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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Breaking News -
Networking:
Ixia Verifies 10 Gb Ethernet
Transcontinental Network
Ixia, a leading global provider of high performance IP network testing
solutions, announced that CERN, SURFnet, the University of Amsterdam and
Carleton University selected Ixia equipment to successfully validate the
world's first transcontinental 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) WAN PHY network.
The network consists of two major components: a SURFnet OC-192 lambda
between
Geneva and the StarLight facility in Chicago via Amsterdam, and another OC-192
lambda from StarLight and Carleton University in Ottawa, provided by CANARIE,
Canada's not-for-profit Internet organization dedicated to the development of
next generation networks, and Optical Regional Advanced Network of Ontario
(ORANO), a not-for-profit organization, governed by a board of directors that
includes leaders from the fields of education, research and business. The test
utilized Ixia's extensive 10GE WAN PHY traffic generation and analysis
capability to verify the full wire-speed 10GE performance of this
transcontinental network. The Ixia test equipment was deployed at the
endpoints of the 10GE link in Ottawa and Geneva. The sophisticated performance
requirements of this network validation also relied on the IXIA 100's traffic
generation and analyzer with ist unique integrated Global Positioning System
(GPS) capability, which made it possible to establish real-time,
sub-microsecond precision one-way latency measurements from end to end.
"The Ixia test gear enabled us to saturate the 10 Gigabit Ethernet
connection.
This would have been impossible by only using PCs," said Catalin Meirosu of
CERN. "The possibility of synchronizing via GPS units located thousands of
kilometers away and the accuracy of the one-way latency computation was key to
our tests. We were impressed by the Ixia hardware and software stability
during the one month of practically continuous operation within the testbed.
In addition, the Ixia control software is easy to use, and we appreciate the
features in the Ixia test management interface, IxExplorer, that enabled us to
adjust the traffic rate without stopping the ongoing test."
The results of this landmark test are an important milestone in exploring
the
high-speed distribution of data from CERN's new particle accelerator, the
Large Hadron Collider, scheduled to become operational in 2007. Once complete,
CERN's Grid computing technology will involve the collection of millions of
gigabytes of data per year to be used by physicists in hundreds of
institutions located around the world.
"Ixia was delighted to play an important role in this significant
demonstration of 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology," said Gordon Laverick,
general manager for Ixia Europe. "Our commitment to accelerating both the
development and deployment of truly leading edge networking technologies is
really what Ixia is all about. We look forward to participating in similar
events, and in continuing to create test solutions that increase the realism
of the testing environment, whether in the test lab or in the live network
itself."
The setup was first tested for 90 hours using IXIA 400T traffic generators
configured with 10GE WAN PHY load modules. This equipment proved the stability
and raw performance of the network by transporting 365 TBytes of raw data
without any bit errors or packet loss. The main test configuration consisted
of the two Ixia 10GE WAN PHY interfaces connected to Force10 switch/routers
that were in turn connected to the Cisco ONS 15454 Multiservice Optical
Platforms equipment. The Ixia traffic generators were also used for
determining the underlying performance of the transeuropean part of the
transatlantic lightpath by connecting directly to the DWDM gear. Once the
network was characterized, high-speed servers equipped with 10GE network
interface cards were connected on both sides to test file transfer
capabilities.
Network expertise and third party validation was provided by Cortex
Networks
in Ottawa for the test configuration and execution.
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