Startup Azimuth Systems Inc. has introduced a WLAN testing platform that emulates various network conditions and allows for consistent results across multiple testing environments.
The Azimuth W-Series is designed to save time and space in wireless LAN testing for equipment manufacturers, standards bodies, systems integrators and enterprises that have their own labs, said officials at the Acton, Mass., company.
“Its emulating the network but also allows you to position the devices virtually, starting with a simple network with one access point to a complex network of thousands of access points and stations,” said Fanny Mlinarksky, Azimuths founder and chief technology officer. “We replace everything with a chassis-based tester.”
Out of the box, the Azimuth platform provides a controlled radio-frequency environment that correlates test results among different sets of equipment, which ensures consistency, officials said.
Each chassis can scale from a single access point with one client to 16 access points with up to 1,024 clients.
The system generates traffic and synchronizes the data among chassis, which allows for simultaneous testing of different networks on different campuses. It comes with a library of scripts and software suites that create testing scenarios for issues such as security, roaming, quality-of-voice service, data rate versus range and interoperability among different vendors products.
The current version supports only Microsoft Corp.s Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems, but the company is considering other server operating systems, officials said.
The platform comprises the eight-slot 800W chassis and Azimuth Director, the software that controls it. Pricing starts at about $44,000.