NEWSLETTERS

Latest products and more...

Newsletter: GL Enhances PacketExpert™
A Wirespeed Ethernet/Packet Tester

Welcome to another January, 2011 issue of GL Communications' newsletter providing information and insight into our newest product PacketExpert™ - A Quad port wirespeed Ethernet/Packet Tester.

Overview

PacketExpert™ is a quad port wirespeed Ethernet/Packet Tester. It supports 4 Electrical Ethernet Ports (10/100/1000 Mbps) and 2 Optical Ports (1000 Mbps) and connects to the PC through a USB 2.0 interface. Each GigE port provides independent Ethernet/IP testing at wirespeed for applications such as BERT, RFC 2544, and many more.

PacketExpert™ truly takes confusion out of Ethernet testing at all protocol layers - from raw Ethernet to IP/UDP packets. It can be used as a general purpose Ethernet performance analysis for 10/100 Mbps or 1 Gbps Ethernet local area networks. Two of the 4 ports have both Electrical and Optical interfaces, enabling testing on optical fiber links also.


Wirespeed BER Testing with Traffic Generation

Wirespeed BERT measures Bit Error Rate on Raw unframed Ethernet (Layer1), Framed Ethernet (Layer2), IP and UDP layers. Supports generating various PRBS patterns such as 29-1, 211-1, 215-1, 220-1, 223-1, 229-1, and 231-1 including constant patterns such as All Ones, All Zeroes, Alternate Ones-Zeroes and user-defined test patterns ranging from 1 bit to 32 bits. PacketExpert™ supports user-defined options to configure Ethernet/IP/UDP header parameters, including VLAN, Frame Size, and Rate.


Wirespeed BERT Results (with LEDs and graph)

PacketExpert™ analyzes the received BER traffic and provides various vital measurements such as Bit Error Rate, Bit Error Count, Bit Error Seconds, Sync Loss Count, Sync Loss Seconds, Error Free Seconds, No Rx Data Count/Seconds, and Bert Status. Bit Error Count is displayed in both Tabular and Graphical formats.


RFC 2544 Testing

PacketExpert™ supports Throughput, Latency, Frame Loss and Back to Back test as specified in RFC 2544. Similar to BERT, RFC 2544 can be done over Framed Ethernet (Layer2), IP or UDP. It includes various parameter configurations such as Test Selection, Frame Sizes, Unidirectional/Bidirectional, Number of trials, Trial Duration, and many more. User-defined options to configure various packet header parameters, like MAC addresses, IP addresses, UDP ports etc. Results are displayed in both tabular as well as graph format.


RFC Results

Details of RFC results are provided in graphical format below


Important Features

  • Quad port Gigabit Ethernet tester, generate/receive Ethernet traffic at wirespeed.
  • Wirespeed BERT over Raw unframed Ethernet (Layer1), Framed Ethernet (Layer2), IP and UDP on single port (BERT over multiple ports is coming very soon)
  • Throughput, back-to-back, latency and frame loss testing as per RFC 2544 for Uni-directional and Bi-Directional traffic between ports.
  • BERT - supported PRBS patterns are 29-1, 211-1, 215-1, 220-1, 223-1, 229-1, and 231-1 and User Defined test patterns ranging between 1 to 32 bits
  • Bit Error Insertion for both single as well as Rate Error
  • Generates detailed reports in PDF format for both BERT and RFC 2544
  • Portability through a USB 2.0 Interface
  • 2 ports have Electrical and optical interfaces. User option provided to switch from electrical to optical and vice versa.
  • User-defined or auto-negotiated electrical ports can operate at 10/100/1000 Mbps line rates in Full Duplex mode; optical ports can operate at 1000 Mbps line rate in Full Duplex mode only.
  • Detailed frame statistics per port.
  • Loopback capability for incoming traffic. Both smart loopback (auto loopback) and user-defined loopback capability supported.
  • Support for frame lengths from 64 bytes to Jumbo frames (upto 2048 bytes).
  • Capability to modify various header parameters for MAC, IP and UDP layers.
  • Resolve utility to easily configure MAC address (through ARP)
  • PING utility to check remote IP address availability

Hardware Interfaces

  • Interfaces:
    • 2 x 10/100/1000 Base-T Electrical only
    • 2 x 1000 Base-X Optical OR 10/100/1000 Base-T Electrical
    • Single Mode or Multi Mode Fiber SFP support with LC connector


  • Standards:
    • RFC 2544 compliance
  • Interface:
    • USB 2.0
  • Power:
    • +9 volts, 2.2 Amps

For comprehensive information on the product, please visit PacketExpert™ web page.


 Back to Latest News Page