Slashdot Mirror

I've seen CE in robotics and lab equipment (oscilloscopes, vector analysers, EMC measurement, ...). I've yet to encounter Linux in this world.

It has always amazed me how much test equipment manufactures have embraced windows. Even HP(Agilent) switched their logic analyzers from HP/UX to windows some time ago.

SONET testers are about the only exceptions that I am aware of.

For quick testing customer connections I setup an NDT server. http://e2epi.internet2.edu/ndt/
It works great in Firefox, but requires a real java installation. The last time I checked, it didn't work at all in IE. My laptop with an integrated Gig-E port gets about 800megs in and 200megs out running XP and 800megs in and 600 megs out running linux. On a shared Gig-E connection here in the office it's usually within a meg or two on repeated tests. I figure that's close enough for testing 10-100meg customer connections. At customer sites it can usually give me the link CIR to within a meg or two. And it'll point out probable duplex mis-matches too.

For more extensive testing we have Ixia Chariot and a pair of their chassis. http://www.ixiacom.com/
It's expensive and has lots of options. The Voip and QoS modules are coming in very handy right now, but we've had a lot of trouble with support since Ixia took over from NetIQ. The hardware is impressive but they've got Windows XP embedded on it to run the embedded linux systems that run the ports. The software endpoints are available for a variety of OS's. The pricing is based on the number of concurrent pairs you want to use for testing. I'm still not happy about how much we spent (and still spend on maintenance) for this stuff, but my PHB likes the pretty graphs so I guess that's all that really matters. We mostly use it for multi-hour validation testing when new sites and links get installed and sometimes when we need to verify that a vendor has in fact upgraded the bandwidth on a circuit.

Just a couple of weeks ago I needed something to just check LAN speeds, not going out on to the Internet at all. I downloaded a free (not open source, though) bandwidth speed test from http://www.ixiacom.com/ called Qtest. For free, I thought it was awesome. I don't know if it will do gigabit speeds, but if this software is reflective of the rest of the company's products, it may be a company that can help you.

What Qtest does is let you set up a test server at each end of a pipe. Then you can run tests between the two sites. But the kick-ass part is that you can set it up at different locations and run the tests point-to-point from any of the servers to any of the servers. You can also choose the type of test, sending TCP or UDP data.

Only thing that kind of concerned me is security, as you are loading yet another server at multiple locations.

Transporter_ii

I've used some Ixia gear in the past, not to shabby but cost lots of green

http://www.ixiacom.com/

No they rely on things like this:
http://www.spirentcom.com/analysis/product_line.cf m?pl=33&wt=2
and this:
http://www.ixiacom.com/products/chassis/ch_display .php?skey=ch_1600t_400t_100

I used one of these to demonstrate to the IT department of my megacorp exactally why my networking lab needed it's own isolated subnet on its own Cat6K, and its own servers.
Once I started pumping out thousands of frames per second of random IP and MAC addresses their routers started dying under the loads.
I got everything I asked for :-)
-nB

[shameless plug]
We provide IPv6 ready testing tools for L2 through L7 testing that are seeing great interest and buyers in the market.
[/shameless plug]

Judging from the response we're seeing, IPv6 is quickly being implemented by the network equipment manufacutrers (NEMs) - though the rollout at ISPs and businesses is probably not as fast as one would hope due to the general market conditions and lack of rollout pressure due to IPv4 addresses still being available.

[shameless plug]
We provide IPv6 ready testing tools for L2 through L7 testing that are seeing great interest and buyers in the market.
[/shameless plug]

Judging from the response we're seeing, IPv6 is quickly being implemented by the network equipment manufacutrers (NEMs) - though the rollout at ISPs and businesses is probably not as fast as one would hope due to the general market conditions and lack of rollout pressure due to IPv4 addresses still being available.

I think it would be nice to know what kind of software company. (i.e.: CAD, Games, Office/Productivity, development tools, etc.)

The buisiness strategies of a company are going to be heavily dependant on what they are selling, and who they are selling it to. I know from some (bad) expierence that selling to gamers (i.e.: individuals) is very different from the Corporate/Enterprise Managment types.

And unless you have something totally groundbreaking, I would stick to unoccupied/emerging markets. (Unless you think you can do a better job, such is the case of Ixia Communications who has (IMHO) better products than the local monopoly NetCom Systems). But I should also make the point that some monopolies are better left alone unless you truely know what you are doing (specifically Microsoft, less specifically Cisco).