Calnex Tests Mobile Backhaul

April 2008

Calnex Solutions, a leader in Next-Gen Packet Transport test said today that it will provide test solutions for Certification Testing of the Metro Ethernet Forum’s MEF 18 Test Suite for Circuit Emulation Services (CES).

This testing will be done by Iometrix, the official certification laboratory for the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF).

There is significant demand in the industry to deliver high-quality Circuit Emulation Services.

One of the primary drivers is Mobile Backhaul, where services that depend on reliable timing need to be transported over a network that is migrating to more economical and efficient Packet technologies. The new MEF 18 Certification Program, announced recently, defines the requirements and test procedures to which a system must comply to deliver Circuit Emulation Services over Ethernet to the required quality levels.

The Calnex Paragon test platform provides a unique capability to generate in-line impairments to validate the network equipments’ ability to reliably deliver data, timing and synchronisation via CES under stressful conditions. The Paragon is able to capture Packet Delay Variation (PDV) profiles from real networks and replay these in the lab during testing. A vital element of this is the ability to capture, measure and generate the PDVs to the accuracy of nanoseconds, which allows the equipment to be validated to the accuracy required by real-world, real-time services.

Tommy Cook, CEO of Calnex said “Service Providers have been keen to migrate networks to Ethernet but have been constrained by the requirement to deliver high quality synchronisation across these networks. An area of concern is the ability of CES to deliver this required quality. With MEF 18 and the Calnex Paragon, equipment can now be tested with real-world stress-conditions to validate their compliance to these critical synchronisation requirements”.

“CES certification brings with it a host of new testing challenges that experts in the field are looking to solve. The Calnex Paragon solution is specified to provide the essential capabilities that address these challenges,” said Bob Mandeville, president of Iometrix, the testing laboratory responsible for the MEF test plan and certification process.