Agilent Technologies’ Network Tester and N2X verify security, performance, stress resilience in industry’s leading IPv6 interoperability network trial

Tools enable faster time-to-insight, time-to-market for IPv6 transition

PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 2, 2006, Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced that its Network Tester and N2X products were selected as the sole test vendor for the latest phase of the industry’s leading IPv6 interoperability event, Moonv6. The Agilent Network Tester and N2X enabled vendors to assess their product’s real-world performance and resilience to network threats in an IPv6 environment. Agilent’s solutions provide the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio for validating real-world performance, stress resilience and scalability of next-generation network security and triple-play infrastructure equipment.

The Moonv6 multi-vendor interoperability tests were conducted the week of July 24 by the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) and University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL), with the goal of validating the maturity of network security devices and other service systems that support IPv6. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) will use the results to determine a baseline set of standards to which vendors must adhere in anticipation of the U.S. government-mandated IPv6 cutover beginning in 2008.

Agilent worked with the JITC and UNH-IOL to enable major equipment vendors to validate the real-world performance levels of their IPv6 implementations. Participants used Agilent’s application mix test methodology to exercise their equipment’s application aware functionality and defense mechanisms. Based on this methodology, the transition traffic forwarding test suite delivered a realistic distribution of seven application protocols over native IPv4 and IPv6, while simulating network threats and exploits. In addition, the new Agilent N2X E7896A DHCPv6 protocol-emulation software thoroughly stressed and measured the vendor equipment’s address-allocation capability, critical for future data, voice and video service environments.

“With its broad range of application protocols supported over IPv6, Agilent Network Tester validated the high performance of Check Point VPN-1 Power NGX IPv6Pack security gateway that performed advanced security enforcement using its full range of Application Intelligence, SmartDefense and Web Intelligence security capabilities,” said Tomer Robinson, lead quality assurance engineer, Check Point Software Technologies. “Network Tester also demonstrated our product’s high-availability cluster failover and stress resilience under loads of malicious traffic in a real-world IPv6 environment.”

“Agilent Network Tester allowed the FortiGate-3600, one of our enterprise-class multi-threat security systems, to demonstrate its IPv6 security enforcement capabilities in the Moonv6 real world network environment,” said Tom Hance, vice president, Federal Sales, for Fortinet. “Agilent’s test environment also allowed us to validate our performance of using a realistic mix of IPv4 and IPv6 application traffic at full Gigabit wire rates.”

“As implementations mature and proliferate, and applications emerge from the first stages of development, testing of the IPv6 interoperability and security with the realistic test methodologies and reliable analysis tools will be increasingly critical,” said Erica Williamsen, senior manager, Software and Applications, UNH-IOL. “By facilitating the transition and adoption of the new protocol, the event mirrors the global mobilization around IPv6 and promotes a deeper understanding of the technology and its implications.”

The Agilent Network Tester and N2X IPV4/IPV6 test solutions provide:

* Highest absolute routing protocol scalability for BGP4+, OSPFv3, IS-ISv6, RIPng, and simultaneous generation of IPv4, IPv6 and tunnelled IPv6/IPv4 traffic for realistic IPv6 implementation performance characterization;
* Industry’s broadest range of application and network access protocols for Internet data, VoIP, streaming Video, IPTV and P2P for unprecedented test realism and measurement precision;
* Simultaneously generated legitimate application traffic and security attacks to simulate conditions indistinguishable from real-world networks to validate the ultimate performance of IPv6 deployments; and
* Predefined real-world application mix test methodology and automated test library saving many months of engineering effort to develop and maintain test applications.

U.S. Pricing and Availability

The Agilent Network Tester is available now at a starting price of $25,000. More information is available at www.agilent.com/find/networktester. The Agilent N2X multiservice test solution is available now at a starting price of $20,000. More information is available at www.agilent.com/find/n2x.

Product photos are available at www.agilent.com/find/NetworkTester_image and www.agilent.com/find/N2X_image.
About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world’s premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company’s 20,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $5.1 billion in fiscal 2005. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

Contact Information

Johanna Vallecillo

Weber Shandwick, for Agilent

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