confidential last updated 08-2015

CONFIDENTIAL

Last updated 08-2015

- Overview: Spirent STC & Weaknesses - Overview: Xena Strengths - Feature Comparisons - Unique Xena Features

- Legacy Spirent equipment

Last updated 08-2015

XENA vs SPIRENT - CONFIDENTIAL

Contents

2U/2U-HS (discontinued)

9U (discontinued)

C1/3U/4U

11U

Overview: STC


Spirent replace chassis and modules frequently. This forces customers to replace or upgrade test equipment even if it is only a few years old. New Spirent chassis are expensive, especially when you also have to buy all the software. Automating testing is much more complex with Spirent. They often have different automation commands for each chassis/module. Backwards computability is not guaranteed when customers upgrade to new SW release. (This will be a critical factor for any customer looking to test the new 400G standard.) Spirent’s 32-port 10G module has many disadvantages - it lacks many features, reservation per 4 ports, big $ investment in one card – if there is a support issue customers risk 1-3 month downtime with their testing environment. When using the DX10GE to test 1G, only 1 user can access the 32 ports!!

Overview: Spirent Weaknesses


Xena aims to provide the best sales price – AND the best value over 3 years.

Xena’s “tri-speed” 100G solution provide 100G / 40G / 10G on a single module (reservation for single port).

Xena’s new 100G solutions also offer “triple-media” capability – CFP4, QSFP28 & CXP and the unique Eye Digram feature for analyzing signal quality.

With Xena ALL software updates and upgrades are included for 3 years.

Xena don’t charge for new features and new capabilities as they are all included for 3 years.

Xena can develop and launch new features & SW faster than Spirent.

Overview: Xena Strengths


SOFTWARE COMPARISONS

XenaManager-2G SW size is less then 15Mb Fast and operates easily on any PC Intuitive and easy to learn – 1 hour training

Spirent SW size is over 300Mb Slow - requires high spec computer Takes weeks to master


XENA CHASSIS

World’s highest port density (in a 4U)

World’s smallest 100G Ethernet tester

4U - XenaBay:

Scalable – can hold up to 144 x

10G ports or 12 x 100G modules *

(*M1CFP4QSFP28CXP)

1U - XenaCompact:

Robust & transportable with 1 x

100G module

Xena Chassis and cards take ~2 mins to reboot New architecture built from Day 1 to support 100G and more All supported from day one! World leader in price-performance All cards support all capabilities 1 user per port Read-Only Reservation option

Spirent Chassis and cards take ~8 minutes to reboot Old architecture - often require firmware/flash hardware replacements Each new technology require new chassis / additional power supplies e.g. 40G/100G - new N4U chassis. 32 ports 10G card, lack of features/ capabilities. Does not support Flow Control or PFC… Many cards many different capabilities 1 user per 32 ports when testing in 1G mode -

HARDWARE COMPARISON


Xena New quiet fans Single reliable, low consumption power supply

Spirent Noisy – require special acoustic rack, can’t work near it Requires 1-4 power supplies, power consumption is high. Many issues with faulty power consumption


HARDWARE COMPARISON

Spirent

• Testing 40/100G requires a special Spirent chassis. (This is because the power consumption and architecture of backplane and controller of their 10G test chassis were not built with future needs in mind.)

• Equipment only works with Spirent-approved transceivers (many transceivers are not supported.)

• Once 400G is approved … we anticipate a new line of chassis will be developed.

Xena • Xena’s tri-speed module provides 8x10G or 2x40G or 1x100G, plus it supports both

L1 and L2/L3 testing with no need for firmware switch.

• The triple-media capability lets testers use CXP / QSFP28 / CFP4 for testing

• Unique eye diagram feature for measuring signal quality

40/100G


Spirent • On most Spirent modules the reservation is for a couple of ports

(min. 2 ports & some modules up to 4 ports) • After releasing a port – a 2 minute port reboot takes place • 1 user per 32 ports when testing in 1G mode

Xena • Xena allows single port reservation on all modules • No port reboot is required with Xena solution and the configuration

saved. • Read-Only reservation – lets more than 1 user collect

results/configuration on a port.

Port Reservation


All results are lost if you lose connection to STC

To ensure non-stop connection to STC you must buy: - LAB Server ~$1a0K - Rack space - Electricity

Connectivity Issues


Comparison – Test Automation

Xena Full backwards compatibility Same commands for all chassis/cards Socket based, support any language, FREE Can develop everything remotely (cloud) Commands can be presented in the GUI

Spirent Many GA software versions released without backwards compatibility Different commands for each chassis/cards Driver-based (each driver cost $$$) Need to be connected to device for development (reserve ports) Can’t be presented in the GUI


Comparison - Service

Xena Fast repair and replacements Customer-oriented, new enhancements for all customers are released frequently

Spirent If a module breaks down it often takes a long time to ship to Spirent and get it fixed Support rarely enhances features requested by customer who invest less than $1 million


Comparison - Price

Xena FREE for the lifetime of the product Leading price-performance Tech support is FREE for product lifetime Software updates/upgrades and new features/capabilities/packages are FREE for 3 YEARS According to the item

Spirent Support is calculated as % of equipment price-list Expensive as it contains many L2-3 capabilities that customers never use Charge customers for support on the 1st year Charge for each package /capability/new feature HW repair price is fix price


Spirent charges $ for each option below:

Xena offers all these free of charge: • RFC2544 • Asymmetric RFC2544 • RFC2889 • RFC3918 • Y.1564

Benchmarking Suites



Unique Xena Features

Eye Diagram = Graphical analysis of signal quality at 100G

The color map shows the measured Bit-Error Rate (BER) for each point going from 0.5 (maximum red) to <1e-6

(black). Available when using CFP4 and QSFP28/QSFP+ ports on M1CFP4QSFP28CXP.


Sequential Traffic Mode

This useful feature lets users build special packet sequences. Ixia also offers this feature, but Spirent does not – their customers need to use other tools.


Different Loopback Modes

Makes it much easier to debug issues and helpful when testing between two locations. A Spirent user would have to rely on DUT loopback functionality.



Different types of gap monitoring

This is an easy-to-configure mechanism for monitoring traffic gaps. A Spirent user would have to either configure a complex feature or analyze the graphs manually using an inferior time sampling resolution.



Load a Pcap file

Great for DPI testing – Checking all sorts of traffic such as Whatsapp (Lawful interception and DPI-related companies love this feature)



Butterfly packet size distribution

An efficient way to test queue-size allocation algorithm behavior that that can help find memory leakage issues with network devices.



Running multiple histograms simultaneously

Being able to test both Jitter and Latency distribution saves time on Histogram testing which usually run over the weekends.



Xena supports 100BASE-FX. Spirent does not.

Port Speed (100Base-FX)

Some devices only work with 100Base-FX which means Spirent users either must find rare Smartbits modules - or they need to invest in a new state-of-the-art tester (like Xena )


Spirent only checks payload data integrity. Xena checks data integrity for both headers AND payload data integrity

Data Integrity

If users have a bug where VLAN Id`s - or any other field in the headers - are changed, they will never find it using Spirent – but easily tracked with Xena.


Error injections on the fly

This feature is quick to configure and easy to automate. Spirent user need to build a special stream that sends FCS errors + no way to test Spirent’s own error detection (unless real issue is with DUT/SUT).



Online capture buffer parsing

Lets you quickly view the content of a specific field – no need to wait for Wireshark. Spirent users need to buy the Clearsight package which is expensive.



This equipment is VERY OLD (discont’d in 2002) – so no new versions, no bug fix, no tech support, no repairs or parts Old architecture = breaks down easily 200/2000 reservation per Chassis (not all chassis are multi-user) Very poor scaling single port on each module – 10/100Mbs 1Gbps module require 2 slots in the chassis (max. 10 ports in a full 2000 chassis, 2 ports in full 200 chassis) Automation nightmare (different code per module/version/software type) Support only 10/100Mbs and 1G modules. Only port based statistics (No stream/flows) Does not run on Windows 7

SmartBits 200/2000


LEGACY SPIRENT EQUIPMENT

Old (discontinued in 2006) and based on outdated architecture = breaks down easily No new versions, no bug fixes, no tech support (few technicians left who remember how to fix these). Hardware repairs difficult (parts are rare and thus expensive). No future development = DUT has new interface… need to buy new test equipment

600/6000 reservation per module Poor scaling =>2 x 10G ports per 600 chassis, 12 x 10G Ports per 6000 chassis (10G is not supported on 600 chassis - must buy 600B) Automation nightmare (different code per module/version/software type) Most traditional modules do not even have per stream statistics Does not run on Windows 7

Official price is high as Spirent wants customer to buy newest platform

SmartBits 600/6000


LEGACY SPIRENT EQUIPMENT

confidential last updated 08-2015

Documents