LAS VEGAS—Test equipment maker Ixia announced the industrys first true 10 Gigabit Ethernet test platform at Interop here.
The new XM12X 10 Gigabit Ethernet module, which is designed around the recently approved IEEE 802.3an-2006 standard for 10GBASE-T, contains 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and one 10GBASE-T port. The 12 on-board processors allow the module to completely fill either the 10 Gigabit ports or the 10 Gigabit port with full Layer 2 through 7 traffic. The traffic is user configurable to match the specific test needs of users.
The Ixia module is designed to work with the companys 10GE LAN Service Module to generate real-world traffic simulations. As a result, the Ixia module allows equipment vendors to certify that their products will operate at full 10 Gigabit speeds with real traffic. The module uses SolarFlare Communications 10Xpress SFX7000 10 Gigabit physical layer processor.
According to the company, the new module is designed specifically to support converged solutions testing at full line rates. The traffic that the Ixia module can simulate includes voice, video, database access and other special-purpose traffic, in addition to a specific mix of Ethernet traffic chosen by the user. The traffic generation works with the companys XMV12X Load Module and mounts in an Ixia Optixia XM12 chassis.
The new load module was also announced at Interop, along with a new version of the companys IX Chariot lightweight endpoint client software. The new Chariot endpoint software allows mobile devices to be used as test clients, which allows Ixia to test the performance of wireless networks.
IX Chariot operates on a wide variety of endpoint operating systems, including Windows and Windows Mobile, Linux, Mac OS, and a variety of Unix platforms.
