UNH-IOL Sets Stage for Advanced Ethernet Testing

Companies ready to test and demonstrate their 10 Gigabit Ethernet potential are being invited to participate in two separate events sponsored by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL).

The UNH-IOL has invited the Ethernet industry to help reach the goals of creating the most heterogeneous 10 Gig clustering network ever deployed and of launching the industry’s first 10GBASE-T group test, or “plugfest.” Although dates have not yet been set in stone, the events are planned for late summer and early fall 2007, respectively.

10 Gig Tech Summit

The 10 Gigabit Technology Summit (10 Gig Tech Summit) will create a data-center-class test network comprising participating companies’ 10 Gigabit network devices. Once it has been tested and debugged, the test bed will be used to support testing and demonstration of high-level business and other 10 Gigabit-capable applications such as financial databases, storage arrays and computer clusters.

The 10 Gig Tech Summit will put the market readiness of 10 Gigabit Ethernet to the test. Test plans will encompass multiple flavors of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, including LR/SR/ER optics, LRM optics, CX4 copper, KR and KX4 backplane Ethernet ports. Possible applications for 10 Gigabit networking to be tested include iWARP and RDMA services, iSCSI targets and initiators and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching.

10GBASE-T Plugfest

Strict vendor-to-vendor interoperability will be the focus of the test lab’s autumn 10GBASE-T plugfest, an industry first. The group test is open to all interested participants for a $6K testing fee and free for members of the laboratory’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium (10GEC). A year-round QA testing and debugging program, the UNH-IOL 10 Gigabit Ethernet consortium is made up of companies that have agreed to provide their products to a collective test bed to which all other members have equal, controlled access. Under a collaborative testing model, the cost of acquiring test equipment and experienced engineering talent is distributed evenly across the consortium’s membership.

The week-long group test is slated to include auto-negotiation testing, electrical verification, startup sequence debugging and an array of multi-vendor interoperability tests. The UNH-IOL has provided objective test reports for hundreds of products in every major Ethernet technology since 1988.

UNH-IOL engineers will be demonstrating the test lab’s in-house Gigabit Ethernet analysis tool in booth #2458 at Interop Las Vegas, May 20-25 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

“From a technical standpoint, 10 Gig is ready,” said Jeff Lapak, UNH-IOL 10 Gigabit Ethernet consortium manager. “It’s time for the companies making the boxes with 10 Gig ports and those making the enterprise and data-center applications to refine their implementations and prove to the industry that there is nothing holding back the market but the market itself.”

Further information is available from the UNH-IOL by e-mailing 10gsummit@iol.unh.edu.

About the UNH-IOL

Founded in 1988, the UNH-IOL is one of the networking industry’s premier independent proving grounds for developing technologies. Approximately 200 companies use the UNH-IOL’s 32,000+ sq. foot facility to extend their development and quality assurance efforts by testing and fine-tuning technologies, protocols and products for multi-vendor interoperability and conformance to data communications networking standards. For more information, visit http://www.iol.unh.edu.