Network Test System Built from Off-The-Shelf Devices

Ixia Engineering, 2014-15

Liaison(s): Alon Regev
Advisor(s): Josef Spjut
Students(s): Josh Sanz (TL-S), Stephen Ibanez (TL-F), Olivier Cheng (EX), Amy Ngai, Daniel Xie (S), Avi Thaker (F)

Ixia produces high-performance network testing equipment used by many large corporations. They desire a network testing device built from off the shelf components to reduce cost and make upgrading easier. The device was implemented using an FPGA connected via PCIe to a PC running Linux with low-level device drivers to enable communication. 1 10 and 40Gbps Ethernet connections and most major network protocols are supported. Additionally, the device performs high resolution packet latency analysis to enable network characterization.