RFC2544 Testing Equipment

[james at talkunafraid.co.uk (James Harrison)]

On 30/05/17 16:22, Nick Olsen wrote:
>  Looking to test up to 1Gb/s at various packet sizes, Measure Packet loss, 
> Jitter..etc. Primarily Copper, But if it had some form of optical port, I 
> wouldn't complain. Outputting a report that we can provide to the customer 
> would be useful, But isn't mandatory. Doesn't need anything fancy, Like 
> MPLS awareness, VLAN ID's..etc. 
Viavi, VeEX and EXFO all do products in this space; Viavi/JDSU and VeEX
do quite low cost handhelds with a limited feature set (with reporting
to USB sticks et al), EXFO's handheld is a bit chunkier but a bit more
capable.

I quite liked the VeEX MX100e+ and Viavi Smartclass Ethernet units,
they'll both do RFC2544. Having said that, you probably want to be
testing Y.1564 (which those boxes will both do) if you're doing turn-up
testing. Viavi and EXFO all have their own "flavours" which make things
cleverer/easier if you have a basic environment, but I've found myself
using the standards-based versions most of the time really. Lots of
options for reflectors - all the vendors have them in various guises, if
you have a VPLS setup then probably you'd go from a 1U box next to your
VPLS box through the VPLS pipe through to the endpoint.

We ended up buying a pair of EXFO FTB-1s but we're doing RFC2544 etc at
10G, so a slightly different kettle of fish.

James