Absolute Analysis

Tools to benchmark and validate new equipment for leading LTE Mobile Access Network

Newbury Park January 12^th, 2012 - Absolute Analysis today announced it has been selected by a major Asian mobile communications service provider to support their mobile backhaul 4G LTE deployment.

Quality of service (QoS) is paramount to the success of today's mobile service providers. Consequently they must thoroughly test and validate the performance and reliability of all equipment that is to be used in their Mobile Access Network. The Mobile Access Network refers to the edge of the service provider's network used in connecting Remote Radio Heads (RRH) to centralized Base Band Units (BBU). Networks with distributed antennas helps to both reduce operating costs while also improving signal quality. New technologies that leverage protocol standards such as CPRI and OBSAI now allow service providers to distribute radio antennas across their network achieving both economic and performance gains as a result. In order for Radio Heads and Base Stations to operate in separate locations stringent network performance thresholds must be met. Typical implementations also include optical multiplexors and transponders providing instant failover redundancy in the event of link failure.

Absolute Analysis LTE performance test equipment has been used to benchmark the performance of network equipment providers competing for their place in the new LTE network. Real-time statistical measurements are made in both laboratory testing as well as field deployments. This helps ensure that access network equipment complies with LTE and WiMax specifications for performance and interoperability between devices in both normal and failover modes. Network impairments, data link bottlenecks, and cabling issues are identified through a simple GUI that provides real-time latency, recovery or failover delay, and bit error rate measurements, across multiple points in the network, over both copper and optical media. The Absolute Analysis equipment also includes capabilities for capture and decode of network traffic providing precise details of problem areas.

"The selection by a major mobile service provider further validates our solution approach to the market." says Dennis Murphy, CEO of Absolute Analysis. "Close cooperation between our engineering team and the customer and their hardware vendors yielded a solution that guarantees the interoperability, reliability and performance of their Mobile Access Network."

About Absolute Analysis

Absolute Analysis develops test equipment that performs complete high speed serial bus verification and validation across standard protocols, custom or proprietary protocols, and mixed protocol environments. Protocol support includes Serial RapidIO, PCI Express, Ethernet up to 10 Gbps, and many others. Their flagship InvestigatorTM platform contains functions for full interoperability and compliance testing, consisting of protocol analysis, traffic generation, BER testing, error injection, and impairment testing. All verification is accomplished via a single piece of hardware, and a single user interface, saving customers both time and money.

This case study is the first in a series of papers designed to educate our serial validation community at large on different techniques and tools for debugging high speed serial links.

In this paper, read how the engineer with this problem cut his debug time from weeks to minutes:

To download this white paper, simply click here.  No opt-in or registration required.

In this paper, you'll learn:

• How an oscilloscope and protocol analyzer can work together to help debug serial link problems
• Using advanced triggering to isolate a complex problem quickly
• Why probing multiple points can be critical to reducing your debug time from weeks to hours or even minutes.
  

Here's the download link again:   click here.  No opt-in or registration required.

Download our latest white paper on serial test methodology.

This white paper introduces the concept of "dynamic protocol reconfiguration" which is instrumental in validating mixed protocol environments.

To download this white paper, simply click here.  No opt-in or registration required.

Debugging serial communications can be a challenge, as  problems can be caused by a number of differing areas, including signal integrity,  coding problems, hardware parts that are out of spec, or other hardware problems.

Testing these systems requires a multitude of tools to debug and validate the design.  There is often confusion as to which tool is best for a particular problems.

In this complimentary white paper, we discuss the merits of different tools used in protocol test and debug, and the strengths and benefits of each.  While there is no one tool that fits all, knowing the various tools that are available can quickly give engineers the edge to solve their problems quickly.

Here's the download link again:   click here.  No opt-in or registration required.

Absolute Analysis Investigator^TM was nominated by Test & Measurement World as a finalist in the 21st Annual Best-In-Test Awards in the Bus Analyzer category.

Inaugurated in 1991, the Test & Measurement World awards program awards excellence and innovation in test, measurement, and inspection products. For the 2011 awards, they reviewed a number of different products nominated by vendors and have selected the finalists for the Best in Test and Test of Time awards.

The awards and winners will be judged by an independent body of industry experts, and the winners will be announced at the 2011 Best in Test Awards event, May 4^th, 2011 during the Embedded Systems in the Silicon Valley.

Wireshark is a great tool for doing network protocol analysis. It represents the de-facto analysis standard in many industries, and is supported by a worldwide community of network engineers and software developers. It is cross-platform, features both GUI and CLI interfaces, and supports deep analysis of hundreds of protocols.

However, as all test tools out there, not one of them is perfect. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. There are two scenarios where Wireshark will miss critical data needed to debug your network. One of our customers found this out the hard way over the weekend, and wasted countless hours trying to get their client's network back up and running.

Absolute Analysis will demonstrate its latest serial validation test equipment that includes an integrated high speed serial communications test bench at the Embedded Systems Conference, Booth 2144, San Jose, May 2 to 5, 2011

The latest release of Investigator ^TM, their flagship product, is highlighted the capability of connecting both a high speed oscilloscope and a logic analyzer to the Investigator ^TM probing hardware. This will allow a single probe point to send data to all three devices to provide a time correlated analysis environment.

Previous to this release of Investigator ^TM, validation engineers debugging serial links were able to only use one piece of test equipment at a time to probe a single point in their network. This process made troubleshooting of a high speed serial link a bit clumsy and time consuming. Now, engineers can see problems from signal integrity, timing or protocol decode simultaneously, significantly reducing the protocol debug and validation time.

The Investigator ^TM uses a single piece of hardware to fully validate serial communications. Included in its analysis capabilities are protocol analysis, traffic generation, BER testing, error injection, and impairment (delay) testing. Now, with the newly developed capabilities to integrate a high speed oscilloscope and logic analyzer, it will now have unparalleled capability in debugging serial links.

"We at Absolute Analysis strive to provide the best serial validation test equipment to the market." said Dennis Murphy, CEO of Absolute Analysis. "With this latest release of Investigator ^TM, we feel we have given engineers a revolutionary tool that will cut down significantly the number of hours required to validate and characterize today's high speed serial communications."

Please visit us at the Embedded Systems Conference on May 2-5, 2011, Booth #2144.  Register here for the conference.

Absolute Analysis will be leading a panel of experts to discuss the problems and solutions of designing and testing high speed serial interfaces.   As speeds approach and go beyond 10 Gbps, new challenges arise for designers implementing multi-gigabit multi-lane communcations links.  The panel will discuss these technical challenges, and offer current and future solutions.

The show will be held in Santa Clara, CA on January 27, 2011,  To find out more about the RTECC show, please click on the logo below.