Network Latency Testing:
New Technologies like Generic Framing Procedure (GFP), Virtual Concatenation (VC) and Link Control Access System (LCAS) are enhancing the capabilities of SONET, bringing about a convergence of SONET and Ethernet. This enhanced, or "Next Generation," SONET can efficiently transmit gigabit rate Ethernet data and can dynamically scale SONET connections sizes up or down to meet bandwidth demands.
Next Generation SONET ICs, software and equipment are currently being developed. Due to their network latency testing complexity and unique requirements, however, testing and validating these Next Generation solutions present significant challenges to manufacturers of communications products and providers of network services. Fortunately, these challenges have been met with the Anue Systems' line of SONET Delay Generators. Anue's Testers emulate signal delays, path level delays, bit errors and signal loss in a precise, programmable manner. These functions are essential for testing GFP, VC and LCAS solutions.
Network Latency Testing Solution:
In the world of data communications, high speed networking over large distances is the wave of the future. Everywhere, information is moving faster. Data rates are rapidly increasing from 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) to 10 Gbps. At the same time, the world is shrinking. Sending digital information around the globe will soon become as easy as sending it across the office.
Communications technology companies have made great strides in their network latency testing products, which is accelerating the move to higher speed communications. In addition, service providers have laid enormous amounts of high-speed fiber optic cable to transmit data over long distances. However, these efforts have been limited by a significant gap between two well-established but separate methods for transmitting data:
1) Ethernet, the dominant method for sending data over short distances, such as local area networks (LANs), and
2) SONET, traditionally used to carry voice traffic over long distances (i.e., thousands of miles) of optical fiber.
SONET is circuit based; Ethernet is packet based. SONET is continuous; Ethernet is "bursty." SONET bandwidth is defined by OC rates (see Table 1) that do not match the 10/100/1G/10G Ethernet rates. Nonetheless, both SONET and Ethernet are pervasive and here to stay. There are hundreds of SONET testing solutions, as well as rings in operation today, and in 2002, 450,000 OC-48 SONET ports were added worldwide. The Ethernet market is even larger. Already a multi-billion dollar market, Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) equipment revenue could reach $44 billion by 2005.
This process requires new equipment and software at the network latency testing endpoints, such as chips, routers/switches, multiplexers, and security devices. The new infrastructure that brings together SONET and GigE is now being developed in the R&D labs of networking and communications companies.
