randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) (01/11/91)
I'm looking for recommendations for FDDI LAN analyzers, especially any that can generate test traffic at high speeds or have FDDI protocol verification suites. Would you-folk please write or post if you know of any. __Randolph Fritz sun!cognito.eng!randolph || randolph@eng.sun.com
spurgeon@.uucp (Charles E. Spurgeon) (01/16/91)
In article <122@thoreau.nsc.com> macomber@thoreau.nsc.com ( =Robert Macomber) writes: >In article <5670@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>, randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes: >> I'm looking for recommendations for FDDI LAN analyzers, especially any >> that can generate test traffic at high speeds or have FDDI protocol >> verification suites. Would you-folk please write or post if you know >> of any. >> >Two companies making FDDI LAN analyzers that I know of are: > > Digital Technology, Inc. > tel: (513) 443-0412 > fax: (513) 226-0511 > > Tekelec > tel: (818) 880-7817 > fax: (818) 880-6993 > >DTI has three products (that I know of) 1) an interface for an HP logic >analyzer, 2) a symbol generator (PC card) and a passive FDDI LAN >analyzer (uses fiber-optic splitters). I've been told that the DTI >products don't use anybody's chipsets (NSC, AMD, ...) to avoid biasing >their monitor. The DTI monitor is capable of generating detailed, >timestamped event traces from up to 4 places in an FDDI ring. It is >especially useful for gathering information like line state changes or >"who claimed first". > I saw a demo of the DTI equipment yesterday. They came by and hooked their monitor up between a couple of FDDI equipped cisco routers. They use a splitter that uses up about 2 dB in the loop. That way the monitor is just eavesdropping on the ring and is not part of the loop. The DTI 5750 monitor is their high-end product. They implemented the FDDI logic in discrete hardware to avoid being limited by the standard FDDI chipsets. The box has a VME bus and a 68030 controlling the capture logic. The color Windows-like display and peripherals are controlled by an Intel chip. Coming soon are TCP/IP decodes and X windows capability. The monitor we saw does not generate frames, although there are apparently plans to add a board which will do that in the near future. The monitor seemed pretty complete, with scads of things you can monitor and lots of triggering capabilities, buffer memory, and display options -- including lots of ways to timestamp things. Their basic configuration has one monitoring card which allows you to look at one ring. The configuration they demo'd was supposed to cost about $35K. We also saw the symbol generator and the interface that ties into an HP logic analyzer. The model 3726 symbol generator is a card that plugs into a PC and lets you build up any arbitrary frame you want to send on the ring. This device runs at the 100 megabit rate and lets you stress test things. The model 5708 Symbol Monitor attaches to an HP model 165XX or 165X logic analyzer. This lets you see the symbols on the ring, and to set up triggers on line states, line changes and specific bytes in the frame. These two lower level monitors were a lot less expensive. I seem to recall their prices being in the $5K to $6K range. Charles E. Spurgeon | spurgeon@emx.utexas.edu | University of Texas at Austin | ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!spurgeon| -------------------------------------------------------------------------
john@touch.touch.com (John Weald) (01/19/91)
In article <42620@ut-emx.uucp> spurgeon@atget.cc.utexas.edu.UUCP (Charles E. Spurgeon) writes: >In article <122@thoreau.nsc.com> macomber@thoreau.nsc.com ( =Robert Macomber) writes: >>In article <5670@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>, randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes: >>> I'm looking for recommendations for FDDI LAN analyzers, especially any >>> that can generate test traffic at high speeds or have FDDI protocol >>> verification suites. Would you-folk please write or post if you know >>> of any. >>> >>Two companies making FDDI LAN analyzers that I know of are: >> >> Digital Technology, Inc. >> tel: (513) 443-0412 >> fax: (513) 226-0511 >> >> Tekelec >> tel: (818) 880-7817 >> fax: (818) 880-6993 >> >>DTI has three products (that I know of) 1) an interface for an HP logic >>analyzer, 2) a symbol generator (PC card) and a passive FDDI LAN >>analyzer (uses fiber-optic splitters). I've been told that the DTI >>products don't use anybody's chipsets (NSC, AMD, ...) to avoid biasing >>their monitor. The DTI monitor is capable of generating detailed, >>timestamped event traces from up to 4 places in an FDDI ring. It is >>especially useful for gathering information like line state changes or >>"who claimed first". >> > >I saw a demo of the DTI equipment yesterday. They came by and hooked We had a demo of the Tekelec ChameLAN 100 yesterday, and a demo of the DTI a few months ago. The general vote was that we perfered the Tekelec. Its cheaper, smaller and has a better user interface. They use an AT portable with a flat colour screen running Interactive's 386/ix UNIX. The user interface is Motif (thus you can X-window into it from another X-server an access the user interface). The interface is still not as nice as the Network General LAN Sniffer. To capture they use a RISC chip front end processor and AMD chipset. The front end has a 500MB bus. It is completely transparent and passive on the ring (looks like a FDDI repeater at the PMD level) and connects via standard connectors. The capture buffer is either 5MB or 20MB. Usual triggers filters etc. It decodes TCP/IP today, but our need is to decode OSI. Thus we did not go into its low level FDDI features that one might use for developing FDDI drivers or hardware (IBM are giving us an FDDI card with software). They are porting their OSI decode from one of their other X.25 products, apparently they have a decode language and a "compiler" that "compiles" into C. You can buy the compiler and source to their decode stack for a (small) fee or buy the executable decode stack. There is an optional simulation package that is not yet ready. It will allow you to inject all kinds of errors and generate taffic. Base price is $37,500 for the 5MB, 100mb harddisk or $46,000 for 20MB, 200mb harddisk. Decode software etc. extra. -- John Weald, Touch Communications, Campbell, CA uunet!touch!jweald jweald@touch.com