Spirent improves net simulation

Spirent Communications this week announced Version 5.0 of the company’s software designed to support its Avalanche/2200 and Avalanche/SmartBits performance analysis systems and appliances.

With this software release, the company claims content service providers can accelerate their software deployments because they have tested large-scale multi-protocol traffic loads on their networks. Spirent’s Avalanche appliances coupled with the 5.0 software release can help users test if video-on-demand services, e-learning seminars and online streaming media broadcasts will traverse their networks without slowdowns.

The software now supports Microsoft Windows Media 8 Series and 9 Series over multiple transports, such as HTTP, TCP and UDP. The Avalanche appliances now support all of the major streaming protocols and can simulate users requesting more than 1.4 gigabits per second of traffic.

Spirent improved the network realism, better simulating IP networks by offering the ability to bind several IP subnets to a specific interface. The network realism feature also lets each interface act as a virtual router or virtual switch.

The company also improved the user realism features in its Avalanche appliances and software. The enhanced features support embedded session identifiers, and offers the ability to traverse a Web site that generates dynamic content.http://www.spirentcom.com 

The 5.0 software release will be available to Avalanche customers within 30 days. For more information, visit the company Web site at