To provide its customers a way to test the quality of premise cabling infrastructure, NetAlly has launched its LANBERT Media Qualification App for the company's EtherScope nXG Portable Network Expert analyzer and LinkRunner 10G Advanced Ethernet Tester. The company says the free software upgrade provides a flexible, easy way to test and assure the capability of premise cabling and media components (including fiber SFPs, wall jacks, patch panels and cables) for carrying multi-Gig and 10Gig Ethernet data.
“While there are warranty requirements for ANSI/TIA-568 certification at the time of cable installation, the reality is that after ‘day zero’ installation, media qualification using high volumes of real frames rather than parametric substitutes is far more effective,” explains James Kahkoska, chief technology officer for NetAlly. “This is where the new NetAlly LANBERT app makes all the difference. LANBERT sends actual Ethernet traffic between NetAlly testers or a physical loopback, monitoring for frame loss, bit errors, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and delay skew simultaneously to further understand the available SNR margin on the cable at the current link speed.”
NetAlly notes that -- with the insatiable growth in bandwidth demand, increasing speeds of Wi-Fi APs (with multi-Gig 2.5/5Gbps backhauls), 1Gbps to 10Gbps upgrades, and deploying new fiber links -- network professionals must have confidence that their network media will transport that data error-free at the maximum speed possible. "Downtime or intermittent loss and errors is simply not an option," adds the company. "Testing for even just 10 seconds would ensure that over 142 million frames can be transmitted and received error-free."
As further stated by NetAlly:
Running the LANBERT test app on the EtherScope nXG and/or LinkRunner 10G as endpoints over a long duration (up to 24 hours) serves as a “soak test” to identify the presence of intermittent issues and noise events that can corrupt network traffic. With easy-to-read trend graphs and the ability to drill down to 1-second granularity, LANBERT helps network professionals identify exactly when errors occur.
Kahkoska concludes, “While there are other tester vendors offering similar capabilities, most are limited to layer 2-only Ethernet access link testing and cannot validate layer 3 enterprise switches and routers. NetAlly’s multifunction tools also features the IP layer line-rate Network Performance Test app, that can validate QoS and SLAs across your entire enterprise network end-to-end including routers – not just one access link and switch – at up to full line-rate 10Gbps.”
For more information, visit https://www.netally.com/lanbert-test-app/.