A Dublin company has developed a test technology that can enable future digital TV networks to drill down to an internet protocol (IP) address level to gather performance data and assess TV viewers’ quality of experience (QoE). Such data will prove vital in assessing the performance of triple-play services and warding off future denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
Rigorous tests conducted by TV network infrastructure performance company, The Tolly Group, reveal Dublin-based Shenick Network Systems DiversifEye technology delivers integrated Layer 2-7 testing in a single chassis with per-flow testing that enables users to drill down from an aggregate view through to an IP address level to gather performance data and assess individual user QoE.
“Our in-depth examination of the Shenick DiversifEye test tool platform confirmed a deep understanding for the quality test needs of today’s progressive service providers and network equipment manufacturers,” said Kevin Tolly, president, CEO and founder of Florida-based The Tolly Group.
“Shenick is meeting the needs of network operators and enterprise managers to move up the protocol stack by offering particular strengths in triple play, security attack and peer-to-peer [P2P] testing,” Tolly said.
Broadband networks are evolving and the rich traffic landscape of supporting triple play and the ongoing requirement to thwart security attacks and control P2P-related traffic focuses the need for dynamic network emulation and traffic generation test systems.
The new emphasis on application-level guarantees and end-user QoE for voice over IP and internet TV users is the catalyst for test tools such as Shenick DiversifEye. At the end of the day, what is important to customers is the way that their applications and services actually behave on service provider networks.
The objective of the Tolly Group Up to Spec certification project was to test a typical access network with triple-play traffic (voice/data/video) scenarios mixed with distributed DoS traffic that attempted to overwhelm the network with security attack traffic and thus deny service to valid users. Also tested was the ability of the networks to effectively control the effect of P2P traffic that can consume excessive service provider bandwidth.
By John Kennedy
