In partnering with standard bodies, independent test labs, and industry forums, Spirent contributes to the advancement of new technology and test methodologies. Spirent solutions have continued to be the first choice of customers when considering a public test of their products.
Public Tests—2010
11/10: Carrier Ethernet Global Interconnect Test Program and Showcase
EANTC, ancotel and Light Reading successfully completed the third phase of the Carrier Ethernet Global Interconnect testing campaign. At exchange points in Frankfurt (Germany) and New York, they evaluated the interconnection of Carrier Ethernet production services of eight carriers in a network that covered an intercontinental footprint from the United States through Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom to Turkey and the Ukraine, enabling end-to-end Carrier Ethernet services to each region.
10/10: Cisco FabricPath enables faster, simpler, flatter data center networks
Network Test assessed FabricPath in terms of its ability to boost bandwidth, reroute around trouble, and simplify network management. In all three areas, FabricPath delivered: Cisco's pre-standard take on the IETF's forthcoming TRILL specification showed real improvement over STP-based designs. The test results, combined with the likely appearance of more TRILL solutions in the next few months, suggest a flat future for data center network design.
09/10: Testing Cisco's Mobile Core, Data Center and Business Services
Part two of a four-week test focusing on Cisco's Mobile Core, data center and business services, covering Cisco's Mobile Core device, the ASR5000, as well as various forward thinking LTE demonstrations, business oriented Firewall and NAT services and SBC functionality in Cisco's ASR1006 router.
09/10: Carrier Ethernet World Congress and CEWAPAC 2010
Twenty four vendors participated in interoperability tests for Ethernet OAM performance monitoring, packet-based clock synchronization, protection and Ethernet microwave, including Phase and Frequency Synchronization with 1588 and SyncE, Interoperable MPLS-TP solutions, Managed Ethernet services using 802.1ag and Y.1731, Ethernet Resiliency mechanisms (G.8032, G.8031, Redundant Pseudowires), and Carrier Ethernet services for Data Center interconnect.
09/10: Carrier Ethernet World Congress Interoperability Event 2009
EANTC hosted over 60 engineers from the 24 vendors for two weeks of interoperability testing focusing on three major Carrier Ethernet topics: Mobile Backhaul, Global Interconnect, and Managed Ethernet Services. Mobile Backhaul testing included synchronizing packet based solutions using IEEE 1588-2008 and Synchronous Ethernet while Managed Ethernet Services covered both interoperable management systems and Ethernet OAM protocols such as EFM and CFM. Global Interconnect tests consisted of stitching MPLS networks using MPLS and Ethernet technologies, and adding end-to-end resiliency. Additionally MPLS, MPLS-TP, and PBB-TE were tested for both transport capabilities and advanced mechanisms.
09/10: BLADE Network Technologies: Competitive Evaluation of BLADE RackSwitch G8124 vs. Cisco Nexus 5010
BLADE commissioned Tolly to evaluate the performance of its RackSwitch G8124 top-of-rack switch against the competing Cisco Nexus 5010. Tests focused on unicast Layer 2-3 performance (full-mesh throughput and port-to-port latency); one-to-many multicast Layer 2 throughput and latency; microburst tolerance; and end-to-end solution throughput and latency at Layer 2. Finally, a price/performance metric is presented in terms of US$/Gbps of demonstrated throughput for both products.
09/10: BLADE Network Technologies RackSwitch G8000, RackSwitch G8124 and BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module: Functionality Certification and Cooperative Interoperability Evaluation with Cisco Nexus 5010
BLADE commissioned Tolly to evaluate the functionality of its RackSwitch G8000, RackSwitch G8124 and BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module for the IBM BladeCenter systems against a Cisco Nexus 5010 switch. Functionality tests focused on auto-negotiation, 10GbE LAN PHY support, IEEE 802.1p/Q, Jumbo Frame support, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)/EtherChannel support, Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP/PVRST+), Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) support and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)/ Data Center Bridging (DCB) feature support. Finally, the BLADE switches were tested for interoperability with the Nexus 5010 using a mixture of the above features.
09/10: BLADE Network Technologies: BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module vs. Cisco Nexus 4001i Competitive Evaluation
BLADE commissioned Tolly to evaluate the performance of its BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module for the IBM BladeCenter systems against the competing Cisco Nexus 4001i. Tests focused on unicast Layer 2-3 performance (full-mesh throughput and port-to-port latency); one-to-many multicast Layer 2 throughput and latency; microburst tolerance; and end-to-end solution throughput and latency at Layer 2. Finally, a price/performance metric is presented in terms of US$/Gbps of demonstrated throughput for both products.
08/10: Testing Cisco's Next-Gen Mobile Network
Part one of a four-week independent, public test of Cisco’s complete mobile infrastructure, including the mobile backhaul (from cell sites to the mobile service nodes), the network core (connections among service functions and to the Internet), and the mobile core with large-scale packet and voice gateways. The first of two articles focuses on 12 test areas, including LTE-ready clock synchronization and 100 Gigabit Ethernet.
08/10: Cisco Catalyst 2960; 2960-S; 3750-X-48 Test Lab Report
Cisco engaged Miercom to conduct an independent verification of the performance advantages that Cisco Catalyst switches have when compared to similar switches from other vendors.
07/10: Cisco goes green with Catalyst 3750-X
Network Test assessed the power management features in its Catalyst 3750-X stackable access switch. Testing validated that StackPower can cut both capital and operational costs. The test verified full PoE+ operation on 48 switch ports concurrently, and ran the switch through a rigorous battery of conformance tests developed by Sifos Technologies. Those tests turned up only minor issues, none of which should affect interoperability.
05/10: Cisco Integrated Service Router Generation 2
Cisco’s Integrated Services Router Generation 2 platform models 1941W, 2911, 2951 3925E, 3945 and 3945E were evaluated by Miercom for performance feature validation while being used in branch office scenarios and the ASR 1002 Fixed Router was evaluated on some tests to show upward scalability of the next family of routers. The objective was to validate increased levels of voice, video, security, wireless, mobility and data service integration. While testing the features and services offered by the ISR G2 branch routers, performance and throughput was observed, to ascertain if the activated services affected the throughput.
04/10: Carrier Ethernet Global Interconnect Test Program and Showcase Phase 2
Part two of the test EANTC and European telehouse ancotel staged in a new test program for service providers. The program allows participating network operators to validate and showcase end-to-end Carrier Ethernet services across multiple carriers using External Network-Network Interfaces (ENNI) as specified by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). EANTC validated MEF ENNI and Class of Service (CoS) mapping across a test setup which included 8 participating operators and 7 European cities from London all the way to Sevastopol.
04/10: Cloud Computing Testing
EANTC and Spirent joined forces to test a private in-house data center and a cloud service from a customer perspective. For the private data center, we assembled enough devices to build a small emulated data center and conduct tests on the equipment we wanted to hone-in on such as the Firewall, Data Center Bridging, Virtualization, and WAN optimization.
02/10: Alcatel-Lucent's 1850 Transport Service Switch
EANTC used Spirent TestCenter to verify the performance of packet transport protection mechanisms in Alcatel-Lucent's 1850 Transport Service Switch in the Berlin EANTC lab. The switch is targeted at the service provider market, a “packet-optical transport platform to build scalable and reliable packet transport networks and support Carrier Ethernet services .” The test focused on scalability, robustness and resilience.
02/10: Carrier Ethernet Global Interconnect Showcase Phase 1 at the Ethernet Wholesale Summit in Paris
Part one of the test EANTC staged, a centralized Global Interconnect test infrastructure at ancotel‘s carrier hotel in Frankfurt/Main, to support test execution and public presentation of the results. The test was open to service provider participants only. The test results included live public demonstrations conducted through remote test management and HD videoconferencing to ancotel‘s facility in Frankfurt.
02/10: MPLS and Ethernet World Congress 2010 Public Interoperability Event
The tests focused on maturing mobile backhaul—a very demanding application when it comes to synchronization. We focused on the integration of packet and optical networks, an area with a number of technology options and with ongoing debates about the optimal solution. We re-evaluated IPv6 after a long time, now that demand is growing, and found that all the bits and pieces for VPN transport are there (v6-to-v4 NAT yet to come as a test topic). We tested a number of pre-standad draft MPLS-TP implementations and are waiting for the standards bodies to agree on additional specifications to be evaluated.
01/10: Cisco Integrated Services Routers G2
Cisco Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 models 1941W, 2911, 2951 and 3945, were tested by Miercom for power consumption and efficiency under the Certified Green Test Program. We evaluated the overall environmental impact and examined the green benefits that the Cisco 1941W, 2911, 2951 and 3945 ISR series provide to customers.
01/10: Arista, Blade win top spot in data center switch test
Network Test analyzed switches, each sporting at least 24 10Gigabit interfaces, from Arista Networks, Blade Network Technologies, Cisco, Dell, Extreme and HP. The test compared these products 10 different ways and subjected them to three months of grueling performance tests.
