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Net.Storm WAN emulator
Net.Storm simulates links and networks in terms of bandwidth and quality of service. Traffic is separated into independent flows that receive specific treatment to replicate real-world traffic conditions through impairments and bandwidth limitations.
BARCELONA APRIL.28.2023
About WAN emulators
Net.Storm simulates links and networks in terms of bandwidth and quality of service. Traffic is separated by user-defined filters into independent flows that receive specific treatment to replicate real-world traffic conditions through impairments and bandwidth limitations.
Net.Storm allows you to model network dynamics using arbitrary impairments and throughput management to verify how tolerant your designs are to degradations in the parameters that define the quality and capacity of your transmission network. The goal is to better understand the behavior of new devices and systems or to identify what is causing problems.
Universal Network Emulation
It makes sense to gain insight and discover network tolerances before they become problematic because predictable performance is required in all systems, especially those that operate critical infrastructures in a lot of industries as diverse as energy, telecommunications, finance, and data centers. For all of these, engineers will be able to simulate exactly the same conditions they will find on the Internet/substation/microwave/satellite/submarine links, which can always suffer from throughput limitations and quality degradation.
Fig 1. Operation (1) Through mode, (2) Filters, (3) Bandwidth, (4) Impairments.
Applications
Some real-world applications of WAN emulators include:
- Testing the performance of applications and services in a WAN environment.
- Identifying and troubleshooting potential issues with applications and services in a WAN environment.
- Evaluating the performance of different WAN technologies and configurations.
- Testing the effects of network impairments, such as latency and packet loss, on applications and services.
- Training network administrators and engineers in the use of WAN technologies and best practices.
Fig 2. Labs are top users of WAN emulators.
Samples
Net.Storm is a tool for engineers who are designing, debugging, or integrating new devices and systems:
- Network design. Validation: performance and interoperability testing.
- Approval and acceptance testing: Stress systems with controlled bit errors and frame drops.
- Substations: IED, MU and RTU product acceptance.
- Data centers: for backup failure simulation and security access.
- PTP/NTP timing: to generate interference to test synchronization quality.
- Laboratories: to create a tool to test fatal errors and recovery functions.
- Universities: to teach about quality and performance in links, LAN, WAN.
- IEC 61850 rollout: in utilities and protocol testing such as GOOSE, SV.
- Security: certain malware such as interception and identity replacement adds latency to be used to identify the thread.
Benefits
Net.Storm covers a wide range of concepts, but simulating these mission-critical systems interacting with devices is the essential concept: replicating the final network with real traffic to better understand the behavior of new designs and connections.