Spirent Showcases World’s Highest Density 400/200/100/50 Gigabit Ethernet Test System at OFC 2019

Spirent Communications, a leading provider of test, measurement, assurance and analytics solutions for next-generation devices and networks, showcased the world’s highest density 400/200/100/50 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) test system at OFC 2019.

The Spirent pX3 400G Appliance is the industry’s first 8-port 1U-rack-mountable solution for testing 400/200/100/50 GbE. It is also the world’s highest density QSFP-DD test solution, designed to validate the forwarding performance and Quality of Service (QoS) of high-scale, next-generation-enabled, multi-terabit routers and switches, all contained in a single rack space. 

During OFC, Spirent partnered with the Ethernet Alliance, Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and their members in several interactive demonstrations, featuring the latest test and validation solutions, with real-world applications of Ethernet interoperability between different devices and form factors. The exhibit included a live 400GbE network spanning multiple booths. Live Flex Ethernet (FlexE) traffic over the 400GbE network was demonstrated using the Spirent FlexE 100GBASE-R PHY solution, with the ability to test both standard and FlexE traffic to meet today’s complex testing needs. Both the 100GBASE-R PHY solution and the pX3 400G Appliance have been named honorees in the 2019 Lightwave Innovation Reviews.

Additional demonstrations by Spirent included the world’s highest-density native QSFP28 quint-speed series of test modules, supporting 100/50/40/25/10GbE from a single interface as part of the joint display, delivering the robust connectivity demanded by emerging markets and applications.

“It’s an exciting time as Ethernet speeds continue to evolve, and customers continue to design and develop solutions to meet future network requirements,” said Abhitesh Kastuar, general manager of Spirent’s Cloud and IP Business Unit. “Our innovation and test capabilities make Spirent the right partner for companies that are racing to bring their leading-edge network technologies to market first. We have been working with all the major network equipment vendors to deliver new chipsets so they can design and develop next-generation 400G products, enabling networking and services vendors to deploy faster and more reliably.”

“When building out new data centers, operators are looking to deploy the greatest amount of compute and networking resources with the smallest footprint. To that end, they are increasingly looking at 12.8Tbps switches with support for 100-400GbE,” said Amit Sanyal, VP of Product Management and Marketing at Innovium. “We are excited to partner with Spirent to demonstrate 100-400GbE interoperability of our low-latency, programmable 12.8Tbps switch silicon at OFC 2019 using Spirent TestCenter, a highly scalable switch, router and access testing solution.”