Enterasys Picks Spirent VPN Tester

LAS VEGAS -- Spirent Communications(TM) (NYSE:SPM - News) today announced the availability of its IPSec hardware accelerator for the award-winning SmartBits(TM) Performance Test Systems, filling a significant void in security testing for Virtual Private Network (VPN) infrastructures. Until today, testing VPN devices and infrastructures required building complex homegrown test beds. With Spirent's IPSec Hardware Accelerator, enterprises, network equipment manufacturers and services providers can now validate that their VPN infrastructures are able to handle high traffic levels from multiple sources over multiple connections, and can fully measure the impact real-world VPN traffic has on their VPN devices and infrastructures. "We chose Spirent's SmartBits system TeraMetrics module because of its high-performing features and the addition of the new IPSec hardware accelerator module," said John Pappas, director of technical marketing at Enterasys Networks. "This unique solution allows our customers to deploy secure, high performing VPNs that improve employee productivity and ultimately, company profitability. High performance VPN technology is a key component of Enterasys' XSR Security Routers and this new technology from Spirent assists us to truly validate these performance metrics." Only by testing large amounts of data over multiple tunnels, can the performance of high-end IPVPN devices be measured. Spirent's IPSec Hardware Accelerator module is the industry's first hardware performance tool designed to measure the data-forwarding rate and response time associated with IPSec when generating stateful TCP traffic over thousands of tunnels. Driven by Spirent' TeraVPN, the industry's first application for testing IPSec performance, users are empowered to test performance at higher data encryption rates. TeraVPN not only addresses security applications, but also enables system level testing of security (IPSec/SSL), routing, QoS and IPv6 on a single test platform. "Up until now, cost-effective and comprehensive performance validation of IPSec has been a challenge for the industry," said Alan Sguigna, vice president of marketing for Spirent Communications. "With our solution, users have a system to generate real world traffic for a more thorough understanding of the impact of stateful traffic over multiple tunnels versus limited back-to-backs test over a single tunnel. In addition, the enhanced system provides customers with a platform that can provide end-to-end testing beyond Security, including Layer 2-7, Routing, Multicast, QoS and IPv6 testing." Spirent Communications Enterasys Networks Inc.