Ixia to acquire N2X product line from Agilent
Ixia president and CEO Atul Bhatnagar discusses the details of the acquisition.
Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 10/27/2009 2:50:41 PM
On October 21, Ixia announced its intent to purchase the N2X line of multiservice network testers from Agilent Technologies for $44 million. The N2X consists of a chassis and several line cards that enable you to connect to a network. It emulates network traffic, letting you test a network or network component under controlled traffic conditions. The transaction should be complete by October 30.
On October 24, I interviewed Ixia president and CEO Atul Bhatnagar about the acquisition. Bhatnagar cited a desire to expand Ixia's business to service providers as well as network equipment manufacturers. "N2X has a strong foothold with service providers," said Bhatnagar. "They (Agilent) have some excellent technologies around the broadband access protocol, around carrier class design, and ease of use of the entire platform. So, all of those technologies were an attraction for us."
The N2X connects to a PC over Ethernet where software controls the equipment. Ixia's test equipment runs on the company's "ix" software platform. When asked how Ixia will integrate the N2X software into Ixia, Bhatnagar replied "We have a very modular software architecture. When you are designing new protocols, you have to be modular because each new internet standard (hardware or software) is a new protocol. So, we are constantly importing new technologies and new standards into our equipment. We have a modular architecture with well-defined programmatic interfaces throughout our software and hardware. This is nothing but another set of protocols, another set of architectures coming together."
In addition to acquiring the N2X product line, Ixia will offer jobs to about 200 Agilent employees who work on the products. Agilent sites in Vancouver, British Columbia, Melbourne, Australia, and Bangalore, India will become Ixia sites. "They have an excellent team," said Bhatnagar. "Their technical capabilities are now a part of our company."
Ixia, www.ixiacom.com.
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