Empirix Lowers Hammer with Edge to Emulate Realistic User Behavior Prior to Deploying Services
May 20, 2009
By Tim Gray, TMCnet Web Editor
Empirix (News - Alert) Inc. has once again ramped up its Hammer testing line with the introduction today of the Hammer Edge, an intelligent, high performance realistic behavior emulation tool geared toward optimizing services and products for IP communications networks.
With this latest product, the service quality assurance solutions for IP communications companies is now offering network equipment manufacturers, service providers and large enterprises the ability to emulate complex, unpredictable user behavior and multidimensional data traffic during the pre-deployment phase.
The Bedford, Massachusetts-based Empirix specializes in helping organizations adopt complex communications solutions, counts planning, assessment, and development; focused testing during roll-out; and on-going contact center testing and monitoring as part of its technology lifecycle.
Since 1992, Empirix’s Hammer testing and monitoring solutions have helped Network Equipment Manufacturers (NEMs), Service Providers and Enterprise Contact Centers successfully transition to new technologies including Unified Communications (News - Alert) IP Contact Centers, VoIP, NGN, and IMS-based networks.
The new Hammer Edge is also geared for the same market and is designed to ensure the quality and performance of products and services, while reducing time to market, increasing service revenues and improving test productivity, according to Brock Hockman, director of product management at Empirix.
“In a challenging economic climate, pre-deployment testing is critically important to ensure the successful roll-out of a new service or product. Organizations need to anticipate the realistic impact of complex, all-IP data traffic on real-time services such as voice, video and gaming,” said Hockman.
Sonus Networks was one such company looking for a comprehensive, multiservice testing tool that would allow them to emulate realistic scenarios with limited time and resources.
“Of the solutions we tested, we found Empirix’s Hammer Edge was the best product for our needs,” said David Tipping, vice president, service providers America at Sonus Networks (News - Alert). “We were able to quickly integrate Hammer Edge into our test methodology, resulting in a more efficient and independent verification of high call rates and large numbers of concurrent calls.”
The Hammer Edge is based on RUB/E technology with the specific intention of companies to emulate the realistic behavior of users, devices and network topology configurations; test realistic security scenarios; and predict user experience of data, video and voice applications, as an aggregate, in the pre-deployment phase.
“Hammer Edge provides an integrated and intelligent solution that tests multiple scenarios typical of next generation networks, ensuring successful deployments and the highest quality experience for end users,” said Hockman.
In fact, all the Hammer testing solutions from Empirix emulate users and devices interacting with voice-centric applications, including making calls, verifying features, measuring voice quality and determining performance, as well as proving system and multi-vendor interoperability of VoIP, NGN and IMS architectures.
As TMCnet recently reported, Empirix has been snapping up awards in recent years for its VoIP Testing and Monitoring solutions and last month were again honored when Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) award the company with its 2009 Global VoIP Test & Monitoring Equipment Market Leadership of the Year Award.
Hammer Edge emulates the realistic behavior of users and devices required to test elements at the network edge, including border controllers, firewalls and deep packet inspection devices, as well as security and application level gateways––in both secure and unsecured network topologies.
Hammer Edge emulates millions of users on a single chassis with high performance and realistic testing of multiservice scenarios. The system can be easily incorporated into existing test plans and automation environments.
Tim Gray is a Web Editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Tim’s articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by Tim Gray