Protocols, Protocols, Protocols: Recap of Broadband World Forum
Jumping on a flight to attend CheckPoint's "Network Security and Performance Testing for Next Generation Networks" lunch and learn in Dallas (come join us if you are in the area). Thought it was a perfect time to give a recap of my recent trip to Broadband World Forum in Brussels.
BreakingPoint received a warm reception despite the cold and rainy weather last week at the show. We previewed the BreakingPoint Elite chassis to an audience of equipment vendors and service providers. Three common points were brought up from folks on what they were looking for in performance and security testing:
- High Performance: sessions, sessions, sessions
- Fast: 20 Gigabits per second and faster
- Realistic: Live security attacks, actual application traffic…oh, and the ability to easily blend them
The idea of realism in testing did, however, dominate my conversations. One of the visitors to our booth sought us out because he wanted to test using more than 300 protocols to reproduce realistic network conditions. The reason? He wanted to thoroughly test the DPI functionality of his network equipment. As the VP of Marketing, he wasn’t comfortable shipping a product that wasn’t fully tested using realistic traffic. He had been told that BreakingPoint had the most application protocols, the ability to integrate proprietary protocols, and do it all at 20 Gigabits per second and faster. Testing true performance and security for today’s next-gen devices means you must be testing with actual application traffic.
Some other hot topics while talking with people at our booth and venturing out onto the show floor: DPI and ways to test DPI functionality, SIP testing, green initiatives, and—given current economic conditions—ways to save money and reduce testing TCO.
Overall the show was a great place to introduce the new product and to hear how folks are getting excited about new possibilities in testing equipment. And that certainly made the trip worthwhile.
