Testing 100G Ethernet - Xena Networks

Testing 100G 

©Xena Networks, May 2012

Who works with 100G Ethernet? 

What is it used for? 

How to test it? 


What is driving 100G Ethernet? 

Explosive traffic demand pushing existing networks 

 

 

 

Mobile broadband data and video 

Ethernet wholesale and mobile backhaul services 

Cloud services and cloud-based applications 

Simplify networks 

 

 

 

Already, many are using n x 10GE links to interconnect sites 

Operate fewer, higher-capacity links, overcome link 

aggregation limitations, simplify routing, simplify MPLS 

Looking to take better advantage of statistical ti ti multiplexing 

l i 

Ride down the Ethernet cost curve 

With “Ethernet everywhere” 100GE solutions will become 

affordable enough to be deployed to control network costs 


100G Ethernet adoption 

Infrastructure components 

 

 

 

 

Multiple suppliers shipping 100GE optical modules 

Component companies shipping FPGA’s, ASICs, NPUs 

A dozen equipment vendors shipping platforms with 100GE 

Test solutions are available for 100GE Layer 1-3 testing 

Operators and service providers 

First strategic adoptions by the end of 2012 

Significant adoption of 100GE by end of 2013 

Datacenters 

 

Intel Romley server 10GE "LAN-on-Motherboard Motherboard” , and PCI 

Express Gen 2/3 to drive growth in top-of-rack 40GE 

interconnect 


100G Ethernet Testing Status 

Layer 2/3 

• High port density testbeds 

• Automated production testing for 100GE 

• Switching and routing performance 

• QoS and stream integrity 

• Industry benchmarks (RFC2544, RFC2889) 

• Telecom PoC aggregation links, and WDM 

• Forwarding and Throughput Capacity 

Layer 1 

• PCS layer 

• Packet Integrity 

• Optical transceiver and cable bit-error ratio 


100G Optical Family 

100 and 40G optical 

100G SR10 

100G LR4, ER4 

100G migrating to 

100m MMF (OM3/4) 10, 40 km SMF 

smaller form factors 

CXP, CFP CFP CFP 

Current 100G LR4 

cost too high 

 

 

10x10 CFP, lower 

cost (Santur, 

Google, Brocade, 

JSDU) 

New CMOS-based 

100G LR4 Gearbox 

devices will reach 

market in 2012, 

reducing power and 

cost 

100G 10x10 

10 km SMF 

CFP CXP CFP CFP 

CXP2 (2013) CFP2 (2013) QSFP2 (2014) 

40G SR4 

100m MMF (OM3/4) 

QSFP+, CFP 

QSFP+ CFP CFP CFP 

40G LR4, ER4 

10, 40 km SMF 

CFP 

? 

QSFP+ 


CFP-based Test Equipment 

All 10/40/100G optical interfaces available in CFP 

 

 

10G LR/SR, 40G LR4/SR4, 100G LR4/SR10 

Natively or via CFP adapter 

CFP adapters (QSFP+, CXP, SFP+) 

CFP QSFP+ CFP CXP CFP 4 x SFP+ 

(Cisco ”FOURX”) 

Forward compatible 

Future CFP2, QSFP2, CXF2 is 

optical and host compatible 

with existing CFP optics 

Xena 40/100G tester compatible with 10GE 

 

The only Tri-Speed: 8 x 10G, 2 x 40G, or 1 x 100G 


New 100/40G PCS and PMA architecture 

PCS and PMA architecture 

 

 

CAUI, 100G, 20 x 5 Gbps lanes 

XLAUI, 40G, 4 x 10 Gbps lanes 

CAUI 100G LR4 PCS/PMA architecture 

PCS Lanes 

20 x 5 Gbps 

CAUI Interface 

10 x 10.3125 

Gbps SerDes 

4 x 25 Gbps 4 x λ 

SMF 

λ0 

PCS 

0 

1 

2 

. 

. 

. 

PMA 

20:10 

0 

1 

. 

. 

. 

PMA 

10:4 

Gearbox 

λ1 

λ2 

λ3 

0 

1 PMD 

2 

3 λ0 

19 9 

9 λ2 

λ1 

λ3 


Physical Layer Testing (PMA) 

Increased complexity of 100G optics 

 

 

 

Testing and screening during development and production 

Careful inspection and cleaning of connectors 

Use an unframed PRBS per lane to determine if your 

100/40 Gbps optical transceivers function correctly. 

How To: 

1. Insert the transceiver optics into the Xena tester and an 

optical loopback cable in the CFP module. 

2. Then enable PRBS for all lanes, and run the test for 24 

hours minimum to verify no PRBS errors are detected. 

The loopback cable must be clean and able to pass error-free 

traffic on any other known good transceiver. 


Physical Layer Testing (PMA) 

CAUI/XLAUI SerDes characterization 

 

 

Access to electrical CAUI SerDes allows for accurate host 

PCB characterization ti during R&D 

Tune host board voltage swing and pre-emphasis settings 


λ0 

λ0 

λ2 

λ0 

λ0 

λ2 

λ0 

Physical Layer Testing (PCS) 

Lane skew 

Skew is an issue for any parallel high-speed bus 

Validate per lane buffer and alignment using skew insertion 

Skew tolerances specified by IEEE 802.3ba 

PCS 

Rx PCS 

0 

1 

2 PMA 

20:1 

. 

. 

. 

0 

SP6 

0 

1 

PMA 

10:4 

SP5 

0 

1 

. 

. Gearbo 

. x 2 

PMD 

SP4 

3 λ0 

Skew 

point 

SP1 

SP2 

SP3 

SP4 

Maximum Skew at 

100GBASE-R 

29 ns (150 UI) 

43 ns (222 UI) 

54 ns (278 UI) 

134 ns (691 UI) 

19 

Tx PCS 

9 

SP1 

SP2 

SP3 

SP5 

SP6 

At Rx PCS 

145 ns (748 UI) 

160 ns (824 UI) 

180 ns (928 UI) 

Note that for 40GBASE-R, 1 UI is equal to 97 ps at PCS lane signaling g rate of 10.3125 Gbps 

Note that for 100GBASE-R, 1 UI is equal to 194 ps at PCS lane signaling rate of 5.15625 Gbps 



Lane skew 

Lane skewing errors can lead to interface link-down problems 

that t are difficult to debug in deployed d systems. 

How to: 

1. Insert 10 UI (bits) skew on multiple lanes and verify that the 

PCS markers remain aligned. 

2. Then, increase the skew incrementally until lane alignment 

lock is lost to find the maximum skew for the DUT. 

IEEE 802.3ba requires a skew tolerance of 928 UI at the Rx PCS 



Lane swapping 

Lane swapping errors can lead to interface link-down problems 

that t are difficult to debug in deployed d systems. 

How to: 

1. Configure tester to transmit L2/3 traffic from the tester 

across the DUT and back to the same tester port. 

2. Then, verify that header lock and alignment lock works on 

all Rx lanes, to check all lanes are recognized and are 

aligned. 

3. Then swap lanes randomly and verify the new Rx lane 

mapping and that L2/3 traffic is passing error free 


RFC 2544 benchmarking 

RFC 2544 - PURPOSE 

Verifies forwarding performance, including 

throughput h t (performance availability), back-to-back 

b k 

(link burstability), latency (transmission delay) and 

frame loss (service integrity) measurements. 

Xena testers can perform RFC 2544 for 100G and 

40G Ethernet interfaces at all frame sizes and at fullline 

rate. 

BENEFIT 

Helps vendors and service providers certify that the 

link is efficient and error-free at 100% utilization at 

Layer 2 (VLAN) or layer 3 (IP). 


RFC 2889 benchmarking 

RFC 2889 - PURPOSE 

For testing 40G and 100G datacenter switches 

Mesh testing of large-scale switches, and 

multicast-only throughput test cases where latency 

and throughput are key performance parameters 

Xena testers t can perform RFC 2889 for 100G and 

40G Ethernet interfaces at all frame sizes and at 

full-line rate. 

BENEFIT 

Helps data centers verify the switch can meet 

stringent demand for low-latency and lossless 

throughput performance 


Automation environments for quality 

Automated test environments for production 

Multirate test equipment for testing multirate data center 

switches, and telecom equipment 

Broadcom 40/100G switch silicon is multirate 10/40/100G 

enabled 

Ideal having a single unified testbedtb for production testingti of 

both 10, 40, and 100 Gbps modes of operation 

Command line TCP/IP based scripting 

from any client environment 

(Tcl, Java, Perl, Python, VBA) 

Cisco Catalyst 6500, 4 x 40G, or 16 x 10G 


CASE STUDY - Cabling Manufactures 

Furukawa Industrial - Japan 

Tested OM4 MMF channel links over distances from 70 to 520 

meters by simulating a real network. (The standard defines 

150m with OM4 MMF Cables.) 

XenaCompact 

100G 

MMF 

a 

b 

c 

Optical MPO to MPO cables 12 Fibers MMF OM4 

Reichle & De-Massari (R&M) – Switzerland 

Lossless transmission over 550 meters of fiber optic cable and 

nine MPO connectors / 6-hour demonstration with no bit errors 


CASE STUDY – Global ISP 

London 

New York 

Infinera DTN 

Infinera DTN 

Brocade 

Router 

10x 10G 

connections 

10x 10G 

connections 

Brocade 

Router 

Tier 1 ISP 

Global IP 

Network 

Xena 100G 

Tester 

Xena 100G 

Tester 


Selecting a 40/100G test platform (1/2) 

High port density for 40 GE and 100 GE testing 

 

 

6 x 100GE, 12 x 40GE, or 48 x 10G in 4U chassis 

Industry’s only 1U rackmount 1 x 100G / 2 x 40G / 8 x 10G 

Industry yp price/performance leader for 100/40G testing 

Comprehensive testing of the physical coding sublayer 

 

 

Checks compliance to IEEE-STD 802.3ba 

Unframed layer 1 BERT per PCS lane, for testing both MMF 

and SMF optics. 

Software selectable 8 x 10 GE, 2 x 40 GE or 1 x 100GE 

 

Industry’s only 10G compatible 100G Tester 


Selecting a 40/100G test platform (2/2) 

Layer 1-3 testing with wire rate traffic generation 

 

 

 

Wire-speed stream based traffic generation and statistics 

Traffic filter statistics, histograms 

Jumbo frame support (9200B) 

Analyzes full wire rate 40 / 100 GE traffic 

 

 

Real-time latency, Packet loss, Data integrity, Packet capture 

Packet capture with Wireshark support 

Scripting by TCP/IP socket Command Line Interface 

 

From any TCP/IP environment, no drivers or APIs needed 

Same CLI spec for any port speed (10M – 100G) 

Industry benchmark tests RFC2544, RFC2889 

 

Y.1564 test suite to be released soon 


Corporate Profile 

Founded 2007 by group of communications professionals 

Corporate HQ in Copenhagen (Denmark), Boston (US) 

Self-funded funded through organic growth 

Winner of global awards for price-performance p leadership 

incl. Frost & Sullivan and Red Herring 


Thank You! 

QUESTIONS? 

Jacob Nielsen 

(CEO, Xena Networks) 

jvn@xenanetworks.com 

781-502-5887

Testing 100G Ethernet - Xena Networks

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