[Kevin OBrien]

Right now we are working on a close partnership with Mellanox to add high-speed networking coverage to our site. As we expand more and more into the enterprise front, we figured why not start to go after some 10Gb and 40Gb equipment

If any of you have any questions or comments, I will start building a parts list of stuff we have on hand and tests we are working on.

[Brian]

And Infiniband...also have a few pieces of Emulex in as well. We're going to be paying more attention to network protocols going forward.

[continuum]

If the wireless router tests are going to continue, can you guys setup something at least semi-useful as far as range/throughput testing? Current test procedures here don't seem very useful.

As SmallNetBuilder found it's kinda hard to be truly reliable on this, but people still think a lot about things like range and how it affects throughput.

http://www.smallnetb...ducts-revison-6



Getting back on topic, as far as 10G testing goes, looks like Mellanox and Emulex both only does adapters and switches? I was thinking they'd be more like Ixia or Spirent as far as making test equipment? (assume there's some grand plan here I am not aware of )

[Kevin OBrien]

On the wireless testing front, we wanted to stay as close to storage as possible without going into the radio band or routing benchmarks. It was more of getting our feet wet in that area and having some equipment to play around with building future tests. I kind of want to get a Wi-Fi testing rig built in the middle of a forest outside of any 2.4 or 5Ghz interference.

On the 10G and 40G testing setup, first step is getting the equipment to start connecting systems for system level benchmarks, then it will slowly filter down to device level. The key thing right now is getting ready for some of the faster assemblies coming into the office that can saturate 1G and 10G networks

[continuum]

I have customers deep into 40G already. Normally they provide us with appropriate testing blades for our Spirent chassis to test what we build for 'em in-house... but holy crap 40G is still pricey.


And so long as you guys are doing some sort of actual testing that really produces reproducable numbers... seat of the pants ain't enough in my book.