Byte By Byte Received Data Integrity Check

• US 20130166960A1
• Filed: 12/23/2011
• Published: 06/27/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Keysight Technologies Singapore (Holdings) Pte. Limited. (Keysight Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Ixia (Keysight Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Das, Soumava, Panda, Sumit, Ganguly, Pratik
• Granted Patent: US 9,253,062 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/47.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0847 Transmission error
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A method and an apparatus for testing a network. A source port unit may generate a packet including a payload, the payload comprising a content identifier and content data in accordance with the content identifier, and transmit the packet via the network. A destination port unit may receive the packet and extract the content identifier and received content data from the received packet. The destination port unit may obtain expected content data in accordance with the extracted content identifier and compare the expected content data and the received content data.

Claims

1. A method for testing a network, comprising:

generating a packet including a payload, the payload comprising a content identifier and content data in accordance with the content identifier;

transmitting the packet via the network;

receiving the packet;

extracting the content identifier and received content data from the received packet;

obtaining expected content data in accordance with the extracted content identifier; and

comparing the expected content data and the received content data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein

the content identifier identifies a selected predetermined content pattern from a plurality of predetermined content patterns, and

obtaining expected content data comprises retrieving all or a portion of the selected predetermined content pattern from a memory.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein

the content identifier is a seed for a random number generator,

generating the packet comprises randomly generating the content data based on the content identifier, and

obtaining expected content data comprises randomly generating the expected content data based on the extracted content identifier.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein

the payload comprises a plurality of blocks, each block containing a respective content identifier and respective content data in accordance with the respective content identifier, and

the extracting, obtaining, and comparing are performed independently for each of the plurality of blocks.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein each block includes a block header containing the content identifier and a block length.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each block header include a timestamp.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein each block header includes a cyclic redundancy check value.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein

the payload comprises a plurality of blocks, each block containing a respective content identifier and respective content data in accordance with the respective content identifier, and

the extracting, obtaining, and comparing are performed independently for each of the plurality of blocks.

8. An apparatus for testing a network, comprising:

a source port unit configured to

generate a packet including a payload, the payload comprising a content identifier and content data in accordance with the content identifier, and

transmit the packet via the network; and

a destination port unit configured to

receive the packet,

extract the content identifier and received content data from the received packet,

obtain expected content data in accordance with the extracted content identifier, and

compare the expected content data and the received content data.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein

the content identifier identifies a selected predetermined content pattern from a plurality of predetermined content patterns, and

the source port unit is configured to retrieve all or a portion of the selected predetermined content pattern from a memory.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein

the content identifier is a seed for a random number generator, and

the source port unit is configured to randomly generate the content data based on the seed.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein

the source port unit is configured to generate the payload as a plurality of blocks, each block containing a respective content identifier and content data in accordance with the respective content identifier, and

the destination port unit is configured to extract the content identifier, obtain the expected content data, and compare the expected content data and the received content data independently for each of the plurality of blocks.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein each block includes a block header containing the content identifier and a block length.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein each block header include a timestamp.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein each block header includes a cyclic redundancy check value.

15. A method for generating traffic to test a network, comprising:

a source unit generating a packet addressed to a destination unit, the packet including a payload comprising a content identifier and content data in accordance with the content identifier,

wherein the content data is known or knowable to the destination unit based on the content identifier.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein

the content identifier identifies a selected predetermined content pattern from a plurality of predetermined content patterns stored at both the source unit and the destination unit.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein

the content identifier is a seed for a random number generator,

wherein both the source unit and the destination unit are configured to randomly generate the content data based on the content identifier.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein

the payload comprises a plurality of blocks, each block containing a respective content identifier and respective content data in accordance with the respective content identifier, and

the content data of each of the plurality of blocks is known or knowable to the destination unit based on the respective content identifiers.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein

the content identifier is a seed for a random number generator, and

obtaining expected content data comprises randomly generating the expected content data based on the extracted content identifier.

19. A method for processing a packet, comprising:

receiving the packet via a network;

extracting a content identifier and received content data from the received packet;

obtaining expected content data in accordance with the extracted content identifier; and

comparing the expected content data and the received content data.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein

the content identifier identifies a selected predetermined content pattern from a plurality of predetermined content patterns, and

obtaining expected content data comprises retrieving all or a portion of the selected predetermined content pattern from a memory.