Crossbeam, Spirent test 4G/LTE network security

Test results provide guidance for building more secure mobile networks.

-- Test & Measurement World, 1/25/2012 7:00:00 AM

Crossbeam Systems and Spirent Communications have released the results of their public network-security tests, which emulated more than a million simultaneous mobile subscribers using smartphones and tablets. Conducted by independent test center EANTC, the tests evaluated the effectiveness of network-security devices and how they perform under extremely demanding real-world conditions. Test results highlight what is needed to validate security performance and provide reliable guidance for mobile operators as they seek to build network-security infrastructure that can handle growing user demand for 4G/LTE networks.

Spirent, Crossbeam, and EANTC collaborated to define a set of real-world test scenarios that emulated the performance impact of network security being enabled in a mobile network environment. To replicate the massive traffic loads that carriers experience at the mobile Internet gateway, the Spirent Avalanche was used to emulate more than 1 million users concurrently accessing the mobile data network with their connected devices. The traffic was sent through a single Crossbeam X-Series X80-S platform running Check Point software, where it underwent a series of firewall and IPS (intrusion prevention system) inspections, as well as NAT (network address translation) processing.

Using Spirent's Avalanche layer 4-7 test solution, EANTC validated the Crossbeam X-Series at 106 Gbps with stateful firewall, IPS, and NAT enabled and with 1 million simultaneously active users, 4 million active TCP connections, and 242,000 new connections/s. In each test scenario, every performance metric measured showed consistent service establishment performance at scale. User-experience measurements demonstrated the X-Series did not drop a single connection or request and maintained a very low URL response time of 10 ms.

To download a full report of the test results, go to www.crossbeam.com/why-crossbeam/performance.

Crossbeam Systems, www.crossbeam.com

Spirent Communications, www.spirent.com