The industry’s most comprehensive multiservices test solution for converging network infrastructures.

Agilent N2X

VPN ServicesCarrier Ethernet

Multiplay ServicesCore Routing & MPLS

Conformance Test SuitesScalable Protocol Emulation

Traffic Generation & AnalysisAccess and Edge Network Equipment

Flexible System ConfigurationThe Agilent N2X system consists of a system controller and multiple chassis containing purpose-built test cards for specific test requirements. The system controller provides a graphical interface to drive applications running on the test cards.

System ControllerA number of system controllers are available depending on your performance requirements and number of concurrent users necessary. Each controller provides an easy-to-use Windows® environment and is capable of controlling all the N2X test cards and application software.

N2X ChassisN2X has a highly compact 4-slot chassis and 2-slot portable chassis available for both labs and in-field use.

N2X Test CardsHigh-density, hot-swappable, scalable and flexible N2X test cards are optimized for the specific test needs of next-generation Transport, Carrier Routing, SAN and Enterprise networks and devices.

N2X XM test cards – SONET/SDH •test cards for simulation and analysis of multi-channel loading, errors, alarms and switching performance.N2X XP test cards – • Packet test cards for comprehensive traffic generation and analysis.N2X XR test cards – • Packets and Protocols test cards for integrated traffic generation and realistic protocol emulation for dynamic network testing.N2X XS test cards – High-performance •Packets and Protocols test cards optimized to deliver industry’s highest protocol emulation scalability for network stress testing.

Each card features its own high-performance on-board CPUs with distributed processing power to allow synchronized measurements across multiple chassis. These cards are designed to increase test coverage and reduce test cost.

N2X Software and Support AgreementTo protect your investment in the Agilent N2X, every new system includes an initial 12-month comprehensive system-based warranty and Software and Support Agreement (SSA). Renewing Agilent support services ensures uninterrupted technical support and software upgrades, giving you confidence in N2X throughout the life of your system.

The N2X technical support portion of your SSA includes assistance with product operation and measurements and verification that the N2X equipment is in correct working order.

Multiservices and infrastructure testingN2X is designed to test IP forwarding devices that deliver video, VoIP, data services and business VPNs. It is used in “out-of-service” lab environments to test at real-world scale with realistic traffic.

Edge/AccessContent Servers IP/MPLSCore

HomeNetwork

Internet

Internet

PSTN

Encoder

VoD Server

SoftSwitch

EAR/BNG

Broadband Network Gateway BNG/Broadband

Remote Access Server B-RAS

VoD Server

Core RouterSystem

ContentRouter

Ethernet Aggregation(L2) Switch

Edge/AccessRouther

Access Node(DSLAM or PON OLT)

ResidentialGateway

Service Provider tasks accelerated by N2XTechnology

& equipment evaluation

Benchmarking & vendor selection

Equipment acceptance

Trouble-shooting

Network upgrade

Network Equipment Manufacturers tasks accelerated by N2X

Hardware development

Software design &

developmentIntegration System test

Technical Marketing

Customer proof of concept

N2X comprehensively tests IP network devices and systems

N2X test types

Application performance

Interoperability test

Protocol/functional test

Scalability test

Regression testConformance

test

Bandwidth management

& QoS

Feature interworking/

robustness

Switch fabric & line card forwarding

performance

Negative test

Automated testing

Agilent N2X N2X Test Functionality

Comprehensive Conformance TestIETF, IEEE and MEF standards are interpreted differently by vendors during development. N2X conformance test suites mitigate the risk of interoperability problems between different implementations by verifying compliance of protocol state machine implementations against an independent standard.

Generate and analyze real-time protocol traces, decodes and run •logs with the industry-leading Conformance Test ManagerRegression-test new releases to ensure stability and •integrity of existing features are preservedTest technologies including:•Ethernet CFM, BFD, STP/RSTP/MSTP, LACP, MEF 9 and MEF 14, 802.1x, VLANs, IPv6 Security, OSPFv2, OSPFv3, BGP4, IS-IS, MPLS RSVP-TE and LDP (-TE), Graceful Restart, IGMPv3, PIM-SM and MLDv2.

N2X verifies that your device can correctly prioritize and forward millions of flows from multiple subscriber services, uphold QoS service level agreements and quantify the ultimate limits under extreme loads.

Generate hundreds of thousands of Unicast and Multicast •streams from voice, video and data services with realism Measure per-service, per-subscriber or per-VLAN performance •on every test port and sort and filter through tens of millions of results using N2X Fast Find to accelerate time-to-insightValidate mixed and proprietary encapsulations, •rapidly test new protocols and perform negative testing using the intuitive PDU builder Report RFC 2544 and RFC 2889 packet loss, latency, •throughput and other performance parameters with over 100 automated QuickTests.

Scalable Protocol EmulationN2X emulates real network devices by statefully initiating and responding to protocol messages, allowing you to replace large testbeds of network equipment, to:

Characterize failure recovery times for resilience technologies •such as MPLS Fast Reroute and Graceful RestartQuantify protocol performance at scale to measure the •maximum size of routing and forwarding tablesSimulate route flapping to accurately measure •convergence times under dynamic network conditionsEmulate protocols including IPv4/IPv6 unicast/•multicast routing, MPLS, access, L2/L3 VPN, Carrier Ethernet and applications such as IPTV and VoIP.

N2X Topology Viewer for CFM illustrates scaled emulation

Granular Traffic Generation & Analysis

H1Level 1

Level 3

B1IN

H4MEP1H5B5-IN00:00:64:01:01:06

B4EG

H1

B5IN

H2

B5EG

H3

B6IN

H4

B6EG

H5

B9IN

H5

B8INH5

B7IN

MEP999H6B9-EG00:00:64:01:01:10

MIP Maintenance Intermediate Point

MEP Maintenance End Point

B/Brg Bridge

H/Hop Hop Number on a Level

IN Ingress

EG Egress

Level MD Level/MEG Level

MEP3H6B6-EG00:00:64:01:01:0e

MEP2H6B7-EG00:00:64:01:01:0cSUT

DUT port (Egress LSR)

Test port (Ingress LSR)

Click to view message decode

Run Log

Tester real-time protocol

trace

Agilent N2X Services Testing

Carrier EthernetThe industry’s most comprehensive solution for verifying Carrier Ethernet services & infrastructure using technologies such as E-OAM, LACP, PBB, RSTP/MSTP, VPLS/ VPWS/FRR and BFD.

Verify ability to meet SLAs for MEF-defined Carrier Ethernet •E-LAN and E-Line services by measuring key QoS parametersQuantify resiliency of Ethernet infrastructures by •disrupting the control plane and measuring the data plane consequences. e.g. MSTP reconvergenceValidate coexistence of multiple protocols and applications. •e.g. PPP and other protocols operating over LACP bundled links.

VPN ServicesScalable and easy to use integrated VPN test solutions for testing layer-2 and layer-3 VPNs, including VPLS/VPWS, RFC 2547bis, Inter-AS, 6PE and multicast VPNs (mVPN and mVPNv6).

Verify the functionality, performance and scalability of •Layer-3 VPN Provider Edge (PE) router control planes by emulating customer and core-side protocolsEasily generate traffic to emulated VPN sites using •the layer-3 VPN QuickTool/Wizard and characterize VPN leakage, packet loss and latency Efficiently create large-scale emulated topologies comprising •many VPNs and pseudo wires using the Layer-2 VPN Topology Builder to characterize VRF table scalability.

Multiplay ServicesN2X is industry’s first Multiplay test solution to combine line-rate, hardware-based performance statistics for video, voice and data services in the same test to characterize the ability of individual network elements or entire networks to enforce Quality of Service (QoS) requirements and meet subscriber Quality of Experience (QoE) expectations, across multiple services at once, prior to deployment.

Simulate complex scaled network topologies and dynamic •subscriber behaviors using the wide breadth of N2X protocol emulations, including DHCPv4, DHCPv6, PPPoX, MLD and IGMPDisplay real-time video media quality metrics (e.g. MDI) and IPTV •channel zapping times along with voice MOS and data forwarding performance measurements on each port or each subscriberGenerate and analyze deterministic hardware-•based stateful TCP trafficSimulate 13+ types of application transactions in •hardware at line rate for integrated L2-7 testing.

Quickly Model a Multiplay Household

EmulatedBGP/MPLS VPN

Network

PE

Edge Side Core Side

Emulated PE

TrafficTraffic

Emulated PE

IP PacketVPN LabelLayer 2 Tunnel LSPIP Packet

VPN 1

VPN 1

VPN 1

VPN n

VPN n

VPN 1

VPN n

VPN n

Emulated PE

SUT PE

PE

PE

Carrier Ethernet Services – E-LAN & E-Line (MEF 9 & 14 UNI)

Application Services – IPTV, VoIP, VoD

Ethernet OAM(E-OAM =

CFM + Y.1731)

Link AggregationControl Protocol

(LACP)VPLS

Multiple Spanning TreeProtocol (MSTP),

Provider Bridging (PB/PBB)

Bidrectional ForwardingDetection (BFD)

E-PON

SONET/SDH

SwitchedEthernet IP/MPLS

Agilent N2X Infrastructure Testing

The most comprehensive and most scalable solution for testing BGP4/BGP4+, MPLS/GMPLS (RSVP-TE, LDP, O-UNI, LMP, OAM), OSPFv2/v3, IS-IS, RIP, PIM-SM/SSM, MSDP and Graceful Restart.

Characterize protocol scalability limits by emulating •a testbed of thousands of peer devicesQuantify system performance by concurrently •emulating multiple protocols on a single test portMaximize test coverage via extensive protocol capabilities •such as Fast Reroute object and attributesStatefully verify emerging and proprietary protocol •extensions on BGP, RSVP and LDP by customizing message fields in the emulations.

The most scalable, integrated and comprehensive test solution for characterizing access/edge device and network performance in the presence of protocols such as DHCP, DHCPv6, PPPoE, PPPoA, PPPoEoA, L2TP, IGMP, MLD, SIP and L2C/ANCP and services such as IPTV (and IPTVv6), stateful data and VoIP.

Surround the system under test with thousands of •simulated subscribers using a realistic combination of access and multicast protocolsVerify control plane and data plane performance •simultaneously with integrated signaling and line rate, deterministic, hardware-based traffic generationBenefit from unique features such as built-in DHCP •and PPPoX servers and L2C/ANCP emulation to easily characterize DUT performanceSolution is ideal for testing devices such as BNG, B-RAS, •BSA, BSR, edge routers, access nodes and DSLAM.

Core Routing & MPLS

Access and Edge Network Equipment

“The scalability and usability of the Agilent N2X was pivotal in evaluating the performance of the Alcatel-Lucent Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture.”

“We wanted this to be the industry’s most comprehensive and valid assessment of a working triple play network. N2X equipped us with the ability to quickly emulate a very large number of triple play subscribers with different profiles and generate multi-class traffic to create a very realistic test environment.”Dr. Bijan Jabbari, president of Isocore.

“We use N2X to simulate tens of thousands of dynamic subscribers and hundreds of video, Internet and voice sources, so we can replace an entire lab full of equipment with a single N2X system. We can create highly scaled traffic generation stress testing scenarios critical for assuring that multiple services can be supported simultaneously and for demonstrating to providers that our industry-leading routing equipment can meet quality expectations on a per-service, per-subscriber basis.”Gary Southwell, director, IPTV Solutions Group, Juniper Networks.

Testing DHCP relay agent functionality with N2X-emulated DHCP clients and server.

Ethernet AggregationNetwork

Core Network

L2 DHCPRelay

BNG

DHCP Server

L3RG

AN

xDSL GbE GbE 1 or 10 GbE

DHCP Session

DUT

DHCP

N2X test port BSimulated OSPF or IS-IS topology

Sourcetest port

Destination test port

LSRLSR LSR

LSR LSR

N2X test port A

Primary

SecondarySUT

Warranty and Support

Hardware Warranty

All N2X hardware is warranted against defects in materials and workmanship for a period of 1 year from the date of shipment.

Software Warranty

All N2X software is warranted for a period of 90 days. The applications are warranted to execute and install properly from the media provided.

This warranty only covers physical defects in the media, whereby the media is replaced at no charge during the warranty period.

Companion ProductsAgilent Technologies has a range of products for testing Multiplay / IP devices, systems and services from development through to deployment, installation, maintenance and field troubleshooting. Please check www.agilent.com/find/multiplay.

Ordering InformationTo order and configure the test system consult your local Agilent representative.

www.agilent.com/find/n2x

United States of AmericaAgilent Technologies Test and Measurement Call Center PO Box 4026 Englewood, CO 80155-4026 Tel 1-800-452-4844

Canada Agilent Technologies Canada Inc. 5150 Spectrum Way Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5G1 Tel 1-877-894-4414

Europe Agilent Technologies European Marketing Organisation PO Box 999 1180 AZ Amstelveen

The Netherlands Tel (31 20) 547-2323

United Kingdom Tel 07004 666666

Japan Agilent Technologies Japan Ltd. Measurement Assistance Center 9-1, Takakura-Cho, Hachioji-Shi, Tokyo 192-8510, Japan Tel (81) 426-56-7832 Fax (81) 426-56-7840

Latin America Agilent Technologies Latin American Region Headquarters 5200 Blue Lagoon Drive, Suite #950 Miami, Florida 33126, USA Tel (305) 269-7500 Fax (305) 267-4286

Asia PacificAgilent Technologies 19/F, Cityplaza One, 1111 King’s Road, Taikoo Shing, Hong Kong, SAR Tel (852) 3197-7777 Fax (852) 2506-9233

Australia/New Zealand Agilent Technologies Australia Pty Ltd 347 Burwood Highway Forest Hill, Victoria 3131 Tel 1-800-629-485 (Australia) Fax (61-3) 9272-0749

Tel 0-800-738-378 (New Zealand) Fax (64-4) 802-6881

This information is subject to change without notice.Printed on recycled paper© Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2008Printed in USA June, 20085989-1244EN