Ixia announces the IxLoad SIP solution, the first VoIP test platform to provide both functional and bulk VoIP testing. Ixia’s VoIP test solution provides an environment of real-world triple-play traffic that accurately models live network environments. Using Ixia’s test platform and the IxLoad SIP 3.40 solution, a single test chassis emulates millions of realistic call scenarios — surpassing the scale of most network appliances.

In the past, network equipment manufacturers and service providers used test equipment to perform either functional or stress testing, but not both. In addition, functional tests were performed on a very low scale for protocol correctness and stress tests used simplistic scenarios — not real-world conditions.

“Problems occur in modern VoIP networks because of stress conditions not directly related to the VoIP protocols,” said Jessy Cavazos, senior analyst with Frost & Sullivan. “Witness a recent network outage that was caused by a massive flood of connections to the network following a network update. Real-world VoIP testing can uncover such problems before they become very expensive.”

IxLoad SIP provides network equipment manufacturers a test solution needed to perform bulk VoIP testing on a wide range of SIP and RTP based devices, including SBCs, security appliances and IP-based PBXs. Full state machine and message content control assures complete VoIP protocol testing for all vendors’ devices. Protocol tests are quickly scaled and combined with the other components of triple-play traffic for a real-world VoIP test.

“IxLoad is the complete solution for VoIP and triple-play network testing because it addresses all aspects of voice delivery in a multiservice network, along with the video, Internet data and infrastructure traffic that accompany voice,” said Victor Alston, senior vice president of Product Development at Ixia.

Service providers and enterprises will find IxLoad SIP ideal for automated bulk VoIP testing. Regressions are performed easily with real-world scenarios that ensure that small changes do not cause unexpected outages.

IxLoad SIP emulates user agents that use SIP and RTP. Default configurations and state machines can be constructed for any session lifetime scenario. Message contents may also be customized to test SBCs that perform the deep packet inspections required to enforce QoS policies, thus ensuring that subscribers receive flawless video, high-quality voice calls and high-throughput Internet service.