Core180 Selects Spirent

Core180 has selected Spirent to support its platform which provides managed last-mile access services to large network operators. Core180, a leading network integration company in North America, will use Spirent REACT(R) Test Management Operations Support System (OSS) to reduce operating costs, improve network reliability and boost customer satisfaction.

With Spirent REACT, Core180 can now streamline DS1 and DS3 testing and conduct remote testing on a single platform. The network integrator will also take advantage of Spirent's training and administrative service program in an effort to best utilize the service assurance solution.

"Our ability to leverage REACT and its capabilities have enhanced our service offerings and customer experience," said Robert Burris, sr. vice president of engineering at Core180. "We look forward to working closely with Spirent to best address our growing needs over time."

Spirent REACT supports technologies such as analog special services, DS1/E1/DS3/E3, high-speed DSL and optical SONET networks in the world's largest and most complex data and voice networks. It provides an integrated service view with the ability to automate complex test strategies through expert dialogs, enabling providers to mainstream complex services. REACT's multiple software modules and distributed architecture provide the basis for scalable solutions integrating visibility across technology layers, vendors and networks.

"We're excited to work closely with Core180 as it continuously seeks to deliver the most reliable telecom services to large enterprises, system integrators and government agencies as well as facility and non-facility based carriers," said John Cunningham, vice president of service assurance at Spirent Communications. "Spirent looks forward to not only serving Core180's testing needs today but providing scalable solutions that meet the company's future requirements."

Spirent Launches TestCenter Fibre Channel

Spirent Communications plc , a global provider of performance analysis and service management solutions, today announced the launch of Spirent TestCenter(TM) Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Solution, the industry's first test product to validate the performance characteristics of FCoE systems, an emerging technology for enterprise data center networks. A demonstration of this FCoE solution is being showcased at the Spirent Proof of Concept (SPoC) Labs and Collaboration Centers (http://www.spirent.com/go/spoclab) in Beijing, London and Sunnyvale.

FCoE is a proposed industry standard designed to extend data connectivity in addressing current and future business requirements. FCoE maintains existing management paradigm and tools for storage and will serve as a bridge between storage networking and other next-generation data center networks. Initially, FCoE offers SAN and systems administrators the benefit of being able to reduce the number of physical network interfaces in the server, which reduces costs and simplifies management. FCoE utilizes the mission-critical characteristics of Fibre Channel technology and works with existing infrastructure and applications.

The Spirent TestCenter FCoE solution helps assess the interaction of storage and data center traffic over a common interface. Built on Spirent's Fibre Channel hardware and software expertise, the introduction of its FCoE solution demonstrates the company's market leadership and commitment to advancing the development and deployment of the latest technologies. By leveraging its extensive expertise in the Fibre Channel and Ethernet marketplaces, Spirent delivers the most complete product of its kind with the ability to support Layer 2-7 network performance testing with a broad platform specifically designed for multi-play networks and multi-device technologies.

"Brocade is a pioneer who helped create the SAN industry and customers are now turning to us as a strategic and trusted vendor. Specifically, they are asking us to help them evolve their data centers with new technologies in mind while continuing to enjoy the benefits of the most innovative, high-performance data center fabric technologies available today," said Marty Lans, senior director in the Data Center Infrastructure Division at Brocade. "With the only product capable of pre-testing the performance and interoperability of the FCoE protocol for storage networks, working with Spirent will help ensure that our FCoE solutions will maintain industry-leading latency and loss behaviors and maintain Fibre Channel-like integrity of data connectivity"

"Testing is becoming a strategic imperative for our customers, especially as they consider developing technologies such as FCoE," said Tim Jefferson, general manager for Spirent TestCenter at Spirent Communications. "Spirent is in a unique position to serve this market since we are able extended our knowledge of Fibre Channel and Ethernet testing, and our expertise in the 10-Gigabit arena to develop the most comprehensive solution for testing a superior breed of storage network and data center solutions."

Test engineers now have the ability to analyze a number of critical occurrences including the encapsulation of a native Fibre Channel frame into an Ethernet frame, the emergence of Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) to help ensure lossless fabric, and the effect of replacing a Fibre Channel link with MAC addresses in CEE environments. Spirent TestCenter FCoE provides support for FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP), a control plane protocol, and Priority Flow Control (PFC), the advanced quality of service protocol for Ethernet. Ultimately, users of Spirent's FCoE solution can easily understand latency issues as well as the impact of packets which are dropped and scenarios such as loss of power.

Spirent GNSS Test

Spirent is the world's leading provider of GNSS test and simulation systems. In this capacity, Spirent is the first choice of major manufacturers, integrators, test facilities and space agencies worldwide for GNSS testing and simulation solutions. Today, Spirent simulation systems are used throughout the world through a broad range of clients in more than 30 countries across five continents and in over 50 governmental agencies. Spirent delivers navigation and positioning testing equipment and services to all sectors of the navigation and positioning community, from government agencies through to emerging commercial markets (www.spirent.com/positioning).

Spirent Avalanche Load Testing Appliance

Part of the Avalanche suite of testing tools from Spirent Communications

Avalanche provides considerable flexibility, enabling testers to specify load variables such as user sessions, new user sessions per second, transactions,transactions per second, connections or connections per second. One load profile can be specified for an entire test, or a separate load profile can be defined for each group of simulated users. This flexible approach enables
different actions, network characteristics and loads to be specified for each group of simulated users. In addition, graduated load-stressing capabilities save time by allowing testers to set up user and network parameters just once and then
perform tests at multiple load levelsgenerated, recreating a wide range of real-world loading scenarios. This proactive approach enables you to correct trouble spots and bottlenecks before network slowdowns or costly outages occur.

Features include

Simulating load variables such as user sessions, new user sessions, and variations on transactions per second. Different loads per group of users.