Multiservices Test Solution delivers traffic scalability.
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Press Release Summary:
Offering hardware-based stateful TCP and application layer test integrated with multiservice QoS validation, N2X combines stateful and stateless traffic generation and analysis from Layers 2-7 in unified software and hardware platform. It can generate and make QoS measurements on combination of wire-rate video, voice, and stateful data services in same application and over same test port. Hardware-based TCP implementation scales to line-rate gigabit Ethernet.
Original Press Release:
Agilent Technologies Introduces Industry-Leading L2-7 Integration with Hardware-Based TCP on N2X Multiservices Test Solution
CHICAGO, NXTcomm 2007, Booth 1526, June 18, 2007 -- Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced the industry's first hardware-based stateful TCP and application layer test integrated with multiservice QoS validation on its N2X multiservices test solution. The Agilent N2X now offers unprecedented levels of traffic scalability and breadth, combining both stateful and stateless traffic generation and analysis, from Layers 2 through 7 in a unified software and hardware platform.
Agilent's N2X is the first solution to generate and make QoS measurements on a combination of wire-rate video, voice and stateful data services in the same application and over the same test port. This unique capability allows network equipment manufacturers and service providers to confirm that revenue and profit-generating services such as IPTV and VoIP are prioritized in the presence of bandwidth-hogging applications, such as peer-to-peer.
The new N2X N5575A/N5576A L2-7 Integrated Test Solution implements TCP emulation in hardware, allowing wire-rate generation of stateful TCP traffic using a fully featured TCP stack that includes re-transmissions and dynamic windowing. N2X overcomes the limitations of traditional CPU/software-based solutions, which must simplify or omit TCP emulation characteristics to reach higher levels of bandwidth.
CPU-based TCP solutions cannot scale while reflecting the dynamic TCP behaviors that can wreak havoc on network resources and impact the timely delivery of higher-priority service traffic. The performance measurements that result from these types of TCP implementations provide little insight into how the device or system will behave in a real-world network deployment.
In comparison, the Agilent N2X provides a hardware-based TCP implementation that can scale to line-rate gigabit Ethernet while maintaining a fully featured TCP stack, even under the stress of realistically short packet lengths, which can frequently be less than 100 bytes. Users can set up TCP connections and simulate applications at rates of hundreds of thousands per second. This enables network equipment manufacturers and service providers to test network equipment in a realistic and reliable fashion. An additional advantage is that the hardware implementation produces consistent results between test runs, which is critical for identifying the variables impacting performance and for completing regression tests.
"Equipment vendors and service providers have a need to characterize forwarding performance at higher layers for more meaningful evaluation, especially in the context of increasingly intelligent switches and routers," said Dr. Bijan Jabbari, president of Isocore. "A new test paradigm is of interest that evaluates a subscriber's overall experience with multiple services, rather than simply measuring how many bits or packets a device can forward through its ports."
Agilent's new solution is integrated with existing N2X functionality, including the ability to emulate multiple protocols and generate multiple service traffic types per port. N2X can generate a combination of more than 65,000 voice, video and stateful data traffic streams per port and deliver real-time performance measurements on a per-subscriber basis. This provides an extremely cost-effective and flexible framework to validate whether a network infrastructure can converge and scale multiple service types while enforcing QoS and meeting subscribers' quality of experience expectations.
"We believe we are redefining packet-blasting to a new world of connection-blasting, stateful traffic-blasting, and ultimately, transaction-blasting, said Rod Unverrich, business manager of Agilent's Data Networks Operation. "In a single application, N2X measures the comparative quality of different triple play services to evaluate a subscriber's overall quality of experience, which directly impacts subscriber retention and bottom-line revenue."
U.S. Pricing and Availability
The Agilent N2X multiservices test solution is available now starting at $20,000. More information is available at www.agilent.com/find/n2x.
Product photos are available at www.agilent.com/find/N2X_image.
About Agilent Technologies
Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world's premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 19,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $5.0 billion in fiscal 2006. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.
Information in this news release applies specifically to products available in the United States. Product availability and specifications may vary in other markets.
Further technology, corporate citizenship and executive news is available on the Agilent news site at www.agilent.com/go/news www.agilent.com/go/news .
