Forum to define network test interface

On March 16, 2010, the Network Test Automation Forum was announced. The forum consists of several network test-equipment makers, network equipment manufacturers, and two service providers. According to a press release, “The forum asks test equipment vendors to collaborate with their customers to define an open and advanced automation framework.”

What does that mean?

To find out, I met with Vikas Arora, CTO of EXFO, at this year’s OFC conference on March 23 in San Diego. Arora explained that the goal of the forum is to develop a software layer that resides between network equipment such as switches and routers and network test equipment. The software layer (see figure, click to enlarge) should know what’s on the network and provide a communications interface. The idea is to minimize integration of network and test equipment and provide a common communications platform rather than a set of proprietary interfaces. The figure shows the layer between test equipment and network equipment.

The concept is similar to VISA (virtual instrument software architecture) developed in the early 1990s. VISA provides a common API (application programming interface) between instrument drivers and low-level devices drivers. A user simply defines the communications bus for each instrument (GPIB, VXI, PXI, serial, USB, or Ethernet) and the instrument driver sends read, write, and other commands to VISA. Test equipment makers have their own version of VISA, but the API is common to all. In the NTA Forum case, the communications bus among test and network equipment will be Ethernet.