Spirent and Huawei Complete the Highest Density 7.2Tbps Switch Line Card Forwarding Performance Tests

Spirent Communications (LSE: SPT), an industry leader in test and measurement, showcased its advanced testing solutions for carrier networks, access and Wi-Fi networks, datacenter networks, SDN & NFV and cloud systems, at the first HUAWEI CONNECT 2016. As a unique highlight, Spirent and Huawei completed a forwarding performance test of the CE-L72CM-FG 7.2Tbps line card for datacenter core switches.

The Huawei CloudEngine 12800 family switches are new generation high-performance core switches designed for datacenters and high-end campuses, supporting 72*100GE line cards – the highest density in the industry. They allow interconnecting networks within datacenters jumping from 10G/40G to 100G and server access links evolving from GE/10GE to 25GE/50GE/100GE. The CloudEngine switches will meet the revolutionary trend of significant data volume increase in existing datacenters and facilitate high-density 100GE interconnections of datacenters, ensuring high quality of network services and creating cloud datacenter networks with high-density and without restrictions for users.

The testing used Spirent TestCenter with high-density dX2 8-port 100G QSFP28 interface testing modules that are capable of verifying next generation datacenter architectures and routers. By generating 100G line-rate service traffic with various frame sizes, and providing live KPIs like packet loss, latency, jitter, frame sequence, error codes, and FCS errors to reflect the quality of transmission, the test successfully verifies the error-less forwarding capacities of the Huawei 72*100GE line cards at 100 percent line rate, as well as the ultra-low forwarding latency of less than 2 microseconds. Spirent dX2 testing modules are capable of verifying data plane quality of service (QoS) of thousands of streams at line rate, and testing complex routing, datacenter and access protocols on switches and routers.

The General Manager for Datacenter Networks of Huawei, Yu Li said, “At the HUAWEI CONNECT conference of this year we launched the 7.2Tbps switch line card – the highest density in the industry. We are pleased to partner with Spirent to verify the forwarding performance of the line card in a joint field test, which yields very satisfying testing results. Huawei is determined to keep cooperating with our industrial partners and building cloud networks with higher quality for our customers together.”

“Spirent has been helping network, network equipment and communication service providers, manufacturers and large enterprises to deliver superb user experiences,” said by Peter Tan, GM for Greater China and East Asia for Spirent Communications. “From service provider networks and enterprise datacenters to mobile communications and connected vehicles, Spirent has been cooperating with leading innovators. And that is why Spirent is taking an active part in the HUAWEI CONNECT conference of this year, and receives the honour of being the only testing vendor to cooperate with Huawei enterprise network product lines to successfully perform a joint on-site test to verify the single line card 7.2Tbps full line-rate errorless forwarding performance on a CloudEngine 12800 datacenter core switch. Spirent will work with Huawei to carry the partnership further in the development of virtualization, cloud computing, mobile backhaul, high-speed Ethernet and future networks.”

The demand for network bandwidth is increasing at an ever-higher rate. In an effort to satisfy the requirements of network equipment manufacturers in developing highly flexible products to support single-port 100/50/40/25/10GbE speed, Spirent released the first QSFP28 interface-based 100G/50G/40G/25G/10G Quint-speed testing module in the world for its flagship testing platform – Spirent TestCenter. This new module allows service providers and ultra-scale datacenters to deploy high-density multi-speed network infrastructures to satisfy such needs. Spirent’s dX3 12-port 5-speed testing module supports various technologies defined by IEEE standard Clause 74 Base-R FEC, Clause 108 RS-FEC, Clause 91 RS-FEC, Auto-Negotiation and Link-Training. It is capable of effectively testing 10G/40G/100G-based datacenter architectures and 25G/50G/100G-based new datacenter architectures, providing multi-speed support, high density and performance capabilities. Such flexibility is a must-have to verify the performance of next-generation data center optical fibers and routers.