Ixia Helps Carriers and Service Providers Defend IP Networks from Security Attacks with New Denial of Service Test Suite

Business Wire, June 7, 2005

CHICAGO -- New Test Suite Validates the Resiliency of IP Networks to Resist Malicious Attacks, and Speed Successful Deployment of Enhanced Triple-Play Services

Ixia (Nasdaq:XXIA), a leading, global provider of IP network testing solutions, announced today a new Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) test suite for its IxLoad product. The new test suite is designed to address the critical need Carriers and Service Providers have of ensuring "utility-grade" network quality as triple-play services are deployed across the rapidly expanding IP infrastructure. Ixia's DDoS test suite emulates a wide a range of Denial of Service attacks, including TCP SYN flood, Ping of Death, and port scans, making it easier to guard an IP network, and to speed the deployment of high quality services to subscribers, thus reducing the risk of revenue interruption for Carriers and Service Providers.

Carriers and Service Providers are building networks today made up of literally millions of IP devices, providing for the roll-out of enhanced IP triple-play services. The nature of these services demands a higher level of network performance, especially in regard to voice and video traffic, which are particularly sensitive to network performance degradation. Ixia's new DDoS test suite in IxLoad is an excellent tool for labs tasked with assessing performance resiliency and network vulnerability while under DDoS attack. By helping Carriers and Service Providers implement realistic pre-deployment testing scenarios, Ixia's test suite makes it easier for Carriers and Service Providers to ensure utility grade services for their subscriber base.

As Carriers and Service Providers expand their enhanced service deployment, traffic complexity and traffic volume will increase. Unfortunately, so will the number and nature of network attacks. IxLoad's new DDOS test suite is designed specifically to scale with the growth of these IP services, and streamline the addition of new attacks to its library of attacks. IxLoad is capable of emulating various L4-7 protocols like HTTP, FTP, Email, and Streaming Video and Audio traffic so that Carriers and Service Providers can create real-world mixes of valid user traffic (HTTP, Email, etc.) and malicious traffic (DDoS attacks), and then increase the volume of this traffic to effectively emulate current network realities.

In addition to the DDoS test suite, the new version of the IxLoad product also contains high-performance modes for TCP and HTTP testing. Using these new modes, Carriers and Service Providers can scale to up to eight million concurrent sessions using a single Ixia Load Module and hundreds of millions of concurrent sessions using a single Ixia chassis. This allows them to conduct extremely large-scale tests with fewer test ports, and thereby take further advantage of the scalability of the Ixia platform. In this way, Ixia's testing platform can effectively predict the capability of Firewalls, Intrusion Detection and Prevention systems (IDS and IPS), or other security appliances to prevent malicious attacks from disrupting legitimate traffic under extreme real-world scenarios.

The DDoS test suite is available with the IxLoad 2.1 release and is available now. To learn more about IxLoad please visit our website or come by the Ixia booth, No. 76033 at the Supercomm show this week.

About Ixia

Ixia is a leading, global provider of high performance IP network testing solutions. Its highly scalable solutions generate, capture, characterize, and emulate network and application traffic, establishing definitive performance and conformance metrics of network devices or systems under test. Ixia's testing solutions are used by Network and Telephony Equipment Manufacturers, Semiconductor Manufacturers, Service Providers, and large Enterprises to validate the functionality, and reliability of complex IP networks, devices, and applications. Ixia's patented Real World Traffic(TM) Suite addresses the growing need to test applications and networks prior to deployment under realistic load conditions. Ixia's vision is to be the world's pre-eminent provider of solutions to enable testing of these "utility-grade" IP networks. Ixia's analysis solutions utilize a wide range of industry-standard interfaces and are distinguished by their performance, accuracy, reliability, and adaptability to the industry's constant evolution.

For more information, contact Ixia at 26601 W. Agoura Road, Calabasas, CA 91302; 818-871-1800, Fax: 818-871-1805; Email: info@ixiacom.com or visit our Web Site at http://www.ixiacom.com.

Ixia(R), the Ixia four petal logo(R), IxExplorer(R), and Optixia(R) are registered trademarks of Ixia; IxLoad, IxScriptMate, IxVoice, IxVPN, IxAccess, IxAnalyze, IxANVL, IxAuthenticate, and IxChariot, are trademarks of Ixia. Unless otherwise indicated, other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.