Keysight Elastic Network Generator

Keysight Elastic Network Generator

Agile and composable network test system designed for continuous integration

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Highlights

  • Implement Open Traffic Generator (OTG) API to incorporate test cases from the field into the design and development cycles to avoid costly, repetitive issues.
  • Introduce Compliance-as-Code workflow to ensure seamless equipment qualification and interoperability.
  • Emulate key layer 2-3 control plane protocols and generate a rich stack of data plane traffic.
  • Abstract software, white box and hardware test port options.​
  • Reduce time-to-test with fast API response time and an agile developer experience.​
  • Accelerate network validation by integrating with popular network emulation software.
  • Deploy as a modular architecture based on containers and microservices.

Challenges in Applying Network Test to Infrastructure-as-Code

In today’s dynamic networking environment, the best network operators are adopting an Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) practice to run their networks as interconnected sets of programmable elements. With this approach, continuous validation of control functions on the network and its response are an absolute requirement.

Traditional closed test systems lack interoperability and flexibility of deployment options, making it difficult to apply them to IaC. This slows innovation and limits adaptability to the growing demands of highly distributed modern applications.

Challenges

New Rules to Measure Network Behavior

Logos

Keysight founded a vendor-neutral Open Traffic Generator (OTG) API project to transform network infrastructure testing to address the demand for an automation-friendly, open, and intent-based approach.

The OTG project enables cross-industry co-design of test suites in open networking projects such as OpenConfig, SAI, SONiC, SONiC-DASH, and DENT.​

Keysight Elastic Network Generator supports the OTG API, integrates with several network emulation platforms, and drives a range of Keysight network infrastructure test software and hardware products.

Write Once, Run Anywhere

  • Keysight Elastic Network Generator provides an abstraction over various test port implementations including:
  • Run a test package written in Open Traffic Generator API using any supported test port types without modifications.​
  • Change a type of test port with ease to remove contention for access to more expensive hardware ports while developing test packages.
  • Run the CI pipeline with a software image of a device under test (DUT) for faster pass-or-fail iterations before installing new firmware on hardware and running full regression.
Write Once, Run Anywhere

Ixia-c Containerized Test Ports

Ixia-c

Ixia-c is a modern network test software with a new architecture based on containers. Its modular design includes a few mandatory and some optional elements to generate traffic with rates exceeding 100Gbps, emulate thousands of protocol sessions, stream gNMI telemetry, and orchestrate deployment in Kubernetes.​

The environments you can run Ixia-c on start from a laptop and extend to large-scale complex network emulations running in private or public clouds. Ixia-c supports popular network emulation software like Kubernetes Network Emulation or Containerlab.​

The Community Edition of Elastic Network Generator provides a great way to start using Ixia-c with limited scale of traffic ports and protocol sessions at no cost.

Composable Architecture with UHD400T

Performing network testing at line-rate speeds is a critical step in device certification, service activation or troubleshooting. To model realistic topologies, high density of test ports and scale of protocol emulation are necessary.​
Network operators seek an optimized solution to meet these requirements and their budgetary constraints. To match this demand, the UHD400T enables a white-box switch to function as a high-density 400GE traffic generator.​
Under the control of the Elastic Network Generator, UHD400T works in concert with Ixia-c protocol engine to add control plane emulation and to scale it independently on disaggregated compute nodes while the switch silicon is leveraged to generate traffic at line speed of 400GE.
UHD400T

High Performance IxOS Network Test Hardware

Network Test Hardware

Established network labs often use a premium Keysight IxNetwork application to gain access to a deep library of protocols and traffic patterns developed over a decade. To use IxNetwork, purpose-built hardware load modules and appliances are necessary.​

Taking the promise of 'write once, run anywhere' forward, the Elastic Network Generator supports Keysight purpose-built hardware traffic generators and enables customers to run OTG-based test suites with them. Your investment in these highly specialized tools is protected.​

KENG brings a modern API approach, using the same hardware to significantly improve time to test. Now you can choose the right form factor and software application to suit different testing cycles.

Protocol and Load Test

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