Ixia announced that its award-winning IxLoadtest solutionnow runs as a virtualized system to help mobile operatorsmaximize the success of strategic NFV deployments. Ixia enables mobile operators to determine what to virtualize, how to go about it, and how to measure success by showing which cloud-based functions match the performance achieved by existing physical devices.
With mobile usage, user expectations and competitive threats all on the rise, the risks to operators’ brands and bottom line are too great to leave NFV deployments to chance. IxLoad emulates the behavior of mobile subscribers and virtualized network functions (VNFs) to allow operators to speed the introduction of compelling new services with proven quality and performance.Deliveringboth traditional and newly virtualized test capabilities,IxLoad delivers the high scale and realistic traffic loads needed to validate critical elements of virtualized wireless network performance, qualityand elasticity. Through and beyond deployment, Ixia’s visibility architecture and Phantom virtualized monitoring Taps (vTaps) address new performance and security challenges created by migration.
Product highlights
While mobile operators agree on the need and vision for NFV, many struggle to fully understand the practical migration steps, quantify the benefits and measure success. By offering the extended IxLoad solution with virtual network function features, Ixia enables mobile operators to accelerate NFV within their networks to speed new service introduction, increase network and service agility, simplify network management and optimization and improve the economics of service delivery.
Additional benefits include:
- Optimizing virtual networks with a repeatable, large-scale validation approach that accurately mirrors real-world environments to helps ensure network resiliency and performance.
- Scalingto simulate millionsof subscribers in order to assess Quality of Service (QoS) and policy control with the highest load-test capacity (hundreds of gigabits of fully stateful traffic).
- Assigningcritical Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics for voice, video, web and data applications. Actionable measurements including throughput, capacity, packet loss, latency, jitter, handovers, connection rates, and MOS scores for voice/video quality.
Insights include:
- Roadmaps for replacing current network architectures and moving from purpose-built physical devices to a virtualized, software-controlled network
- Metrics for knowing with certainty that migrations were successful and investments in virtualization justified.
- Test cases for ensuring the virtualized network delivers the performance, resiliency, security, elasticity and QoE needed to satisfy mobile customers.
Industry commentary
“There is very strong interest in NFV from telecom network operators that want to build more flexible networks that are easier to configure and faster to evolve,” says Gabriel Brown, Senior Analyst at Heavy Reading. “However, operators need the tools to accurately model, trouble-shoot, and test the behavior of virtualized network functions across the life-cycle of a service or deployment. The availability and maturity of these tools is critical to the broad adoption of NFV.”
“Virtualization won’t happen with the flip of a switch, it’s a major challenge for operators. Blended networks, consisting of both physical and virtual components, will exist for some time to come,” said Joe Zeto, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Ixia. “In displacing vital network functions — putting user satisfaction at risk — the practical steps and impact must be fully understood each step of the way. A mix of physical and virtual assessment capabilities are required and a key ingredient to fully validate success.”
