Best-in-class IP Test Automation Products and Solutions

The changing nature of IP networking and the rate of technology advances have created pressures to bring new and innovative products to market faster with higher quality and performance. The competing pressures of time-to-market and high quality can both be accommodated by new, advanced testing techniques.

Since its inception, Ixia has been a leader in IP network testing solutions, and automation has always been a part of its vision. Ixia understands the unique needs of the network test engineer like no other company in the business. QA organizations around the world trust Ixia to produce high quality, easy-to-use testing tools that reduce testing times and produce reliable, repeatable test results. Ixia offers solutions that make automation easier than ever with:

• No more Tcl scripting
• No more text editors
• No more response parsing
• Unified tests for controlling the entire test bed

Test Conductor is a comprehensive test automation solution that is both easy to use and highly scalable. Test Conductor helps test engineering teams create, organize and catalog their tests using a full automation foundation framework, and schedule the tests to run unattended or on-demand. Automated device under test (DUT) configuration is an integral part of the test process. Multiple devices, as well as various test tools, can be coordinated through Test Conductor’s Composer, a unifying scripting interactive development environment (IDE).

Test Conductor is the unifying test environment for automating virtually any test tool. In concert with all of Ixia’s testing applications including IxNetwork, IxLoad, and IxChariot , Test Composer produces fully automated tests. It coordinates the automation of the physical setup of test bed, the configuration of the devices under test (DUTs) and the execution of the traffic generators. It collects and analyzes the results of the tests against customizable success criteria. Test Conductor also supports third-party test tools, making Test Conductor a single end-to-end automation framework for the entire test lab. Test Conductor’s unique features include:

• Simplified test authoring - shorten the test creation time using this full featured test authoring IDE.
• Centralized test repository - reduce the time spent finding tests with a centralized test repository that catalogues and versions test cases created by the entire test team.
• Organized regression manager– optimize test execution using test suites specifically designed for your testing processes.
• Outlook™ style scheduler - quickly and easily schedule tests and regressions to run regressions at specific times.
• Results Reporting and Trending- as products move through the development process, quality and performance trends become evident.

"Test Conductor addresses about 80 percent of our test automation needs out of the box and significantly enhances our in-house automation efforts," said Steve Mitchell, manager, Integrated Systems Test Teams at F5 Networks, the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. "With Test Conductor, we are able to reduce our regression cycles significantly, with less interaction from our testing experts, shortening testing cycles and enabling us to go to market more quickly."

Steve Mitchell, Manager, Integrated Systems Test Teams, F5 Networks

IxAutomate – In addition to Test Conductor, Ixia offers a comprehensive set of packaged tests that cover routing and switching, Carrier Ethernet, triple play, firewall and multicast tests. IxAutomate provides a simple user interface that allows the test engineer to customize these packaged tests to fit the objectives of the test and the environment to test. With IxAutomate and Test Conductor working together, these tests can be scheduled to run and results collected for later analysis.

Ixia Professional Services– Test automation can be a challenge if not properly planned and deployed. Ixia’s Professional Services team has the expertise to help makes the transition to automation smoothly. Our ProSrv organization assesses the environment, installs the infrastructure, establishes a set of automation best practices suited to the environment, and builds the first tests to get the automation rolling.