Enhanced Ethernet tester supports GTP traffic simulation

3rd August 2015

Mick Elliott

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An enhanced PC based Ethernet Tester dubbed PacketCheck has been launched by GL Communications. It now supports GTP Traffic Simulation. GTP, or GPRS Tunnelling Protocol are the methods for sending IP traffic in wireless networks such as GSM, UMTS, and LTE. The PC-based Ethernet / IP test tool offers BERT, Throughput, Delay, and Impairment testing functions.

It is easy to use as a general-purpose network performance test/analysis tool for 10Mbps, 100Mbps and 1Gbps LANs and WANs. Throughput up to 800 Mbps can be easily tested.

The tester also measures end-to-end performance such as Bit Error Rate, Total Packets, Packet Loss, Out of Sequence Packets, and Error Packets.

Other features include transmission of pre-recorded file traffic, GTP traffic simulation, Bursty and Fixed IFG (Inter Frame Gap) traffic generation modes, Delay measurements including One Way Delay - [within the same PC] and Round Trip Delay, Impairment Generation, and BER Testing capability with provision to generate PRBS patterns or user-defined test patterns. Using the File Playback feature within PacketCheck, the packet data can be carried as pre-recorded traffic files (GL's proprietary Ethernet traffic capture format *.HDL files) to destination points and the same can be verified at the receiving end, which can also be a PacketCheck. This feature can be used with GL’s Mobile IP Core traffic module (requires Additional Licenses) to simulate GTP traffic over UMTS or LTE network.

Generally, in an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network, the two types of data pipes can be found - Default Bearer (with non-guaranteed QOS) and Dedicated Bearer (with assured guaranteed QOS).

To verify such bearer allocation bandwidth at the end points, the tester can be used with GL’s MAPS UMTS / LTE Simulators which allows the user to encapsulate the generated packet data within GTP headers and transmit through the gateway points such as SGSN & GGSN, or SGW & PGW.

The packet data traffic generated at one end is received at the other end can be verified with various statistics such as packet loss, lost frames, bit error count, Tx Rx frames count and other traffic parameters.

Other features of the application include: One way Delay measurement, Round-trip delay measurement (RTD) between two end points, Stacked VLAN that allows different hosts to be a part of the same virtual LAN irrespective of their physical location, Stacked MPLS, BERT, ARP packets, Common statistics, and Report generation.