Newsletter: Ethernet /IP BERT & Throughput Testing Made Easy
Welcome to the July, 2009 issue of GL Communications' Newsletter providing information on the latest product enhancements. Our PacketCheck™ - product has been enhanced to support RTD (round trip delay), Loopback at all levels, including Ethernet frames and IP/UDP packets, and a simple to use GUI interface. Its features compare favorably with other test sets costing significantly more.
Overview:
GL's enhanced PacketCheck™ is a PC based Ethernet / IP BERT and Throughput test tool that is very easy to use.
It truly takes confusion out of Ethernet testing at all protocol layers - from raw Ethernet frames to IP/UDP packets. It can be used as a general purpose network
performance analysis tool for 10Mbps, 100Mbps and 1Gbps LANs and WANs.
Here are some simple applications:
- Is your LAN Data Switch dropping packets? Introducing errors? Blocking traffic because it's overloaded? Why not test it with PacketCheck™?
- Is some of your CAT 5 or CAT 6 wiring deteriorating? Introducing errors? Test it with PacketCheck™
- Need to find out your bandwidth between enterprise locations? The throughput? Error rates? Delay? Use PacketCheck™
- What is the maximum IP bandwidth between your branch offices? Find out with PacketCheck™
PacketCheck™ makes use of the PC's network interface card (NIC) to transmit and receive Ethernet packets over the network. Throughputs up to 800 Mbps can be easily tested.
PacketCheck™ allows monitoring end to end performance such as total packets, packet loss, out of sequence packets, errorred packets, correct pattern frames, pattern sync status, and protocol statistics (Total IP packets, UDP Packets, IP/UDP Checksum errors etc ). It can operate on any of the three layers - Layer 2 (Data Link), Layer 3 (Network), and Layer 4 (Transport) of the OSI reference model.
Important Enhancements Introduced:
- Loopback mode Operation
PacketCheck™ in addition to the existing Tx (Transmit only), and Rx (Receive only) and Tx_Rx (Transmit and Receive) modes, can now operate in Loopback mode also. PacketCheck™ can perform loopback at the Ethernet, IP and UDP levels.
- Calculation of Round Trip Delay (RTD)
PacketCheck™ now calculates the average Round Trip Delay. Round Trip Delay is the total time taken for a packet to travel to the remote end and back to the point of beginning. Round Trip Delay can be calculated using 2 PacketCheck™ applications - one at the local end running in Tx_Rx (Transmit and Receive) mode and another at the remote end, running in Lopback mode. And the Round Trip Delay is reoprted in microseconds.
- Command Line Interface
PacketCheck™ can be operated through command line in addition to the GUI.
Other features include:
- Test Ethernet traffic of up to 800Mbps bandwidth
- Generates full duplex IP, UDP, or Ethernet frame traffic to transmit and/or receive traffic on any of the three layers (Data Link / Network / Transport) with on-demand bandwidth
- Bit-error-rate testing (BERT) on layer 2, layer 3, and layer 4 with detailed runtime statistics for both Tx and Rx
- Customizable 2 bytes test patterns
- Customizable protocol headers like MAC Source/Destination address, Length/Type field, IP Source/destination address, and UDP Source/Destination Port
For comprehensive information on the application, please visit PacketCheck™ web page.
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