EXFO launches 10-GbE test platform
June 3, 2005 Quebec City, Canada -- EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering today has launched its FTB-8510G Packet Blazer module for testing 10-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interfaces in optical networks. The interchangeable test module is designed for housing inside the company's FTB-400 Universal Test System (UTS), and is suitable for field, central office, and carrier lab applications.
According to the company, using a flexible configuration, the module can characterize local and/or wide area network physical interfaces (LAN PHY and/or WAN PHY) with the same test module, at all available wavelengths. All interfaces are field-exchangeable and provide the suppleness to test any standard 10-GbE access point in a network, according to the company.
According to the company, with increasing deployments of 10-GbE interfaces in the network core, service providers can employ the module to ensure quality of service (QoS) at such transmission rates. The company says that, with the module, test capabilities such as packet-jitter, traffic generation and analysis, and RFC 2544 (a testing methodology that includes throughput, latency, and frame-loss measurements) are readily available to thoroughly test Ethernet-based, Internet Protocol networks. As a result, the company says that service providers can rest assured that delay-sensitive applications, such as voice-over-IP (VoIP) and video-on-demand (VoD), will meet prescribed service level agreements (SLAs).
"This new test solution, combined with the Ethernet, Fiber Channel, and next-generation SONET/SDH modules, provides a complete series of data communications test capabilities for our well-established FTB-400 platform," comments said Benoit Fleury, EXFO's vice president of protocol-layer product management and business development. "By integrating optical modules, such as polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and chromatic dispersion (CD) analyzers, field technicians obtain a highly valuable portable test solution that is perfectly suited for high-speed 10 Gbit/sec network applications, in which transmission and compensation phenomena are critical and highly intertwined."
The test platform will be displayed at booth # 54080 at next week's SuperComm 2005.