Traffic Generators
The only suitable answer is “because I tested it”.
Whether you make or rely on network and security devices, you need to see how they’ll cope when deployed – and the only way to know is to test them under all the scenarios for which they’ll need to excel.
Our traffic generators create the traffic types, attacks, and scenarios under which your network, cloud, and security tools and infrastructure will need to perform – both now and in future.
Common cloud and network traffic generation applications include:
Networks continue to grow to carry our digital needs of today and tomorrow. With so much at stake, the devices on which they’re built need to be thoroughly tested, and our traffic generation tools let you test, verify and characterise their performance, functionality, and behaviour up to 1.6Tbps.
As network speeds increase and footprints expand, they need to be tested to ensure they consistently perform as expected.
Whether you want to perform RFC 2544 or Y.1654 service activation tests, or even include stateful application traffic and multiple protocols, we have your needs covered.
Testing SerDes is essential for ensuring reliable, high-speed data transmission by verifying signal integrity, timing accuracy, and functional correctness. At gigabit speeds, even minor issues can lead to data errors or link failures.
Our network traffic generators enable you to validate performance, interoperability, and compliance with standards with critical tests like eye diagrams, bit error rate, and clock recovery.
Learn more in our SerDes testing whitepaper.
Please contact us to discuss your needs.
Every once in a while, a high profile outage reminds us that software and firmware updates can present unforeseen issues.
To help ensure all updates go as planned, our traffic generation tools let you regression test your network devices before and after software and firmware updates to help avoid damaging outages from taking place.
Part of the test and automation capability we provide to leading Altnet CityFire, includes the ability to test existing network infrastructure when updates are applied.
As networks undergo continuous upgrades, you need to know if they’re capable of reliably delivering new services and applications.
Our performance endpoints can simulate application traffic and test against KPIs like throughput, packet loss, jitter, delay, MOS, and OTT video, to provide an instant performance assessment both before and after deployment.
Whether you want to evaluate content-aware devices, optimise virtualised data centres, or even validate every element of your data centre to ensure the performance of mission-critical app delivery, you need to know how everything will work before going live.
Our scalable traffic generation tools can simulate millions of real-world end-user environments to battle-test content-aware devices, data centres, applications, and multi-play services, so you can launch them with the confidence of knowing exactly how they’ll perform when deployed.
Common security attack generation applications include:
Hybrid work and rising cyber threats have driven adoption of security models like SASE and Zero Trust. However, routing all traffic through a SASE platform can cause latency and performance issues, especially for users far from the SASE provider’s nearest Point of Presence.
To ensure upgrades to SASE and ZTNA platforms go as planned, our scalable traffic generation solutions can send application and security traffic over authenticated sessions on a mass scale to test security policy and effectiveness.
We can also equip you to accurately attribute quality of experience issues to network and proximity based delays.
As IoT devices proliferate, managing networks becomes more complex due to the diversity in device systems, protocols, and security standards. This increases the risk of security vulnerabilities that must be robustly addressed.
Our IoT testing solution automates multi-standard security checks through a simple interface and API. It quickly detects vulnerabilities, including firmware flaws, weak protocols, poor encryption, and guessable passwords, and is updated regularly to reflect the latest threats. This helps you improve security and protect your brand reputation.
Security misconfigurations and environment drift can open the door to threats that at worst can be exploited by criminals, or at best go undetected until the next pen test.
Our breach & attack simulation platform emulates real-world attacks to persistently test your security infrastructure, find vulnerabilities as soon as they emerge, and provide step by step instructions to close the gaps.
Next-gen firewalls offer a convenient strategy for addressing multiple threat vectors with one solution. But their datasheets weren’t written with your environment in mind, so how do you make an informed choice over the best firewall for your particular needs?
Key considerations often include:
- What happens to the throughput when you switch on traffic decryption?
- How many connections can the firewall handle per second?
- Can it still send traffic logs when multiple services are enabled?
Our security attack platforms provide the answers you seek for each firewall under consideration because they can generate real-life stateful traffic, simulate application protocols, initiate attacks, inject malware, and show you how each firewall performs in context to your unique environment.
And if you don’t have the internal resource needed for carrying out such tests, our professional service Engineers can do this for you to ensure you identify the best firewall for your needs. Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
To reduce the risk of depending on one vendor for all security layers, SecOps teams often use tools from multiple security vendors. Whilst this can reduce risk, it does rely on interoperability between devices – which isn’t always a given.
Common issues we help resolve include:
- A decryptor won’t talk to the security sensor it feeds
- New software causing security incompatibility issues
- Tools not supporting the same authentication methods
Understanding these challenges early – during proof of concept and before updating toolchains – is key to success. Our professional service Engineers help identify and resolve interoperability issues, ensuring erudite decisions and strong protection for your business.
Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
One of the best protections of all is a well-trained SecOps team. And one of the best ways to achieve this is with real-life practice that keeps your security pros well informed and able to quickly respond.
Our cyber range scenarios simulate network security breaches with live payloads executed in a secure, isolated environment. This provides a continuous and authentic test of how your security team would respond during a real cyber attack, and refines their skills to ensure they always remain at the top of their game.
Our traffic generation portfolio
Whether you want to test at Layers 2-3, validate at Layers 4-7, or need to identify the best security tools and harden your defences, we can advise you over the traffic generation solutions and professional services best suited to your applications.
Our traffic generation partners include:
The Ixia division of Keysight
We are Ixia Keysight’s only Elite Partner in the EMEA region, and supply and support Ixia Keysight’s entire portfolio of test and visibility solutions.
Layers 2-3 – For testing network infrastructure, we supply and support: IxNetwork / IxVerify / IxChariot / IxANVL / Elastic Network Generator / IxVerify / AresONE / G800GE-02 / Novus / Novus Mini / UHD100T32 / Cloud Peak.
Download the layer 2-3 products catalogue.
See our CityFibre test automation case study that includes the provision of Keysight Novus and IxLoad platforms to simulate complex network environments to improve equipment lifecycle, reliability and flexibility.
Layers 4-7 – For security validation, IoT testing, cloud-native application stress testing, load testing, and cyber security training, we supply and support: BreakingPoint / IxLoad / CyPerf / Threat Simulator / IoT Security Assessment / Cyber Range / APS Family / CloudStorm / PerfectStorm / Novus.
Teledyne LeCroy Xena (formerly called Xena Networks)
As Teledyne LeCroy Xena’s exclusive partner in the UK, we provide and support their entire portfolio of cost-effect network traffic generation solutions.
Available in a compact 1RU fixed chassis with 1 slot, and a modular 4RU chassis with up to 12 slots, our Xena traffic generators include:
- Z800 Freya for testing 10G, 28G, 56G, and 112G SerDes Ethernet
- Z400 Thor for testing 10G to 100G NRZ & 50G to 400G PAM4 Ethernet
- Z100 Loki for testing Ethernet traffic of NRZ up to 100Gbps
- Z10 Odin for testing Ethernet traffic from 10Mbps -10Gbps
Trusted traffic generation since 2001
Since 2001, Red Helix has supplied Ixia and Xena traffic generators to major infrastructure owners – helping to test and validate networks critical to the UK’s national security, infrastructure, and economy. This pays testimony to their quality and functionality.
Company acquisitions over the years have resulted with our colleagues at Xena Networks joining Teledyne LeCroy and our colleagues from BreakingPoint Systems and Ixia joining Keysight. Throughout this time, we have provided our customers with the seamless support and consistency that’s often lost during vendor consolidation.
So whether you’ve already decided to buy an Ixia or Xena traffic generator and are looking for a route to procurement, or are seeking a solution and consultative advice for the outcomes you need, we at Red Helix have you covered.
