Integrated L2-7 Test

Next generation networks face the challenge of converging Voice, Video, Data and other services, and supporting a variety of stateful (TCP) and stateless (UDP) traffic.  N2X provides the industry’s first hardware-based stateful TCP and application layer test integrated with multi-service QoS validation. N2X offers unprecedented levels of traffic scalability and breadth, combining both stateful and stateless traffic generation and analysis, from Layers 2 through 7 in a unified software and hardware platform.

The volume and dynamic behavior of stateful TCP traffic can impact network performance and the timely delivery of other high-priority, revenue-generating traffic such as Voice and IPTV.  It is therefore critical to test next generation infrastructure equipment with realistic traffic (i.e. stateful TCP) in the presence of high-priority services (Voice and Video) to ensure that QoS and QoE levels are maintained.

.“A new test paradigm is of interest that evaluates a subscriber’s overall experience with multiple services, rather than simply measuring how many bits or packets a device can forward through its ports.”
- Dr. Bijan Jabbari, president of Isocore

Agilent’s N2X is the first solution to generate and make QoS measurements on a combination of wire-rate Video, Voice and stateful Data services in the same application and over the same test port. This unique capability allows network equipment manufacturers and service providers to confirm that revenue and profit-generating services such as IPTV and VoIP are prioritized in the presence of bandwidth-hogging applications, such as peer-to-peer.

N2X can generate a combination of more than 65,000 Voice, Video and stateful Data traffic streams per port and deliver real-time performance measurements on a per-subscriber basis. This provides an extremely cost-effective and flexible framework to validate whether a network infrastructure can converge and scale multiple service types while enforcing QoS and meeting subscribers’ quality of experience expectations.

Key Features

• Load a GbE pipe with line-rate, hardware-based stateful TCP traffic 
• Combine stateful TCP, Video and Voice traffic generation and analysis in the same application, and over the same port
• Generate higher-layer application traffic over active TCP connections
• Measure impact of stateful traffic on VoIP and IPTV service quality
• Measure the interaction between TCP flows and queuing mechanisms

More Information

• Demos
  • Stateful Traffic Blasting - TCP in the presence of loss, delaying and queuing
• White Paper
• TCP and Queue Management
• Characterizing Layer-4 Forwarding Performance - "Moving up the stack”
• Technical Datasheets

• Integrated L2-7 Solution (N5575A and N5576A)
• Press Releases
  • Agilent Technologies Introduces Industry-Leading L2-7 Integration with Hardware-Based TCP on N2X Multiservices Test Solution (June 18, 2007)
  • Agilent Technologies N2X multiservices test solution first to validate IPTV Quality of Experience under realistic, scalable triple-play network conditions (June 6, 2006)
• Presentations
  • Validating IPTV service quality under realistic Triple Play network conditions (BBWF Europe, Oct 9, 2006) 523KB
  • Testing IPTV Services and Triple Play Infrastructure (July 25, 2006) 260KB
  • Agilent N2X IPTV QoE Test Solution (September 13, 2006) 354KB
  • Ensuring IPTV QoExperience - Telecommunications® and Infonetics Research Webcast