Ixia released a new version of its IxChariot test platform featuring a new way to measure the scalability and functional compliance of thousands of traffic policies deployed in a typical network. The IxChariot 6.0 release also provides a unique way to correlate the quality and roaming performance of a wireless link with network application performance and VoIP Mean Opinion Score (MOS) test results.
With this release, IxChariot users are now able to freely associate TCP, UDP and RTP payloads with any test script using IxChariot's new "script-embedded payloads" feature. Ixia said use of the new script-embedded payloads provides far greater flexibility and realism in testing the ability of content-aware network devices to enforce policies that rely on deep packet inspection. These correlations are especially important because "intelligent" networking devices, such as firewalls or traffic shapers, make traffic forwarding decisions based on deep packet (payload) inspection, and these devices are becoming standard network components.
The IxChariot 6.0 release, in support of its large WLAN testing user community, now includes integrated metrics for key 802.11 parameters, such as the Received Signal Strength Index (RSSI) indicator and the ability to correlate the Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID) used in wireless LAN networks with the wide range of enterprise, Internet, and VoIP traffic types. The new 802.11 measurements in IxChariot 6.0 make it possible for users to determine the critical roaming performance of a WLAN switch or Access Point infrastructure while the test station running a standard Windows or WinCE Performance Endpoint is emulating latency and packet-loss sensitive applications, such as VoIP, multicast, and streaming video, with or without Quality of Service policies applied.
Other key new features in this release of IxChariot are:
- Extended peer-to-peer (P2P) script library, including popular eDonkey and Bittorrent client applications
- New payload script library, including revised HTTP, PoP3, SMTP, and FTP scripts that maintain Layer 7 payloads and default destination port numbers
- MAC 10.3 Performance Endpoint for 32-Bit systems (G4)
