CALABASAS, Calif. -- Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA), a leading, global provider of IP network testing solutions, announced today support for the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) G.709 Optical Transport Network standard with Forward Error Correction (FEC). Ixia's Universal G.709 Load Module can test G.709 network elements containing either 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN, 10 Gigabit Ethernet WAN, or OC-192 Packet over SONET interfaces. The Ixia Universal Load Module capability allows software selection of the operating mode from this single hardware solution.

G.709 defines a new Optical Transport Network (OTN) framing format including a FEC data block. This format facilitates migration to higher network speeds (10 gigabits per second today and 40 gigabits per second in the future) as well as easier management of the network, and the ability to lengthen optical spans or transmit higher data rates over today's span lengths.

"Our G.709 solution is the latest addition to Ixia's comprehensive 10 Gigabit LAN/WAN/OC-192 POS/BERT Universal Load Module," said Ali Safari, Ixia's SONET/BERT Product Manager. "With this test solution, we are enabling more sophisticated system testing by making it possible to generate and analyze IP traffic as well as to emulate IPv4 and IPv6 routing protocols over G.709 interfaces."

The Ixia analysis solution is based on the company's 10 gigabit per second Universal Load Module, with the addition of a factory installed G.709 framer and specialized optics that support the required data rates of 10.7 Gbps for OC-192 (OTU-2) and 10 Gigabit Ethernet WAN, as well as 11.1 Gbps for 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN. The Load Module can operate with G.709 switched on or off, has the ability to insert correctable and uncorrectable errors, and includes several new G.709-specific statistics.

The new Load Module fully supports Ixia's application software, such as IxExplorer for traffic setup and analysis, IxScriptMate for automated testing, and Ixia's full complement of routing protocol emulations, including RIP, OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, RIPng, OSPFv3, IS-ISv6, BGP+, Layer 2 VPNs, Layer 3 VPNs, LDP, MPLS, and RSVP-TE.

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