Xena Networks - Vulcan - Stateful Ethernet Traffic Generation and Analysis platform

Overview
Specifications & Details
Datasheets & Downloads
Videos

Responsive and easy to use management software
Highly scalable UDP/TCP layer 4 traffic generation
High performance TLS testing suite
Use your own application traffic or AppMix to create and scale realistic application traffic
1U and 2U rack mounting hardware with a wide range of port speeds offers low entry and yet a scalable solution
Ease of use
Free software (incl. VulcanManager and VulcanAppMix)
Free tech support product lifetime

Vulcan makes it easy to generate stateful traffic over Ethernet and then analyze how firewalls, wireline & wireless networks, NICs, packet brokers, NAT routers, bandwidth-shapers and so on perform in a wide range of real-world scenarios.

Hardware

Vulcan is available in two chassis.

The high-performance VulcanBay supports testing up to 40GE with 28 million Concurrent Connections (CC) or 6 million Connections Per Second (CPS) and 7 million Transactions Per Second (TPS).

The smaller VulcanCompact which can test up to 25GE with 14 million TCP Concurrent Connections (CC), 5 million TCP Connections Per Second (CPS) and 2.8 million Transactions Per Second (TPS) and 550,000 Concurrent TLS Sessions.

Software

VulcanManager is a free Windows-based application used for configuring, generating and analyzing stateful Ethernet traffic up to 40Gbps. VulcanManager supports TLS 1.2 performance testing e.g. handshakes per second, TLS throughput, concurrent TLS connections, etc., with different cipher suites and certificate key sizes on a DUT that decrypts traffic on one side and encrypts on the other.

Also included is VulcanAppMix, a library of application traffic and protocols in pcap format that makes it easy to set up large-scale realistic traffic from various applications, using pre-defined and customizable mix templates.

VulcanVE is the virtual edition of Vulcan. It can be installed on “off-the-shelf” hardware that meets the minimum specified requirements. It is managed using VulcanManager and is ideal for both lab testing of Ethernet-based network equipment as well as WAN testing. It can be downloaded here.

Types of test

PERFORMANCE TESTING

Layer 1 throughput and application goodput measurements reveals bottlenecks causing retransmissions and loss that can help optimizing network devices and infrastructures. The responsiveness of a network device is characterized as sessions per sec., as well as application transactions per sec. Capacity is characterized by how many simultaneous sessions/traffic flows it can handle.

Large scale generation and analysis of TCP and UDP flows
High performance CPS and CC stress testing
Analysis of TCP throughput, and Round-Trip Time latency
High performance SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 stress testing
Support for different TLS cipher suites and certificate key sizes.
Scalable application traffic replay

QOS AND SERVICE VALIDATION

Vulcan makes it easy to test the capacity and performance of WANs (& SD-WANs) of service providers and large enterprise networks – where the focus is more on system-wide performance.

Gateway subnet to subnet routing
Network Address Translation
Traffic filtering and shaping
Deep Packet Inspection
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems
Application traffic replay

FUNCTIONAL TESTING

Use VulcanManager to define test cases targeting specific functionality. With the built-in high-performance TCP, UDP and application library VulcanAppMix, simple to very complex traffic scenarios spanning over multiple test ports can be configured.

Gateway subnet to subnet routing
Network Address Translation
Traffic filtering and shaping
Lossless traffic capture for in-depth PCAP analysis of the network behavior of the DUT/SUT.

SECURITY TESTING

With Vulcans TLS features and application replay, performance and behavior of security devices can be verified. In focus for such test are both the ability to detect security breach, but also to verify that the implemented security means works as expected under high load.

TLS/SSL
Deep Packet Inspection
Intrusion Detection and Prevention System

Vulcan Product Presentation

Vulcan Factsheet

Full Vulcan documentation

Teledyne LeCroy Xena

https://xenanetworks.com/

Teledyne LeCroy Xena is a leader in Ethernet traffic generators, physical layer testing and network emulation. They are one of a handful of companies with solutions for testing the fastest Ethernet speeds (currently 800Gbps using 112G SerDes). Customers around the world rely on Xena solutions to test, debug and validate the performance and interoperability of new Ethernet devices and outperform their competitors. Acquired by Teledyne LeCroy in 2023, Xena is renowned for user-friendly solutions with the industry’s lowest TCO thanks to the Xena Value Pack’s generous software licensing policy.

Xena offers award-winning solutions for generating Ethernet traffic, physical layer testing and network emulation. Xena Ethernet Traffic Generators are a series of over 12 NICs and 2 chassis options with user-friendly software for conducting a wide range of test scenarios for all Ethernet speeds from 10Mbps up to 800Gbps. Xena also offers a dedicated network emulation NIC for impairing traffic with various forms of latency and jitter at wire-speed up to 100Gbps. All Xena Ethernet traffic generators and the network emulation NICs include powerful options for Physical Layer testing. Comprehensive software is bundled with all Xena solutions. XenaManager is a Windows PC client used for configuring and running traffic, there are standalone apps for running industry-standard RFC2544, 2889, 3918 & Y.1564 tests, plus comprehensive open-source automation and scripting options.