Spirent Attero 100G impairment emulator aids Ethernet network, equipment design

Test and measurement systems company Spirent Communications says its newly released Spirent Attero 100G impairment generator can emulate propagation, routing, switching and buffering delays in 100 Gigabit Ethernet networks. The company expects the system to find use by equipment designers and network operators for verification of high-speed Ethernet systems and networks.

The Spirent Attero 100G is designed to emulate impairments over the equivalent of more than 50,000 km of fiber-optic network infrastructure. It can be used to assess the impact of network congestion, queuing issues, or multi-path fading on transmission latency and overall system and network performance.

Features of the system include:

• Full-line-rate network simulation with precise delay of up to 640 ms at 40GbE and 256 ms at 100GbE
• Web-based user interface with built-in controller that can be operated directly from a PC or a tablet
• The ability to simulate impairments by introducing lost, mis-ordered, error, and repeated packets.
  

"Understanding the impact of latency on high-speed Ethernet networks is important," explained Neil Holmquist, vice president of marketing and product strategy at Spirent Communications. "So when developing high-precision network products, it's critical that equipment vendors and service providers validate performance metrics, including latency, under real-world network conditions. Spirent Attero 100G is the first test solution to provide full-line-rate simulation in order to make the measurements required for 100GbE compliance."

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