WO2006072707A1

WO2006072707A1 - Method and device for testing an item of equipment in a telecommunications network

Info

Publication number: WO2006072707A1
Application number: PCT/FR2005/003292
Authority: WO
Inventors: François Bougant; Martin; Julie Gourdon
Original assignee: France Telecom
Priority date: 2005-01-05
Filing date: 2005-12-23
Publication date: 2006-07-13
Also published as: FR2880493A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for testing an item of equipment (10) of a telecommunications network to be implemented while cutting a physical link (1) of said network. According to the invention, said method comprises operations consisting of effecting at least one diversion of flow on said physical link (1), disconnecting the item of equipment (10) to be tested from the diverted flow (5), and connecting this item of equipment in series to at least one testing device (20). The invention is used for analyzing and regulating high-speed data flow.

Description

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR TESTING EQUIPMENT IN A TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORK

The present invention relates to a method and a device for testing a telecommunication network equipment intended to be implemented in cut-off of a physical link of said network.

The invention finds a particularly advantageous application in the field of telecommunications, and more particularly in the equipment for analysis and regulation of large-scale high-speed data flow.

Today, telecommunication networks have physical links that are subject to intense data traffic at increasingly higher speeds of up to 10 Gbps. Such flows are found in particular between routers and switches in the access networks to the Internet for example.

It is thus understood that the circulation of the data on the physical links of the networks at these levels of scale and throughput requires the finest possible analysis as well as a regulation of traffic which can involve the limitation of bandwidth, the discrimination of protocols, redirecting data flow from one machine to another, etc.

For this purpose, we use, in a conventional manner, specific equipment implemented in connection cleavage in order to analyze the flow and optionally to regulate.

However, these analysis and regulation equipment must in turn be tested to ensure that they meet the specifications imposed on them correctly.

Testing traffic analysis / regulation equipment requires the use of high-speed data traffic that is supposed to come from a network with many communicating machines. There are currently two methods for feeding this equipment with such traffic that consist of:

either to arrange the equipment to be tested by cutting one or more physical links in a large-scale high-speed network, or to connect this equipment to a traffic generator on a dedicated physical link.

However, these known test methods have a number of disadvantages:

when the equipment to be tested is disposed of in a physical link of the network, it is in so-called "intrusive" mode. If it is configured to regulate traffic, the device then acts directly on the network. It can even disturb it in the event of a malfunction, the tests in charge of these equipments can be carried out until to note their instability or their rupture. It is therefore difficult to apply this test method in a network operated by a telecommunications operator for commercial purposes.

It is still possible to deploy a network comparable in size to an operating network and used only for testing, but this is very expensive and only a few companies have such a network but can not generate traffic comparable to their network. operational.

the traffic generators make it possible to simulate traffic based on a communication protocol like IP, and with specificities to be defined. However, this equipment is limited by:

^* The power of their microprocessor which can be considered in the simulated traffic all the complexity of real traffic (especially that of the application layer or layer 7 when it is necessary to consider all lower layers) in terms of number of machines communicating, number of connections, duration of connections, variation of flows over time, number of protocols, etc., ^* the throughput capacity of their network interfaces,

^* the significant time and cost of updating these traffic simulators when new communication protocols are emerging. Moreover, it is difficult to obtain real-world traffic, because protocol-level exchanges at the session level (TCP) and at the application level

(http, ftp, icmp, etc.) are greatly simplified, as current traffic generators can only simulate one application at a time during a test session.

Also, the technical problem to be solved by the object of the present invention is to propose a method of testing a telecommunication network equipment intended to be implemented by cutting off a physical link of said network, which would make it possible to test equipment analysis and regulation with real traffic and without disrupting the data network.

The solution to the technical problem that is posed, according to the present invention, in that said method comprises the operations consisting in performing at least one flow bypass on said physical link, disposing the equipment to be tested by breaking the derived flow, and to connect said equipment in series to at least one test apparatus.

Thus, it is understood that the method according to the invention is based on a replication, in a parallel and independent test network, of the real traffic flowing in the data network, which makes it possible, on the one hand, to ensure representativeness from the test stream to the actual stream, and on the other hand, the integrity of the initial data network.

In addition to the case of a simple direct flow network, two other particular embodiments of the test method according to the invention are envisaged.

Indeed, the invention provides that the equipment to be tested is arranged in break of derived flows on physical links of a network sharing load.

Furthermore, the invention proposes that the equipment to be tested is arranged in break of a flow derived on a network link with flow redirection, said equipment being connected in series to a first test device for the direct flow and to a second test apparatus for the redirected stream. Finally, the invention also relates to a device for testing a telecommunication network equipment intended to be implemented by cutting off a physical link of said network, remarkable in that said device comprises at least one flow bypass on said physical link. , the equipment to be tested being arranged in cutoff of the derived flow, and at least one test apparatus connected in series with said equipment.

The following description with reference to the accompanying drawings, given by way of non-limiting examples will make it clear what the invention consists of and how it can be achieved.

Figure 1 is a diagram of a device for implementing the test method according to the invention in the case of a bidirectional optical link of a network.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a device for implementing the test method according to the invention in the case of two bidirectional optical links sharing the load of a network.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of a device for implementing the test method according to the invention in the case of a bidirectional optical link of a network with redirection of flows. FIG. 1 shows a device for testing a telecommunication network equipment 10 intended to be implemented, in operation, by cutting off a physical link 1 between sets 2, 3 of communicating machines, such as routers and routers. access network switches. For the purposes of the test of the equipment 10, a bypass of the flow flowing on the link 1 is carried out by means of an optical coupler 4 integrated cut-off of said link.

The equipment 10 to be tested, configured as a simple analyzer or as a traffic regulator, is arranged in break of the flow 5 derived by the coupler 4. The flows received from the links 1a and 1b forming the link 1 are respectively applied to the terminals 11a and 11 b receiving equipment

10 to test.

A test apparatus 20 is connected to said equipment 10 so as to respectively connect the transmission terminals 12a, 12b of the equipment 10 to the receiving terminals 21a, 21b of the apparatus 20. This so-called "serial" connection arrangement characterizes how the test apparatus is wired to equipment 10 under test. The equipment to be tested and the test apparatus are like machines which may be identical or manufactured by different manufacturers.

The test apparatus 20 analyzes the outgoing traffic of the equipment 10 which analyzes or regulates the derivative stream 5.

If the traffic is analyzed twice, this makes it possible to compare the measurements made by the equipment 10 and the apparatus 20, the concordance of the measurements then showing the reliability of the equipment 10.

If the traffic is regulated then analyzed, this makes it possible to verify that the regulation operated by the equipment 10 has been correctly carried out and that the equipment 10 is reliable.

FIG. 2 illustrates a variant of the device of FIG. 1 in which the physical link consists of two bidirectional links V and 1 "of the load-sharing network, According to this model, the traffic linked to a communication between two communicating machines 2 and 3 is distributed over two physical links 1 'and 1 "of the network. This type of architecture is currently applied to large scale IP transport networks.

In this exemplary embodiment, optical couplers 4 'and 4 "are integrated in clipping of the optical links 1' and 1" of the network.

The data can thus be transmitted on one link or another. Thus, at a request from the machine 2 to the machine 3 transmitted on the link a, the response of the machine 3 can be transmitted on the link 1 "B. The equipment 10 'analyzes or regulates the traffic on both links and 1 ". FIG. 3 shows another embodiment of the device of the invention in the case of a bidirectional link of the network with redirection of flows.

In this example, the equipment 10 "to be tested can be used to redirect some of the traffic to another link or another machine according to certain criteria, such as the traffic load distribution, the client identity and the invoked service.

The equipment 10 "is configured to redirect part of the data stream to a terminal machine 6. A second test apparatus 20 ", which may be identical to the first apparatus 20, is cut off from the link between the equipment 10" and the terminal machine 6 to analyze the traffic redirected to said machine 6.

Claims

1. A method for testing a telecommunication network equipment (10; 10 '; 10 ") intended to be implemented in clipping of a physical link (1; 1', 1") of said network, characterized in that said method comprises performing at least one flow diversion on said physical link (1; 1 ', 1 "), arranging the equipment (10; 10'; 10") to be tested for breaking the derived flux (5; 5 ', 5 ") and to connect said equipment in series to at least one test apparatus (20; 20'; 20").

2. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that the test apparatus is similar to the equipment to be tested.

3. Method according to one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that the equipment (10 ') to be tested is arranged in the form of cut-off fluxes (5', 5 ") on physical links (1 ', 1" ) a load sharing network.

4. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that the equipment (10 ") to be tested is arranged in break of a derivative stream (5) on a link (1) of the network with flow redirection, said equipment being connected in series to a first test apparatus (20) for the direct stream and to a second test apparatus (20 ") for the redirected stream.

5. Method according to claim 4, characterized in that the first and second test apparatus are identical.

6. Apparatus for testing a telecommunication network equipment (10; 10 '; 10 ") intended to be implemented as a cut-off of a physical link (1; 1', 1") of said network, characterized in that said device comprises at least one flow bypass on said physical link (1; 1 ', 1 "), the equipment to be tested being disposed in a cut-off of the derived flux (5; 5', 5"); and at least one test apparatus (20; 20 '; 20 ") connected in series with said equipment (10).

7. Device according to claim 6, characterized in that the test apparatus is similar to the equipment to be tested.

8. Device according to one of claims 6 or 7, characterized in that the equipment (10 ') to be tested is arranged in a break of derivative flows (5 ^!, 5 ") on physical links (1', 1" ) of the load sharing network.

9. Device according to claim 6, characterized in that the equipment (10 ") to be tested is arranged in cutoff of a derivative stream (5) on a link (1) of the network with flow redirection, said equipment being connected in series to a first test apparatus (20) for the direct stream and to a second test apparatus (20 ") for the redirected stream.

10. Device according to claim 9, characterized in that the first and second test apparatus are identical.