IWL's Expert Insights on Network Emulation and Protocol Testing
SilverCreek Supports SNMP Agents Using the Datagram Over Transport Layer Security Model (DTLS)
Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) is now more popular than UDP for a variety of applications. The SilverCreek SNMP Test Suite is no longer limited to UDP, so you can use SilverCreek to test your full implementation over your preferred transport protocol…
Network Slowdown, by Design
How are you measuring your network’s performance? One can have a very fast network, but get very little throughput, with very high perceived delays…If you are using a tool, such as iperf, to measure throughput, the results can be quite deceptive. That's because iperf displays effective throughput of data at the transport layer, and thus masks what is actually going on underneath …
Use IWL TCP Test Suite to Avoid CERT Security Advisories
ICS-CERT (Industrial Control System – Computer Emergency Response Team) is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Recently CERT issued two Advisories concerning TCP/IP implementation flaws that have existed for years, perhaps decades and are now being found in embedded systems …
Are You Being Misled by Network Speed Tests? The Reality Might Surprise You!
Many "Speed Test" tools available on the Internet are easily run in a web browser. Should you trust those tools?
Not really. The popular speed testing tools provide a very narrow and limited measure of network "speed". It is quite possible that a network that is rated as "fast" could actually deliver poor results to many applications …
A Holistic View of Network Emulation
We read Damien Garros' blog post -- Introduction to Network Emulation and Requirements for Virtual Network Devices with great interest as Mr. Garros takes an unusual view of networking. Our thoughts and comments follow …
Keynote at NANOG 77 by CTO Karl Auerbach
IWL Chief Technical Officer Karl Auerbach delivered the Keynote speech at NANOG 77 in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, October 29, 2019
“Network Operations On A Public Utility Internet” ...
IWL Cautions Against Misleading 5G Claims Made by Purveyors of 5G Products
Prior to planning or funding 5G rollouts, technology implementers must rigorously question 5G claims and look for substantiated evidence. IWL issued a caution today that some of the claims made by investors in 5G technology are exaggerated or lead to overly-naïve conclusions …
Application Performance Testing Mistakes
Customers abandon apps that are not responsive, according to recent studies. Two key mistakes are testing only over the local area network and having no test methodology…
Practical Guidelines for TCP Implementers
While many open source TCP/IP implementations are available via standard operating system distributions, some applications require changes and customization to TCP/IP. Hence, the requirement to track best practices and the current status of the protocol’s evolution. What has changed? A lot, really! …
Test Results for libssh Bug on KMAX, Mini Maxwell, and Maxwell Pro
IWL Engineering has completed its investigation of the CVE-2018-10933 security flaw (libssh bug) and found that this bug is not present in our products. Based on testing conducted by IWL engineers, there is no indication that either Mini Maxwell or KMAX is subject to the libssh flaw. For the Maxwell Pro products, based on RedHat Fedora, RedHat has stated that its systems are not vulnerable; our testing is consistent with that …
How to Create Awe-Inspiring Network Protocol Test Suites
The cost of computer security breaches is no longer hypothetical. According to the Cisco 2018 Annual Cybersecurity Report (page 46), more than half (53 percent) of all attacks resulted in financial damages of more than US$500,000 (for each organization), including, but not limited to, lost revenue, customers, opportunities, and out-of-pocket costs. Interestingly, about 19% of the attacks resulted in financial damages of more than US$2.5 Million per organization! …
Are You Ready for the New Challenges of QUIC?
In 2013, Google announced a new transport protocol, the QUIC protocol (Quick UDP Internet Connections). QUIC’s original goal was to reduce transport latency, particularly with users of web apps (that use HTTP over TCP). The goal was later expanded to provide a reliable, connection-oriented, low-latency, fully encrypted transport layer. Approximately 0.9% of all websites use QUIC …