Spirent blankets IP test market with product introductions

Chicago—Spirent Communications launched a series of new test solutions last week at Supercomm 2004 that includes IP service assurance, a next-generation IP router test system, voice-over-IP performance and a high-density ADSL2+ platform for triple-play-enabled DSLAMs.

Spirent also supported the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance Superdemo as well as others.

The company’s new SmartSight Diagnostic Portfolio provides both technology and professional services for solving issues for IP services such as voice-over-IP, IP VPNs, video-over-IP and Ethernet virtual LANs. The portfolio consists of the SmartSight Operational Support System (OSS), Quality of Service Scope, Network Interface Device and the Broadband Remote Test Unit, which was previously introduced. Together, the solutions are designed to provide better diagnostics and visibility into IP and Ethernet services from both an operational and customer premises level.

"Consumers of services within the enterprise are very sophisticated. Their IT departments often know more than the service provider," Gellerman said. "So you really have to be able to see what is happening."

The Spirent OSS coordinates IP and Ethernet service and diagnostic tests to better identify and isolate service issues. It also conducts active testing and passive monitoring on jitter, loss, latency and utilization, which can affect quality of service.

The QoS Scope is a new network appliance that can be deployed at either the customer location or in the central office. It helps determine if network infrastructures can handle IP and Ethernet traffic for new installations. It also can be used to emulate customer IP traffic in order to calculate throughput, delay, packet loss and jitter, which are critical to voice and video, and provide management reports on top users, utilization and protocol distribution.

The SmartSight Network Interface Device is a low-cost customer premises device for remote diagnostics.

"It’s important to be right on the demarc and be able to isolate the customer," said David Gellerman, vice president of technology and corporate development at Spirent.

Spirent also added VoIP performance testing capabilities to its Abacus 5000 IP Telephony Test System that emulates a VoIP to PSTN call. Since the Abacus 5000 can emulate a call agent, signaling gateway, IP end-points and PSTN network elements, it reduces the number of boxes required by both carriers and equipment manufacturers to run tests.

A new platform for testing performance and QoS as DSLAMs that support triple-play services was also introduced. The mAX SLAM is a high port density ADSL2+ interface card for the AX/4000 traffic generator and analyzer. It scales from 24 to more than 12000 ADSL2 and ADSL2+ ports.

Lastly, Spirent unveiled its TRT Interactive test systems for evaluating services in routing networks. It has a test setup Wizard that can be used to quickly set up test scenarios for several protocols and traffic types, such as IPv4 and IPv6 or IP multicast.

The TRT Interactive system’s interactive mode allows users to modify the control plane and data flows at will and view the effects on data delivery and routing behavior.

"What goes on in the control plane is key and our new engine can test all control plan issues," said Mark Fishburn, vice president of technical strategy for Spirent. "And we put a lot of effort into simplicity to make them easy to identify."