPN, the plot view might differ from the table. For example, the plot view could show Internet traffic while a VPN carrying voice traffic is selected.

All traffic and QoS violations are based on traffic carried by all interfaces used by the VPN for the service class defined for that VPN.

Table 1. VPNs table columns
Column	Description
Service class	Service class associated with this VPN. All values within the table are associated with this service class.
Num nodes	Number of VPN nodes in this VPN.
Util meas	The maximum measured utilization of all interfaces used by this VPN.
Util sim	The maximum simulated utilization of all interfaces used by this VPN.
Total src traff meas	Total amount of measured source traffic on this VPN.
Total dest traff meas	Total amount of measured destination traffic on this VPN.
QoS violation sim	Maximum QoS violation under normal operations for all simulated traffic for all interfaces used by this VPN. If the number is positive, there is a violation.
QoS violation sim (%)	QoS violation as a percent of the total simulated interface capacity.
QoS violation meas	Maximum QoS violation under normal operations for all measured traffic for all interfaces used by this VPN. If the number is positive, there is a violation.
QoS violation meas (%)	QoS violation as a percent of the total measured interface capacity.
Latency	Maximum latency of all demands used by this VPN.
Tags	User-defined identifiers that makes it easy to group VPNs.

VPNs are not selectable from the network plot. You can only select and filter VPNs only through tables. When selected, all VPN nodes within the VPN are highlighted in the plot (VPN nodes within a VPN).

Identify interfaces used by VPNs

Use this task to identify which interfaces are associated with a specific VPN and visualize the VPN in the network plot.

Procedure

	1.	Select the required VPN from the VPNs table.
	2.	Click > Filter to interfaces. Note Utilization measurements might be different between the tables because the VPN table calculates measurements only for the service class associated with that VPN.
	3.	Select the filtered interfaces to see the VPN outlined in the network plot.

The system displays the interfaces associated with the selected VPN. When you select the filtered interfaces, the VPN appears outlined in the network plot for visual representation.

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