CALABASAS, Calif. -- Ixia (Nasdaq:XXIA - News), a leading provider of high-speed, network performance and conformance analysis systems, announced today that NEC is using its load modules and Linux Software Development Toolkit (SDK) to facilitate the research and development process of their next-generation 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch, which implements NEC's newly developed GlobalOpenEthernet (GOE) scheme. Ixia's SDK and open architecture made it possible for NEC engineers to significantly shorten the development cycle and speed their time to market by allowing them to emulate the GOE protocol while simultaneously conducting essential performance validation tests.

The significant complexities faced by developers when readying new technologies for release include the need to create custom test scenarios that effectively verify the performance of state-of-the-art, emerging technologies. The Ixia SDK integrates a variety of software tools and detailed documentation that make it easy to develop unique test scenarios that can then be executed across Ixia's award-winning load modules. Ixia's SDK allows rapid prototyping, fully integrates the test script development-compile-download-run cycle, and provides a truly realistic test environment that spans the full range of the Layer 2-7 test paradigm.

"We selected the Ixia product for developing the prototype of our GlobalOpenEthernet switch, which was successfully featured at Networld+Interop, Tokyo, July 2003, because Ixia's SDK uniquely met our development needs," said Akira Arutaki, General Manager, Networking Research Laboratories of NEC. "The extensive and customizable features of Ixia's SDK made it possible for us to customize our testing environment to our specific requirements, and this substantially sped up our development schedule. No other test vendor had the breadth of product offering to effectively meet our urgent test requirements. We are thankful to Ixia for their dedication to our development process."

NEC developed the new GlobalOpenEthernet scheme as a next-generation, Ethernet-compatible advanced technology for their 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches. This new GOE scheme, according to NEC, enhances Ethernet functionality by inserting VLAN-compatible forwarding tags in order to route packets to their destination. NEC adopted Ixia TXS modules and Ixia Linux SDK, in order to accelerate and to evaluate both the performance of the newly developed protocol and the traffic-forwarding simultaneously, then proved 80G full wire rate forwarding under the protocol.

"Ixia was delighted to accelerate NEC's development process for their GOE switch. Ixia's Custom Engineering and Linux Development Teams, are specifically targeted to assist customers like NEC who are implementing new technologies that must meet the most demanding development requirements," said Cliff Hannel, vice president of engineering for Ixia. "Ixia has been the market leader in supporting customers as they move quickly through the testing cycle in the design, development, QA, and release stages of introducing breakthrough networking technologies."

The architecture of the TXS series of Ixia Load Modules includes a CPU per port, running the Linux operating system, and provides the user with direct control over individual test ports. Custom applications can be used in conjunction with Ixia-developed applications. Additionally, users who may have already written test applications for execution on Linux PCs can easily move these applications onto the Ixia test platform, which dramatically reduces the cost and management overhead associated with maintaining walls of PCs that traditionally have been required to effectively simulate realistic test loading conditions.

NEC Corp.

Ixia