Agilent Technologies announces RouterTester, industry's first gigabit/terabit router test system to support internet-scale simulation

Product platform expands carrier-class IP testing solutions for next-generation core network switching equipment

TELECOM 99, Geneva, Oct 11, 1999

Agilent Technologies, a new company formed with the realignment of Hewlett-Packard Company, today introduced RouterTester, a multi-port, IP-based system for testing the performance of the gigabit/terabit routers that will form a key switching component of carriers' IP-based voice and data infrastructures. RouterTester, which incorporates multiple Packet over SONET (POS) interfaces and integrated support for the BGP-4 routing protocol, is the industry's first test system capable of performing true Internet-scale simulation, required for development and performance testing of routers operating at high speeds. The announcement was made here at Telecom 99.

RouterTester is the only carrier-class IP test system that offers the real-time ability to generate multiple streams of IP packets that simulates realistic traffic from many different-sized networks and creates real-world Internet traffic conditions for testing. The system's BGP-4 routing protocol implementation allows users to establish large, complex routing tables rapidly in the router under test. This enables the product to simulate traffic from many thousands of networks of varying sizes, creating traffic with realistic distributions of IP source and destination addresses. Traffic that is characteristic of data, voice or video streams can be generated automatically between many combinations of these networks.

Router performance in delivering this traffic is then analyzed in real time, providing detailed measurements of the router's ability to deliver guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) levels for each type and simulated network source of traffic.

"At IronBridge Networks, we are serious about building carrier-class, terabit routers that will be the heart of the Internet. Making sure that our products live up to the demands of ISPs is no small task, however," said Kevin Dubray, director of test engineering at IronBridge Networks. "HP came to us and asked how they could help. They listened and engineered a solution. HP's RouterTester promises to help with our Internet scaling, traffic forwarding and Quality of Service verification." Dubray is also the chairperson of the Internet Engineering Task Force's (IETF) Benchmarking Methodology Working Group and has contributed to several related RFCs.

RouterTester supports up to 64 OC-12c/STM-4c or OC-48c/STM-16c POS test ports, each capable of simultaneously transmitting and receiving IP packets at wire speed, for all valid packet sizes. Multiple streams with many different service classes or differentiated services (diffserv) codepoints can be generated and analyzed in real time to provide detailed QoS metrics, including packet throughput, packet latency and lost or misdirected packets. Router address lookup, queuing and prioritization schemes are also tested under real-world conditions. Simple, partial and full-mesh traffic patterns can be configured to fully stress the router switching fabric to be tested.

"RouterTester's unique integration of routing protocol intelligence and wire-speed IP testing provides the capabilities that will allow us to document the industry-leading performance of the Juniper M40 Internet Backbone Router and provide independent verification of the M40's reliability, scalability and QoS capabilities," said Robert Craig, staff engineer, Juniper Networks.

The introduction of RouterTester complements the announcement last month that HP acquired Qosnetics, Inc. The Qosnetics QA Robot System is a complementary IP test product that offers routing protocol conformance, validation and stress testing. RouterTester and QA Robot provide a complete solution for testing both elements of a router's operational performance -- packet forwarding and route processing.

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is a diversified technology company, resulting from Hewlett-Packard Company's plan to strategically realign itself into two fully independent companies. With approximately 43,000 employees serving customers in more than 120 countries, Agilent Technologies is a global leader in designing and manufacturing test, measurement and monitoring instruments, systems and solutions, and semiconductor and optical components. The company serves markets that include communications, electronics, life sciences and healthcare. In fiscal year 1999, the businesses comprising Agilent, then a subsidiary of HP, had net revenue of more than $8.3 billion.

Information about Agilent Technologies can be found on the Web at www.agilent.com.

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