Spirent unveils Attero 100G for latency verification of High Speed Ethernet Networks

Spirent Communications, has unveiled Spirent Attero 100G, the 100GbE impairment test solution for verification of high speed Ethernet systems and networks.

The 100GbE impairment generator is designed to allow equipment manufacturers and service providers to emulate a network or network elements with precision, accuracy and repeatability. This innovative high speed test solution can be used to emulate propagation, routing, switching and buffering delays.

Network latency or delay can dramatically reduce throughput and affect high speed links carrying applications such as real-time gaming, streaming video, and financial trading transactions – resulting in disgruntled consumers and adverse business impact. Spirent Attero 100G can emulate the equivalent of more than 50,000 km of fiber at 100 Gb/s and assess the impact of network congestion, queuing issues or multi-path fading on a device’s performance.

“Understanding the impact of latency on high speed Ethernet networks is important,” said Neil Holmquist, vice president of marketing & product strategy at Spirent Communications. “So when developing high precision network products, it’s critical that equipment vendors and service providers validate performance metrics, including latency, under real-world network conditions. Spirent Attero 100G is the first test solution to provide full line rate simulation in order to make the measurements required for 100GbE Ethernet compliance.”

Using Spirent Attero 100G in combination with Spirent’s 100/40GbE test modules lets users emulate and impair complete network traffic, switching, routing and application scenarios for comprehensive end-to-end testing. The Spirent 100/40GbE test solutions offer the market’s highest density, emulate multiple layers of network protocols and scale to perform real-time cause/effect analysis on millions of statistics. Spirent test solutions can model realistic scenarios to validate quality of service (QoS) on thousands of flows and test complex routing, data center, and access protocols on switches and routers.

Some of the significant features of the Spirent Attero-100G solution includes support for:

Full line-rate network simulation with precise full line-rate delay of up to 640ms at 40GbE and 256ms at 100GbE
Web-based user interface with built-in controller that can be operated directly from a PC or a tablet device
Simulating impairments by introducing lost, mis-ordered, error and repeated packets