Spirent Communications has successfully completed joint tests with Brocade to showcase 3GPP-compliant NB-IoT solutions. The joint tests utilized the Brocade vC-SGN solution, with 3GPP NB-IoT enhancements to the S1-AP interface, and Spirent Landslide, which emulates NB-IoT devices, LTE base stations and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) functions.
The tests demonstrated compliance to 3GPP NB-IoT standards, the ability to support IoT device connections from up to 50,000 LTE base stations (eNBs) and automatic scaling of the vC-SGN for variable loads.
Spirent Landslide enables network equipment providers (NEPs) and service providers (SPs) to validate the functionality and performance of mobile networks and services across the lifecycle phases of development, deployment and operations.
With newly released IoT test features, Spirent Landslide enables NEP development teams to ensure network functions are ready for the scale and wide range of QoS capabilities required by IoT. SPs can also use the solution to validate services across multiple network slices using the 3GPP DECOR feature.
Landslide may be deployed as a virtual test agent (VTA) as part of Spirent VisionWorks active assurance solutions. Leveraging the Landslide VTA, Spirent VisionWorks solutions enable SP deployment and operations teams to automate turn-up verification and SLA monitoring of new IoT services and enabling network functions.
The Brocade vC-SGN solution is built on top of the Brocade Virtual Core for Mobile software, which is designed to transform mobile networks by providing operators with the flexibility to scale the control plane, user plane, and session plane independently. This architecture is tailor-made for implementation of control-plane-centric network functions, such as a C-SGN, and can easily scale to accommodate the high growth in IoT devices that is anticipated by the industry.
“Spirent has worked closely with Brocade to push the boundaries of cutting-edge technologies, demonstrating the performance and scalability of these new technologies at an early stage,”said Nishi Kant, Vice President of Mobile Networking at Brocade.
“Our collaboration around NB-IoT showcases the scalability of our 3GPP-compliant NB-IoT network functions and our commitment to promoting an open ecosystem.”
Dave Stehlin, general manager of the Lifecycle Service Assurance business segment at Spirent commented,
“For the NB-IoT open ecosystem to thrive, it needs a coherent set of testing and assurance capabilities that span the IoT lifecycle from development to operations,”.
“Our collaboration with Brocade demonstrates Landslide’s ability to evaluate the latest 3GPP-compliant NB-IoT network functions. As part of our VisionWorks suite, Landslide’s advanced emulation and test capabilities may also be extended to deployment and operations use cases.”
For more information on NB-IoT, performance and scalability testing in mobile networks and Spirent and Brocade solutions, visit the Spirent and Brocade booths at MWC 2017 (Spirent: Hall 6, Stand 6J37; Brocade: Hall 3, Stand 3K10).
