THE CUSTOMER THE CHALLENGE. Revolutionize Test & Measurement Application Note v3.1 October, 2003

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1 Transparent Connectivity Revolutionize Test & Measurement Application Note v3.1 October, 2003 THE CUSTOMER Companies that manufacture and sell fiber optics technologies for communications networks must ensure that their products exceed critical design criteria. These companies employ Quality Assurance teams (QA) that put each not-yet-released product through a broad range of rigorous tests in order to identify and repair functional and performance errors. Essentially, the test engineers on the QA or Design Verifications Testing (DVT) teams must work to find hardware and software bugs before their customers find them in live networks. They must perform regression tests of newly modified product versions until they can verify the product s performance is satisfactory across the spectrum of functional criteria. A design can only be verified after the test team can demonstrate the product s ability to perform in accordance with its design specification. Examples of companies that follow these procedures are those that engineer new opticallyrelated chips, optical components, transceiver line-cards, integrated communications systems, network elements and even optical test equipment. Equipment standards include the class of SONET/SDH products (e.g. OC-48, OC-192, etc.), Ethernet products (e.g. Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, etc.), Fibre Channel products and products for cable networks. THE CHALLENGE Professional Quality Assurance organizations strive to execute a broad range of tests in order to reduce the risk of prematurely releasing a product from the R&D lab to production. These tests require a product to operate in a variety of network arrangements, called topologies, and with many other network elements. Furthermore, engineers must test to ensure products perform well under a diversity of real-world network conditions such as cut fibers, network outages and heavy traffic loads. Copyright 2003 Glimmerglass Networks Inc., all rights reserved 1

2 It s time-consuming to accurately track lab assets and each specific fiber connection throughout one or more test lab. Maintaining accurate fiber connection-maps usually means strictly limiting fiber changes to a small group of people while also reducing the frequency of fiber reconfigurations. It s easy to introduce wiring errors when manually rewiring dozens of fiber connections. Once done, engineers often waste several hours tracking down lost or highloss connections due to dirty fiber-ends. Test engineers are also required to frequently reconfigure the network into new equipment arrangements and to connect-in new sorts of test and measurement equipment. Under these conditions, how can any test manager be certain that a new platform s performance is adequate? Is it possible for anyone to quickly and efficiently test and retest a system that is configured in several real-world topologies in addition to testing both its reaction to cut fiber links and its reliability under heavy traffic conditions? BETTER TESTING MEANS BETTER PRODUCTS The time it takes lab technicians to reconfigure fiber connections results in fewer numbers of executed tests performed under fewer test conditions. Therefore, companies run the risk of introducing and manufacturing a large volume of unfit products. Test teams could extend their testing over longer periods of time in order to methodically test and, later, exhaustively regression-test each product. However, since that s not a realistic alternative for companies wishing to stay competitive, test teams are typically pressured into completing their work within a window of time between the date a development organization releases its product to test and the company s announced shipping date. This puts an even greater amount of pressure on test managers and their staffs, heightening the need to take shortcuts and skip test cases. These shortcuts have meant an increased risk of poorer quality, until now. The Glimmerglass System 300T Fiber Connection Server enables your test teams to maintain your company s schedules while improving testing - at the same time! Copyright 2003 Glimmerglass Networks Inc., all rights reserved. For additional information, see 2

3 MANAGE YOUR FIBER CONNECTIONS WITH YOUR BROWSER Even with good practices, manual patch-panel activities introduce tiny specs of dirt to the ends of the optical fibers and in the fiber connectors themselves. With older, slower standards this had little effect on the quality and reliability of optical signals. However, these common impurities can introduce significant optical signal degradation for OC-48 and faster circuits, leading QA personnel to waste time debugging test networks that ultimately results in poor test repeatability. Because the Glimmerglass System 300T is a Fiber Connection Server, test engineers can now manage individual fiber connections or all lab connections at once with a standard client computer. Either from their desks or by interacting with the Glimmerglass System 300T a continent away via the Internet, engineers can instantly view an accurate connection map and connection status of every fiber interface by name. They can also edit connections and save a connection-map to a standard text-file on any client machine. Want to make a change to a connection? Simply point-and-click using the powerful but easy-to-use System 300T web interface and connections are changed in milliseconds. Managing fiber assets has never been so fast, so accurate and so convenient. TRANSPARENCY LETS YOU MAKE MEASUREMENTS - AUTOMATICALLY QA teams can configure fiber networks in star or mesh topologies, stacked rings, or in complex combinations that connect devices-under-test to one another or to special optical test equipment. Because the Glimmerglass System 300T establishes transparent connections between fibers without regenerating optical signals, test engineers can measure signaling performance of their equipment. Engineers can measure optical power levels or ask the System 300T to insert a bit-error-rate tester (BERT) at any point in the network in order to measure the optical communications performance of their equipment. Because engineers can also Copyright 2003 Glimmerglass Networks Inc., all rights reserved. For additional information, see 3

4 program the System 300T, they can rewire their lab automatically. Measurements can be accurately made on new topologies throughout each night! FLEXIBILITY AND COMPATIBILITY THAT TEST ENGINEERS DEMAND Test engineers often introduce new equipment in their lab when their company plans to introduce a new product or when they purchase new test instruments. Over time, new network format standards arrive that often include increased transmission rates. Unlike non-transparent alternatives, the Glimmerglass System 300T does not require its users to connect a particular fiber that terminates at a device-under-test to one of its individual fiber interfaces or blades. The System 300T is so advanced that it does not have blades. Engineers can use any System 300T input fiber for the device s output- regardless of whether it is a SONET, SDH or Ethernet interface. Transparent connections liberate test labs, providing connection freedom that makes test engineers even more productive. Transparency also means the Glimmerglass System 300T is compatible with any network protocol and data rate combination, including OC-768 (40 Gbps) and beyond, making it an outstanding and cost effective investment that will prevent you from having to purchase additional interface blades or other equipment. ADVANCED CAPABILITIES Users can partition the Glimmerglass System 300T into groups of fiber ports so that different test teams can own separate sets of fibers and their associated connections. Multiple users can simultaneously interact with the Fiber Connection Server to query connection statuses, alter individual connections or reconfigure their entire set of fibers into new topologies, without affecting any other team s connections. The System 300T can also help test teams simulate network outages or cut fibers in order to test the operational characteristics of network elements under such conditions. It can disconnect more than sixteen fiber links in less than ten milliseconds. Copyright 2003 Glimmerglass Networks Inc., all rights reserved. For additional information, see 4

5 Additionally, the Glimmerglass System 300T can be configured with advanced features such as switched Photonic Multicasting, an all-optical point-to-multipoint data-stream replication capability. With this optional feature, test engineers can quickly generate traffic loads with a small number of traffic generators and distribute the traffic to multiple network elements or device ports in order to measure their performance under load. Multicasting is powerful because it is switched. Engineers may establish multicasting connections by using any of the System 300T s web interface, enabling any combination of input ports to be dynamically connected to any set of output ports. The Glimmerglass System 300T also supports additional optional features that can be valuable in testing environments. Besides providing very low insertion losses (typically 2 db ± 1 db) as standard, it also provides a uniform insertion loss option that drives all connections to have a common insertion loss within 0.25 db. Additionally, the System 300T supports an optional feature called Port Transposition that enables engineers to dynamically reconfigure the number of input and output port ratios, such as starting with NxN ports and reconfiguring to NxM, NxP, MxN, etc. Copyright 2003 Glimmerglass Networks Inc., all rights reserved. For additional information, see 5

6 ABOUT THE GLIMMERGLASS SYSTEM 300T Take control of your valuable fiber assets and take back wasted time. Transparent: o Increase test repeatability and accuracy o Reduce regression test times o Share expensive test equipment between network devices or remote locations o Automatically measure bit-error-rates and optical power levels on any fiber o Transparent connections support any network protocol and data-rate Connectivity: o Remotely "rewire" a network in milliseconds instead of days o Arrange equipment into any topology simply by using a browser o View and print accurate "to-the-second" fiber connection reports o Name each fiber port online to easily keep track of equipment connection pairs o Instantly simulate network outages and cut fibers DEMAND GREATER PRODUCTIVITY Reduce Lab down-time from days to milliseconds! Improve Test Repeatability store and quickly reestablish prior network topologies without introducing cabling mistakes. Improve Test Quality reduce the impurities that can collect in fiber optic connectors from manual reconfigurations and that often plaque the performance of high-speed circuits. Instantly establish specific network configurations to help speed regression testing. Save Time design and test a limited number of network topologies and avoid network reconfiguration mistakes that could lead to expensive equipment damage. Integrate the System 300T quickly into your existing test applications via its simple commandbased programming interface. Automated testing and execute measurements around-the-clock. Expand Your Lab s Reach using the System 300T s Ethernet web interface. Connect this Fiber Connection Server to a network and remotely interrogate fiber connections statuses and reconfigure fibers without additional on-the-scene personnel engaged in manual cabling activities. Contact Glimmerglass Networks to learn more about how our advanced products and customer-centric services can help your test team today Copyright 2003 Glimmerglass Networks Inc., all rights reserved. For additional information, see 6