In 2003 Netli created their Application Delivery Network (ADN). This is considered by many to be the earliest "cloud-based WAN optimization" service. Now, "The Cloud" is a household word, and is being used as a platform for many business-critical services.
In the performance management arena, new tools and approaches have been and are being developed to address this rapidly-growing market. Netli has since become Akamai, and other cloud providers have appeared on the scene including Internap, Cloud Leverage, Virtela, and Aryaka. Read more »
I just finished listening-in on an excellent webinar put on by Shunra entitled "5 mistakes to avoid in data center relocations (DCRs)". I highly recommend it.
I listened-in because I always like to get another perspective from folks who are demonstrably smart at solving those problems. Shunra, by the way, is in the application performance engineering business, and produces many good and mature products that I consider extremely complimentary to Ixia's in solving similar issues in our common market. Read more »
Improved firewall support is now available for customers who want to use IxChariot in a strict firewall configuration, when specific source ports for all management connections must be set. This will entail a simple Console configuration. Endpoint machines need not be configured for this requirement.
Quality of service (QoS) validation has always been a strong force behind IxChariot's popularity. Recent additions to the QoS capability list for IxChariot include qWave QoS values for Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms. In addition, the IxChariot Performance Endpoint for Linux now supports the Layer 2 Priority QoS field or CoS (class of service) by setting the Priority field of the VLAN as defined by IEEE 802.1p specification. The user configuration for Linux to support L2 priority QoS is straightforward. Give us a call for details!
Ixia recently held an online webinar entitled, "Testing the Cloud: Optimizing Virtualized Data Center Performance." The webinar featured two speakers that focused on the technology as well as how Ixia can address it with several products. The webinar also featured a live Q&A session that was interesting and informative. If you missed it, you can still catch the videos at the Ixia Webinar website.
Keep in mind that Ixia hosts live webinars once or twice a month!
Intel recently posted benchmarks of an 8-core Nehalem-based server with two dual-port NICs based on their next-gen 82599 10Gbps Ethernet chipset. Using IxChariot, Intel was able to demonstrate more than 50 Gbps of throughput bidirectionally on a single server. Intel's notes on the test setup... Performance result of a bandwidth intensive network benchmark (IxChariot). Network throughput was measured on 64KB I/O size transfers between the test system and multiple network targets. Intel pre-production system with two Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series CPUs (2.93 GHz), 12 GB memory (6 x2GB DDR3 - 1066MHz) vs. Read more »
Samara Lynn of ChannelWeb posted an article this week on products that boost network performance and help you get the most out of your infrastructure investment. That's exactly how customers are using IxChariot every day - making sure that SLA's are met, QoS policies are handled properly by every device in the network and performance is optimized for network conditions. Read more »
Originally posted April 6, 2009
Ixia has posted a new test plan on virtualization performance to IxChariot.com. This test plan explains how to use IxChariot™ to validate and optimize a virtualized data center. IxChariot™ is unique as it can generate and analyze application traffic between many endpoints and the VMs answering questions such as:
What is the optimum VMs to processor ratio for peak network performance?
How do multiple NICs impact the performance of virtualized servers?
What is the effect of latency introduced by virtualization on application performance? Read more »
Originally posted on April 6, 2009 Are you ready for Microsoft Windows® 7? Let IxChariot help you prepare today! Responding to popular demand, Ixia’s engineering team has built new IxChariot™ endpoints for the public beta of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 OS. This endpoint has been fully tested on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Beta build 7000, and the new endpoints are now available in the IxChariot™ Endpoint Library. The Windows 7 endpoints are completely compatible with all your existing IxChariot™ endpoints, so you can transition your testing seamlessly to the new OS. Read more »
Originally published on February 2, 2009
Ixia just held a conference in San Diego with over 300 attendees from around the world. The participants were Ixia partners, systems engineers, trainers and network service professionals who use IxChariot.
During the conference we discussed the 2009 roadmap for IxChariot and the ways network engineers use IxChariot for different applications. One of the most interesting new applications was assessing the performance of datacenter virtualization. Server virtualization is one of the hottest trends in the IT industry. IT managers want to know: What impact does virtualization have on network performance? Read more »
Originally Posted on November 13, 2008 Since Ixia purchased Chariot in 2003, we have been continually surprised at the variety of ways customers find to use this product. We have worked with customers testing every kind of network and device. Examples of this innovation include low-bandwidth ship-to-shore communications nets, next generation MPLS backbones, and experimental mobile networks. A case in point is a service provider IT professional who while riding a train with his laptop, tested handoff time of their new on-board 802.11 network. It still amazes us to hear how much people love IxChariot and how excited they get at seminars and product training sessions. Read some of our customer testimonials to see for yourself. Read more »