Network Test Automation Forum Founder

The advantages of automation are numerous—reduction in cycle time, quality improvement through increased test coverage and higher rates of return on investment. Fully recognizing these benefits requires the interoperability of all the various devices found in the typical lab environment—many of which come from different vendors.

To help companies achieve these benefits, Spirent helped to found and launch the Network Test Automation Forum (NTAF).

NTAF is made up of a wide cross-section of the test & measurement user and vendor community including service providers, network equipment manufacturers and test solution providers. Their goal is simple—create interoperable test solutions and simplify lab management.

Some of the initial members include: 

Spirent’s participation in NTAF is a natural extension of its long-standing and ongoing efforts to deliver an integrated, modular multi-vendor, multi-layer test framework with test and lab management capabilities covering operations, test, systems and device automation, as demonstrated by the Spirent NoCode solution and Spirent’s work within the Test Automation Alliance (TAA).

Since launching in 2008, the TAA has been focused on creating a customer-centric and device-agnostic automation framework that reduces time, complexity, and cost of product test cycles for the test and measurement industry. The emergence of NTAF as a unifying standards body with strong commitment from some of the industry’s key players is an important validation of TAA’s early goals.

Spirent is fully committed to this new forum and will direct its efforts towards the global promotion and success of NTAF objectives. As a pioneer in automation, Spirent’s extensive knowledge and experience gained through the creation and deployment of leading solutions, such as NoCode and TAA, will be invaluable in helping NTAF achieve its goals.

Test and lab management features include:

Test Management

• Emulate large-scale, real-world networks for service providers and networks
• Configure and execute existing IP benchmarking test packages
• Build powerful test analysis logic, pass/fail test criteria with branching, without scripting
• Establish a repeatable test case environment across teams and companies
• View test run summaries and browse detail test results stored in a database
• Schedule tests and archive results in a central database

Lab Management

• Configure and control lab devices, including power and connectivity, with a visual topology editor that supports discovery
• Manage devices with a deterministic/queued device scheduler
• Manage multi-user, access privileges, and priorities
• Automate devices via command line interfaces, web interfaces, SNMP, command shells, HTTP, Tcl, and more
• Save, edit, and quickly recall device configurations
• Integrate the environment with existing testing infrastructures and processes