Shared Lab Challenge

Overview

The constantly evolving communication networks require development of new Ethernet network devices, being either traditional hardware implementations or virtual, software based implementations – Virtual Network Functions (VNF). In both cases the devices need to be tested during development to troubleshoot and validate the functioning of the new devices.

An organization can have many teams involved in the development and will have labs with test facilities for the new devices. However, to reduce CapEx the teams often need to share the test facilities. If this is not managed well, team members can waste time waiting for the test facilities to become available, increasing OpEx for the organization.

When the test facilities in the shared labs are available for the team, they will have to reconfigure them to get the needed topology and features for their testing. This involves connecting the Ethernet network devices with Ethernet Traffic Generators. The team members can do this manually by moving cables, which however is a time consuming and error prone process.

The Xena Networks L2-3 test platforms ValkyrieBay and ValkyrieCompact are obvious choices as Traffic Generators for test of the Ethernet network devices. The L1 Smart Matrix switching capabilities of the NPB-I and NPB-II packet brokers from CGS Tower networks efficiently connect the Xena Traffic Generators with devices under test. When the Xena Traffic Generators and the CGS L1 Matrix are managed with CloudShell software by Quali, the teams using the shared lab get an efficient and seamless Lab-as-a-Service (LaaS) experience when sharing the resources reducing both CapEx and OpEx for the organization.

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