Agilent Beefs Up RouterTester

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today introduced new metro/edge testing tools for its RouterTester platform, designed to speed evaluation and deployment of advanced IP-based equipment and services for metropolitan area networks. The new tools stress service implementations of metro networks past their breaking points, thereby allowing service providers to identify performance limitations prior to deployment.New RouterTester tools, including industry-first Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) testing capabilities, enable service providers and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to reduce the cost and time required to assess the performance and scalability of key protocol implementations required for delivery of VPN (virtual private network) and IP (Internet protocol) multicast services.“The inherent protocol, interface and service complexity of metro/edge devices, coupled with today’s extreme port densities, substantially increases the challenge of testing them,” said Bill Wood, vice president and general manager of Agilent’s Advanced Networks Division. “RouterTester’s unique ability to scale multiple protocols concurrently with realistic traffic flows and topologies allows both equipment manufacturers and service providers to obtain a true, real-world view of all facets of metro equipment performance.”RouterTester now supports interoperability and scalability testing of Layer 2 over MPLS VPNs (L2oMPLS - Martini Draft), used to carry native legacy data (Ethernet, ATM and Frame Relay) on a consolidated basis over a single IP/MPLS infrastructure. The PPP test tools support ATM (PPPoA) and Ethernet (PPPoE) versions of this important protocol, used to establish point-to-point data connections for individual users. New IP multicasting test tools include multi-session IGMP emulation to determine the maximum number of sessions per port that can be sustained without compromising QoS levels; multi-session PIM emulation and bootstrap router (BSR) support for simulating extremely large multicast network topologies.Agilent Technologies Inc.