Description
NetDisturb is an IP network emulator software that can generate impairments over IP networks (IPv4 and IPv6) such as: latency, delay, jitter, bandwidth limitation, loss, duplication and modification of the packets. packets) and more...
NetDisturb allows disturbing flows over IP networks helping to study the behavior of applications, devices or services in a "disturbed" network environment.
NetDisturb is inserted between two Ethernet segments acting as a bridge and operates bi-directional packet transfer on Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit network interface cards.
Examples of uses
Simulation of packet loss rate for a corporate network
Simulation of packet loss rate of a banking network has generated a loss rate file with 1.3 million values. Before the deployment of new applications on the network, NetDisturb Standard Edition simulates the network to test these applications by using this external file containing the loss rates to recreate the actual operating conditions.
Simulation of a satellite link
(with a 2 Mbps downlink and a 512 Kbps uplink throughput) for workstations of a branch office that generate TCP and UDP flows. NetDisturb Standard Edition simulates the satellite link with limited uplink and dwnlink bandwidth. An aggregate is defined to submit all TCP and UDP flows to a function of delay - to reflect the delay of several hundreds of milliseconds introduced with the satellite link.
Application of disturbances on VLANs encapsulated over MPLS frames
Simulation of packet loss rate of a banking network has generated a loss rate file with 1.3 million values. Before the deployment of new applications on the network, NetDisturb Standard Edition simulates the network to test these applications by using this external file containing the loss rates to recreate the actual operating conditions.
Test of robustness for application protocols used in Triple Play Set-Top Box over DSL with NetDisturb
Enhanced Edition VoIP use case: for example, verify that the SIP REGISTER or the SIP INVITE message is retransmitted in case of no answer and then apply a loss and delay for RTP packets of the SIP session. DHCP use case: for example, check that the OFFER message is lost following a transmitted DISCOVER message to validate automatic DHCP retransmission.
Test video over IP using RTP with NetDisturb
Enhanced Edition NetDisturb generates impairments (loss, delay, duplication, modification of packets...) for the testing of codecs integrated in gateways, servers, STB and more...
Product requirements
- Platform: Pentium PC running 32 bits versions of Windows 2000, XP or Server 2003 and at least 512MB Ram with 20MB free hard disk space.
- Hyper-threading and PC multiprocessors are also supported.
- Two Identical Network Interfaces Cards (NIC) are recommended: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, or Gigabit Ethernet.
- Display resolution: at least 1024 x 768 (more readable: 1152 x 768 and sup.), DPI setting = Normal size (96 DPI) and Font size = Normal.
Main Characteristics
Netdisturb
is based on the notion of flows. A flow is a set of packets with a set of common packet properties, and can be unidirectional or bi-directional. Flows are part of sessions (successions of flows and "think times") related to some homogeneous user activity (e-commerce, mail, IPTV session...).
Netdisturb
can generate impairments (unidirectional or bi-directional) for 16 user-defined flows simultaneously. It is possible to use a trigger to link the launch of the impairments with an event for a flow.
Netdisturb
offers also two working modes by applying impairments:
- Enable / Disable out-of-sequence packets in a flow,
- Impairments laws apply to the IP flow or to each TCP/UDP connection of the IP flow.
Based on a Client-Server architecture, NetDisturb is made of two parts:
- The Server handles the impairment characteristics
- and the Client manages the Server using a powerful and intuitive graphical interface
This allows two configurations where the Server and the Client may be installed on the same PC (local control), or the Server is located on one PC and the Client is located on another PC (remote control) and dialogs with the Server by using a communication link (Wan, Lan...). Both configurations require two Ethernet NICs for the Server, and we recommend to use two identical NICs for performance reasons.
List of Impairments handled by NetDisturb
Pre-defined Loss and Duplication laws:
- Loss: Constant Law. Parameter: number of packets
- Loss: Uniform Law. Parameters: alpha, beta, threshold
- Loss: Burst Uniform Law. Parameters: alpha, beta, threshold(n), threshold(n + x), depth
- Loss: File (Loss Values). Parameters: file name, threshold
- Loss: Percentage. Parameter: percentage
- Loss: 1 Packet out of N. Parameter: range(N)
- Loss: Percentage and Duration (time-limited losses percentage). Parameters: percentage, duration
- Loss: File (Percentage and Duration). Parameter: file name
- Duplication: Percentage (send n times the received packet). Parameters: percentage, Min ≤ n ≤ Max
- Duplication: 1 Packet out of M (duplicate 1 packet n times every M received packets). Parameters: range(M), Min ≤ n ≤ Max
- Duplication: Uniform Law. Parameters: alpha, beta, threshold
- Loss (1 out of N) then Duplication (1 out of M): the loss law (1 Packet out of N) is used first before the duplication law (1 Packet out of M)
Pre-defined Delay and Jitter laws:
- Constant Delay. Parameter = constant delay
- Constant Delay and Exponential Jitter. Parameters: constant delay, λ
- Constant Delay and Uniform Jitter. Parameters: constant delay, alpha, beta
- Constant Delay and File (Jitter). Parameters: constant delay, user file
- File (Packet Sending Minimum Cadences). Parameter: user file
- Router Simulation and Constant Delay. Parameters: IP throughput, max memory, constant delay
- Router Simulation and File (Packet Sending Minimum Cadences). Parameters: IP throughput, max memory, user file
- Constant Delay and File (Throughput and Duration). Parameters: constant delay, user file
Pre-defined Content impairment laws:
- 1 Packet out of N Parameter: range(N)
- Percentage. Parameter: percentage
- Normal Law (Laplace-Gauss). Parameters: average, standard deviation, threshold
- Uniform Law. Parameters: alpha, beta, threshold
System features
- Simultaneous support of
IPv4 and IPv6
- Client-Server architecture based on the SOAP mechanism which uses the HTTP protocol and the XML format for the exchanges between the Client and the Server
- NetDisturb is an Ethernet bridge to avoid any network configuration
- use of standard Ethernet Network Interface Cards up to 1 Gbps
- Symmetric or Asymmetric
bandwidth limitation
with router simulation
- Very easy to use and intuitive Graphical User Interface
- 16 configurable flows per direction
-
Aggregates
of flows can be defined (set of flows sharing the same Delay and Jitter characteristics
-
User-defined rules for disturbances:
- pattern trigger
- starting time after delay or number of packets received
- stop impairments after number of received packets or elapsed time,loops and more...
Predefined filter parameters based on the main protocol header fields (MAC, MPLS, VLAN, IP, TCP and UDP headers) and user-defined pattern filter
-
Unidirectional or bi-directional
packet impairments
-
Impairments:
Latency, Loss, Duplication, bandwidth limitation, Delay and Jitter, Content impairment (mathematical laws or user-defined files)
- Change the impairment law on-the-fly for a flow
- Ability to impair the remaining network traffic that could be either only the IP packets or all the Ethernet frames
- Connections per flow: impairments are applied to the flow or to each connection of the flow
- Ethernet / Internet modes (Out-of-Sequence packets)
-
Command Line Interface
(CLI) to use NetDisturb in test beds
- Ethernet Jumbo frames supported (payload up to 17,976 bytes)
- Statistics display and export detailed statistics into a file
-
Accuracy = 1 millisecond resolution
Applications
- Development assistance and debug of automatons for IP equipments: particularly for Set-Top Boxes operating in cable or telecom environments.
- Performance and Acceptance Tests: Qualify and evaluate the behavior of IP equipments (phone, fax, gateway, set-top box, IMS core, call server, application server, residential gateway, ADSL wireless router and more...), and etc.) and applications (audio and video streaming) over IP networks.
- Configuration and control of IP Equipments for product verification and test: Define different QoS levels in an Intranet or Internet environment to configure terminals, gateways and routers.
- Test Laboratories: NetDisturb provides repeatable QoS on different flows using configuration mode and values (loss, duplicate, delay, packet content impairment) defined by the user, and so re-create real world problems in the lab.
- Applications test: NetDisturb allows testing applications such as Voice over IP, Fax over IP, audio and video streaming, and other distributed applications.
- Emulation of symmetric or asymmetric network conditions found on the Internet and enterprise networks (LAN, MAN, WAN): latency, jitter, packet loss, bandwidth limitation, and more... to test IP applications (VoIP, audio and video streaming, etc.), services and products sensitive to various real conditions.
- Simulation of satellite links with important delays and limited bandwidth
- and more...
