Ixia Carries Out Open Networking Performance Test For Cloud Fabric 10GE and 40GE Switches

Regular testing of telecommunications networks and devices play a very important role in ensuring that issues related to the advanced technologies can be addressed in resolved in a proactive manner.

Ixia, a provider of comprehensive converged IP services testing solutions ranging from the wireless edge to the Internet core, has announced that in collaboration with Nick Lippis, a well known expert in corporate computer networking who has designed a number of huge computer networks in the world, it has successfully completed the third round in a series of open industry data center and cloud fabric network performance and power consumption tests.

These tests will offer real-world comparative performance and power consumption data across several 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches to the telecommunications industry.

By providing its advanced test and simulation platforms to a range of network equipment manufacturers, service providers, enterprises and government agencies, Ixia (News - Alert) enables them to design and validate various wired, Wi-Fi and 3G/4G networking equipment and networks.

Lippis has provided his expert advice to a number of Global 2000 firms upon various topics such as network strategy, architecture, equipment, services and implementation. He offers his valuable insight through a report named The Lippis Report.

Within the third round of tests, various top-of-rack or ‘ToR’ and core switches developed by a number of switch vendors had been assessed. Some of the ToR switches were Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) OmniSwitch 900-40X, Arista 7124SX 10G SFP Data Center Switch and 7050S-64 10/40GE Data Center Switch, BLADE Network Technologies IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 and IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264, Brocade VDXTM 6720-24 Data Center Switch and Dell (News - Alert)/Force10 S-Series S4810.

All the vendors of 10Gbps and 40Gbps switching equipment were allowed to visit the data center and cloud fabric test for free, which was held at Ixia’s iSimCity facility in Santa Clara, CA (News - Alert) during the second week of October 2011. 

During the test, Ixia’s IxNetwork test application generated the required traffic that was further transmitted by Ixia’s Xcellon-Flex Accelerated Performance, Xcellon-Flex 10/40GE and Xcellon-Flex 4x40GE Full Emulation load modules.

“Today’s data center and cloud fabric network design implementations require high forwarding performance and low latency under north-south and east-west flows, low power consumption, and a minimum number of network tiers,” commented Lippis, founder of The Lippis Report. “The joint Lippis and Ixia tests provide industry benchmarks to compare 10/40 GE switch performance results to ensure that specifications are met.”

“Ethernet has become the fabric for data center convergence and cloud computing. IT business leaders require independent, meaningful, and repeatable performance metrics to compare vendor equipment as they evolve and optimize their network,” said Atul Bhatnagar (News - Alert), president and chief executive officer at Ixia. “Ixia’s advanced load modules and test applications enable companies such as The Lippis Report to test city-scale networking devices and infrastructure to ensure not only equipment performance, but also how the devices behave under real-world networks.”

In September 2011, Ixia announced the release of an advanced version for its higher speed Ethernet or ‘HSE’ test interface, Xcellon-Lava. With this latest release, Ixia has consolidated its Xcellon framework and proven its expertise in the development of the advanced HSE test interface.