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Broadband & Mobile Featured Article
March 07, 2008
Navtel Communications' SIPFlex Test Solution for IMS
By Richard Grigonis Executive Editor, IP Communications Group
Testing IMS
network elements can be quite a challenge (or an exhilarating experience, depending on how technically-oriented you happen to be). Just ask the companies who were part of the fourth IMS Plugfest held February 25 to 29, 2008, at the UNH InterOp Lab (IOL) in New Hampshire. Systems and applications used in the IMS network applications must be totally interoperable with other equipment, and yet must exist in a dynamic, hybrid network environment that is never “fully IMS”. One method of dealing with the ever-increasing complexity of testing IMS services is by employing test lab automation.
Recently Navtel (News - Alert) Communications, (www.navtelcom.com) a leader in IMS, VoIP and IP to IP gateway test solutions, announced the release of SIPFlex, a comprehensive, flexible, yet easy-to-use IMS Test solution targeted at testing IMS networks and services.
The SIPFlex application is a fully IMS compliant test application that simplifies the creation of any SIP message and message flow sequence representing valid, invalid or proprietary flows. The intuitive graphical user interface offers the flexibility to easily modify virtually every aspect of SIP state machine including timers, default behavior and protocol error scenarios. It allows users to define hardware-based time-intervals to measure within the call flows to calculate in real-time the response latency (Key Performance Indicators) of the IMS network. The SIPFlex application leverages the industry leading media test capabilities of the Navtel InterWatch platform to enable the testing of both the control and media aspects of IMS networks. Feature, negative, performance, regression and load tests for IMS devices and services can now be executed using a single test application - obsoleting the need to invest in separate test hardware and software for the various phases of IMS product development cycle.
Using SIPFlex several IMS service flows can be simulated simultaneously to create different distributions of traffic profiles. For example, a traffic load of 500 sessions per second could consist of the follow distribution; 20 percent presence, 10 percent Instant messaging, 50 percent voice calls with a percentage mix of various class 5 features ( e.g. 50 percent basic, 25 percent Call Hold, 25 percent Call Transfer ), 10 percent conference calls and 10 percent Third Party Call Control (3PCC). In addition, success rates and causes of failure for each service can be easily configured. Message floods can be simulated including stateful and stateless registration floods to characterize the impact of Denial of Service attacks on the quality of the subscribers’ experience.
The SIP Flex application also supports IMS AKA with optional IPsec (secure VPN tunneling protocol) and simulates the routing components of IMS clouds (including IMS User Equipment and P/S/I-CSCF) to create simplified IMS test beds. It can be used to test IMS P/I/S-CSCFs, IP Centrex Servers, Conference Servers, Session Border Controllers and Presence Servers.
Richard Grigonis is an internationally-known technology editor and writer. Prior to joining TMC as Executive Editor of its IP Communications Group, he was the Editor-in-Chief of VON Magazine (News - Alert) from its founding in 2003 to August 2006. He also served as the Chief Technical Editor of CMP Media’s Computer Telephony magazine, later called Communications Convergence (News - Alert) (News — Alert), from its first year of operation in 1994 until 2003. In addition, he has written five books on computers and telecom (including the Computer Telephony Encyclopedia and Dictionary of IP Communications). To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
network elements can be quite a challenge (or an exhilarating experience, depending on how technically-oriented you happen to be). Just ask the companies who were part of the fourth IMS Plugfest held February 25 to 29, 2008, at the UNH InterOp Lab (IOL) in New Hampshire. Systems and applications used in the IMS network applications must be totally interoperable with other equipment, and yet must exist in a dynamic, hybrid network environment that is never “fully IMS”. One method of dealing with the ever-increasing complexity of testing IMS services is by employing test lab automation.
Recently Navtel (News - Alert) Communications, (www.navtelcom.com) a leader in IMS, VoIP
and IP to IP gateway test solutions, announced the release of SIPFlex, a comprehensive, flexible, yet easy-to-use IMS Test solution targeted at testing IMS networks and services.The SIPFlex application is a fully IMS compliant test application that simplifies the creation of any SIP
message and message flow sequence representing valid, invalid or proprietary flows. The intuitive graphical user interface offers the flexibility to easily modify virtually every aspect of SIP state machine including timers, default behavior and protocol error scenarios. It allows users to define hardware-based time-intervals to measure within the call flows to calculate in real-time the response latency (Key Performance Indicators) of the IMS network. The SIPFlex application leverages the industry leading media test capabilities of the Navtel InterWatch platform to enable the testing of both the control and media aspects of IMS networks. Feature, negative, performance, regression and load tests for IMS devices and services can now be executed using a single test application - obsoleting the need to invest in separate test hardware and software for the various phases of IMS product development cycle.Using SIPFlex several IMS service flows can be simulated simultaneously to create different distributions of traffic profiles. For example, a traffic load of 500 sessions per second could consist of the follow distribution; 20 percent presence, 10 percent Instant messaging, 50 percent voice calls with a percentage mix of various class 5 features ( e.g. 50 percent basic, 25 percent Call Hold, 25 percent Call Transfer ), 10 percent conference calls and 10 percent Third Party Call Control (3PCC). In addition, success rates and causes of failure for each service can be easily configured. Message floods can be simulated including stateful and stateless registration floods to characterize the impact of Denial of Service attacks on the quality of the subscribers’ experience.
The SIP Flex application also supports IMS AKA with optional IPsec (secure VPN
tunneling protocol) and simulates the routing components of IMS clouds (including IMS User Equipment and P/S/I-CSCF) to create simplified IMS test beds. It can be used to test IMS P/I/S-CSCFs, IP Centrex Servers, Conference Servers, Session Border Controllers and Presence Servers.Richard Grigonis is an internationally-known technology editor and writer. Prior to joining TMC as Executive Editor of its IP Communications Group, he was the Editor-in-Chief of VON Magazine (News - Alert) from its founding in 2003 to August 2006. He also served as the Chief Technical Editor of CMP Media’s Computer Telephony magazine, later called Communications Convergence (News - Alert) (News — Alert), from its first year of operation in 1994 until 2003. In addition, he has written five books on computers and telecom (including the Computer Telephony Encyclopedia and Dictionary of IP Communications). To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
