SCIENCE

Ixia has announced that it has teamed with Nick Lippis of the Lippis Report to sponsor a series of open industry data center network performance and power consumption tests. The goal of the tests is to provide the industry with comparative performance and power consumption data across several 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) switch providers using Ixia's breakthrough Xcellon-Flex load modules.

This test will be the first of its kind, as it will provide network stakeholders with real-world data that compares and contrasts different 10 GE equipment manufacturer products for data center fabrics. Several network equipment manufacturers will participate in this industry-first demonstration, including Alcatel-Lucent, Apresia, Arista, BLADE Network Technologies, Force 10 Networks, Juniper Networks, and Voltaire. The testing, which is taking place at Ixia's iSimCity location in Santa Clara, will use Ixia's Xcellon-Flex load modules to evaluate the performance of the participating vendors' top-of-the-line 10 GE data center devices.

The networking industry is ramping up to build private and public cloud infrastructure, but IT architects do not currently have comparative 10 GE switch performance information to assist them in product differentiation and critical purchase decisions. Today's data center Ethernet fabric network design implementations require low latency, high performance under north-south and east-west flows, low power consumption, with the minimum number of network tiers. There are currently no broad industry 10 GE comparative modular switch performance results to ensure these specifications are met. The joint Lippis and Ixia test with the participating vendors provides an industry benchmark.

This series of tests will be the first to adhere to the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) telecommunications energy efficiency ratio (TEER) standards. The ATIS TEER standard is a uniform methodology to measure equipment power, and specifies energy efficient ratios for telecommunications equipment. The TEER rating considers the equipment's type, network location, and classification (such as core, transport or access). This comprehensive assessment provides a more precise measurement of equipment's energy efficiency.

Ixia's Xcellon-Flex product line utilizes multi-core CPUs and substantial amounts of high speed memory, providing flexible processing power to meet the challenges of testing today's and tomorrow's ultra-high scale network equipment. Xcellon-Flex, combined with Ixia's XM12 chassis, provides the industry's highest port density for testing data center technologies.

In 2008, Ixia opened its executive briefing center and proof-of-concept (PoC) lab, adjacent to its sales and services offices in Santa Clara, California. iSimCity was designed from the ground up to serve multiple functions for customers and visitors. iSimCity's goal is to help enterprise, equipment vendors and carriers use extreme scale test beds to validate scaled equipment performance and deployment models. Ixia helps by making available expertise, methodologies and hardware to lessen the demands on in-house resources.