SAN MATEO, Calif. — Agilent Technologies Inc. is hoping to move its two-year-old RouterTester family towards edge networks with the release this week of the RouterTester 900 test platform.
Like its predecessors, the RouterTester 900 is targeted primarily at network core routers, running transport protocols such as Sonet or Gigabit Ethernet. With the new system, however, Agilent has added support for asynchronous transfer mode and 10/100-Mbit/second Ethernet, intending to make the platform more applicable to lower-speed routers.
"We're trying to broaden our appeal to edge devices," said Trevor Dyke, product manager for Agilent. Future interfaces targeting the edge might include channelized Sonet, as opposed to the single-stream concatenated Sonet supported by previous RouterTester versions, he said.
The RouterTester boxes check a router's data-flow capabilities but also test routing protocols, including multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) schemes. As an additional push for edge markets, Agilent is giving the RouterTester 900 the ability to test virtual private networks, particularly those based on MPLS.
Agilent also boosted the product line's traffic-generating volume, giving each port the ability to simulate 1,000 routers, up from 100 on previous models. This was accomplished partly by upgrading the line cards' CPUs and memory levels; each now sports 512 Mbytes of RAM compared with 32 or 64 Mbytes previously.
The RouterTester 900 stands two rack units high and has space for four cards.
