Network Simulator
	Network Simulator enables software developers and network engineers to determine how their product or service would perform under various network conditions such as bandwidth, latency, congestion, etc. It emulates these network conditions by transparently capturing and processing the data packets. Network Simulator can be used for any network protocol (IP, IPX, AppleTalk, etc.) Since it operates at Ethernet layer it does not require any configuration change on networks or servers. Network Simulator is a true wire speed (1.4 million pps per port), highly precise, multi-user, multi-port and portable appliance which uses patent-pending technologies. It is available in several different models to meet various user requirements and budget. Now on NASA's SEWP Contract!

Key Benefits

· Speeds up network testing of the network application, equipment or the service.
· Increases the success by delivering fully tested products and services.
· Minimizes the cost and wasted time by finding and eliminating software bugs faster.
· Provides detailed quality assurance (QA) of network applications and network equipment.
· Minimizes the bandwidth cost by accurately determining bandwidth requirements.
· Allows determining VoIP and video conferencing performance characteristics in a laboratory environment.
· With multi-port model, it allows emulations on redundant, backup and multi-home connections.
· Allows multiple users to run independent emulations or traffic generations at the same time.
· Allows evaluating emerging applications, products and standards realistically.

General Features

· True gigabit wire speed (1.4 million pps per port) provides impairment tests without missing any packet.
· Supports all network protocols and applications, such as IP, TCP, HTTP, VoIP, etc.
· Supports all network connection types, point-to-point, hub and spoke, partially or fully meshed.
· Supports all server hardware and operating systems.
· Works at Ethernet level not IP level. (I.e. switching instead of routing).
· Portable for sharing and carrying easily.
· Displays throughput in bits/second and packets/second in both directions of the traffic.
· Does not require a dedicated host or special GUI application.
· Easy to learn, configure and use via a web browser interface.
· Does not need any modifications in network configuration.
· Provides flexible unidirectional emulations.
· Supports several types of packet filters.
· Supports 64 DiffServ filter levels.
· Provides custom filters with up to 4-byte long pattern matching anywhere in the packet.
· Provides up to 32 simultaneous multiple emulations.
· Provides VLAN emulations.
· Provides real-time packet modifications.
· Provides Capture and Replay functionality.
· Provides background traffic injection during network emulation.
· Supports RFC 2544 network performance measurements.
· Provides wire-mode operation.
· Provides real-time packet analysis with packet filters on every interface.
· Provides real-time throughput in bps and pps displays in tabular and graphical formats.
· Provides web based remote management.
· Allows saving, loading or deleting multiple configurations.
· Provides Command Line Interface (CLI).
· Provides on-line Hypertext User Guide.

Plug & Play Setup

Since Network Simulator works at the Ethernet level, it does not require any change on the application servers or on the network configurations. Network Simulator starts forwarding the traffic between its two ports soon after it is powered on. The user only needs to setup the management interface's IP address. This can be accomplished via the Web interface by connecting to the system's factory shipped IP address.

Filters

Network Simulator has extensive Ethernet, IP, IPV6, TCP and UDP packet filtering capabilities. Filters allow users to pick significant packets to expose to network impairments. Filters can be logically combined with AND, OR and NOT operators to create complex filter sets.

Special kind of filters called "custom filter" provides filtering up to 20-byte long pattern anywhere inside the packet including payload. This feature allows users to define filters for custom applications or for new protocols.

IPV6

Network Simulator's IPV6 capabilities enable users to perform detailed IPV6 emulation tests. IPV6 filters such as "traffic class", "flow label", "hop limit" allow picking specific IPV6 packets. Source and destination addresses can be either single or a range that covers block of addresses. Non-consecutive addresses can also be specified by using multiple filters. "next header" filter parses all available cascaded headers till it finds a match. In addition, "fragmentation ID" filter can be used to filter all or some of the specific fragmented packets.

Simultaneous Emulations

Network Simulator has patent-pending technology that allows users to emulate up to 32 different network characteristics simultaneously through the same pair of Ethernet interfaces. By the help of filters assigned to emulation instances, users can divide the traffic into several groups and apply different network impairments on them. This capability does not require any change in the network connections since all of the traffic goes through the same network interfaces.

Packet Modifications

Network Simulator allows users to modify data packets in real-time. Any protocol field can be modified with user selectable data. It is possible to optionally recompute the checksums.

With custom packet modifications, it is even possible to modify anywhere inside the packet, e.g. payloads or certain fields in proprietary protocols. Packet modifications can be utilized with filtering and emulations at the same time.

Mesh Network Emulation

Network Simulator also provides emulating either partially or fully meshed networks. As it is shown in the diagram above, users can create any type of unidirectional virtual connections among all available Ethernet interfaces.

Each virtual mesh connection is associated with filters to determine which packets should be sent to which virtual connections. This would give the ultimate flexibility to create any type of connection topology, ring, mesh, star, or fully connected. Any combination of impairments can be assigned to virtual mesh connections.

Network statistics can be collected for each individual virtual connection.

Capture and Replay ™

Network Simulator captures high speed data packets and saves them for future analysis or for replaying them at different locations. Capturing can be selective by using packet filters and by number of packets. In addition, capturing can be performed on a live network while the Network Simulator is in wire-mode.

Later, captured packets can be replayed as they are or their addresses can be modified. In addition, they can be sent at the exact speed or at different packet or bit rates. Capture and Replay ™ feature preserves the quality of data packets even at high traffic speeds for accurate and effective tests of IPTV, Video on Demand, VoIP, and other real-time streaming technologies.

Capture Features

· Captures real-time data packets with extensive packet filters from layer-1 to 7.
· Captures packets inline while forwarding live traffic, eliminates the need for span ports or tap devices.
· Capture size can be specified by number of packets or file size.
· Captured packets can be saved in PCAP format for future analysis or replaying at different locations.
· Captured packets can be transferred over the network to another TG2000 or NE3000.
· Captured packets can be analyzed by Ethereal or other PCAP based analyzers.

Replay Features

· Replays real-time data packets with extensive packet filters from layer-1 to 7.
· Replays packets as they are or modifies the content including the payload up to 10 bytes.
· Checksum fields are computed automatically on modified packets.
· Replays packets at the original speed or different speeds.
· Replays packets in fixed number of cycles or sends them continuously.
· Replays packets captured by PCAP based analyzers such as Ethereal.
· Network impairments such as packet loss, out-of-order packets can be introduced.
· Allows saving, loading, deleting and transferring capture files.

This feature is available on NE3000 model only.

Gigabit Wire Speed Traffic Injector ™

Traffic injection is another powerful feature which is used to generate background traffic while running network emulations. This feature allows users to generate very flexible Ethernet, VLAN, IP, IPV6, TCP, UDP and any custom protocol with custom payloads. To generate more realistic traffic, address, port, any 2 byte data fields as well as packet size may be modified on every packet. Modifications can be done by means of incrementing, decrementing or randomizing. Every checksum field is recomputed for every packet by default.

The traffic amount can be specified by amount of packets, packet rate, bit rate, or time duration. Alternatively the traffic can be sent continuously at maximum speed. Traffic at gigabit wire speed can easily be achieved with packets larger than 200 bytes. Up to 10 independent traffic streams can be generated per port (NE3000 model only).

Easy to use Web GUI makes traffic generation one-minute long task.

Features

· Gigabit wire speed packet injection per port, 1.48 million packets/second/port.
· Injects Ethernet, VLAN, IP, IPV6, UDP, TCP and many other protocol packets.
· Every Ethernet, VLAN, IP, IPV6, TCP and UDP protocol field can be specified.
· Easy to use Web used user dynamically changes for every protocol type.
· Payload for every protocol can be specified manually.
· Checksum fields are computed automatically.
· Dynamic packet streams can be generated by modifying, any address field or any two bytes.
· Packet can be modified by incrementing, decrementing and randomizing several protocol fields.
· High speed traffic injection in gigabit Ethernet.
· Injection rate can be controlled in packets/second, bits/second or sending at maximum speed.
· Injection can be controlled by number of packets, time duration or in continuous mode.
· Traffic injection with incremented, decremented and randomized several protocol fields.
· Traffic injection can be started in either or both directions while running Network Emulations.
· Up to 10 independent traffic streams can be generated per port (NE3000 model only).
· Packets can be tagged with time stamps and sequence numbers for network measurements.

RFC 2544 Network Performance Measurements

Simena's Network Simulators also implement RFC 2544 network performance measurements. By generating packets with time stamps and sequence numbers users can measure latency, bandwidth, packet loss, amount of duplicate packets, and amount of out-of-order packets. Measurement results are displayed in a real-time tabular format.

This feature is available on NE3000 model only.

Real-time Packet Analysis

Network Simulators provide packet decoding capabilities with packet filtering in real-time on both network interface. Users can pick and choose which packets needs be decoded on which network interface via a simple user interface.

Real-time Statistics

Users can also easily display real-time throughput on each port in both tabular or graphical format. Throughput numbers are very accurate as they are collected from the Network Simulator's kernel application. In other words, while the emulation is heavily taking place the throughput numbers would still be very reliable.

Tabular statistics can be saved as a CSV file at the user workstations (PC. Linux, Solaris, Mac) for further analysis. Users can specify the sampling rate and number of samples for saving the statistics.

Online Help

Although Network Simulator is very easy to learn and use it provides an online user guide for complex emulations and administration tasks. Hypertext index lets the user navigate very easily. Convenient pop-up window can be used as a desktop reference.

Web Based GUI

Network Simulator provides easy to use Web based Graphical User Interface (GUI) which lets the users access it from anywhere in the network. Clear and easy navigation menu enables them to start using the unit in a minute. The GUI also provides complete management functions such as setting networking parameters, Ethernet interface speed and duplex mode, date and time, user password, and rebooting the Network Simulator remotely. Initial setup of the Network Simulator can also be accomplished by the GUI by accessing the unit's factory default IP address.

For more information or 15-day free evaluation of Network Simulator please contact us.

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