Spring 2004 Member Meeting Vendor Tools e2e Tools BOF John H. Moore Technical Director NC-ITEC

Spring 2004 Member Meeting Topics Discussion of two of the network test tools used in the NC-ITEC –SmartBits –AX/4000 Broadband Test System Both platforms from lab partner Spirent Communications Focus on e2e testing

Spring 2004 Member Meeting Common Characteristics GUI runs on Windows PC and connects to test hardware over IP Hardware comes in mainframe and portable versions Variety of interface types (WAN to OC-192, Ethernet to 10 GE) Support for time sync via GPS or CDMA Good support for protocols of interest for the REN community (IPv4/IPv6 unicast, IPv4 multicast, MPLS, VLANs, etc.)

Spring 2004 Member Meeting Major Distinguishing Characteristics SmartBits –Higher port densities –RFC 2544 style test (SmartFlow) AX/4000 –Lower port density –More detailed analysis of traffic –Continuous bit-stream –Can do BERT and delay-line functions

Spring 2004 Member Meeting

Example 1: Lightpath Demo QoS Test Objective: Evaluate QoS configuration for Abilene that gives preferential treatment to MPLS traffic Location: Test-bed at NC-ITEC lab Method: –Run several types of traffic in two classes Assured Forwarding (AF) & Best Effort (BE) –Increase bandwidth of BE traffic and evaluate where drops are seen Test platform: AX/4000

Spring 2004 Member Meeting

Example 2: IGP Resiliency Test Objective: measure recovery time of e2e traffic stream after link outage Location: Test-bed at NC-ITEC lab Method: –Build test-bed with multiple paths –Yank cable on primary path –Measure recovery time and packet loss Test platform: AX/4000

Spring 2004 Member Meeting

Example 3: MPLS Service Test Objective: Examine performance of inter-AS MPLS path over Abilene Location: Abilene, between NC-ITEC and IU NOC Method: –Setup testers at either end of MPLS tunnel –Synchronize clocks with CDMA –Evaluate performance (latency, packet loss) Test platform: SmartBits

Spring 2004 Member Meeting

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