Spirent Tests High Speed Ethernet Technologies for the Cloud

Growth in bandwidth-intensive applications, particularly video services, continue to push the limits of today’s network infrastructure. But with the prospect of faster and even more capable networks comes a whole new level of user expectation and demand. To help prepare carriers for the new wave of high performance cloud computing, Spirent Communications is particpating in the Ethernet Alliance’s live high-speed Ethernet network demonstration. The multi-vendor interoperablity event is showcased at OFC/NFOEC 2011 in Los Angeles, March 8-10.

As networks begin to reach their current bandwidth and capacity limits, carriers are planning their migration to 40/100G Ethernet. As with any new technology, the key to success is testing. But 40/100G Ethernet brings a new set of issues to the development cycle and some key early challenges are at the physical layer. The demonstration features a live network transporting 10G, 40G and 100G traffic over optical and copper links, as well as 200G traffic through each router and 420G traffic through the switch. The interoperability event uses Spirent’s award-winning layer 1-7 integrated performance test platform, SpirentTestCenter™ to generate and validate network traffic.

“The challenge of high speed Ethernet networks extends from moving bits at 100 Gbps per link to handling billions of frames and tera bits of traffic on the network while maintaining quality of service and experience,” said Jurrie van den Breekel, senior product marketing manager at Spirent. “Spirent’s network testing approach, as demonstrated at the high-speed Ethernet interoperability event, helps cloud service providers validate performance from 10G access links to 100G core network trunks.”

The demonstration features the Spirent HyperMetrics™ 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet module, the industry’s best-in-class high-speed Ethernet solution and the Spirent HyperMetrics CV module, the market-leading solution for stress testing networks at 10 Gigabit Ethernet speeds.

Also at OFC/NFOEC 2011, Jurrie van den Breekel is speaking on a panel titled “The Future of High Speed Ethernet.” During the panel, scheduled at 1:00 pm on March 9 in Expo Theater II on the show floor, Jurrie will explore the importance of testing the quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) of Ethernet technologies to meet the exponential growth of high bandwidth traffic, from cloud data centers across broadband networks to user devices.