Research On Multi-Port Concurrent Testing Coordination & Management Protocol

The incentive of the work presented in this dissertation is that existing router testing methods are not suitable for testing simuoutaneously multi-port operation of routers, nor capable of emulating the real operation environment of routers for test systems. This has sitimulated the research on new method for testing multi-port routers at SC-Netcom Lab. Based on MPC-TTM (Multi-Port Concurrent Transverse Test Method) and MP-CTDL (Multi-Port Concunent Test Definition Language), SC-Netcom Lab has been developing a Distributed Multi-port Concurrent Test System (DMC-TS). The DMC-TS is composed of two types of test system: the Multi-Port Concurrent Tester (MPCT) at the top level and Two-Port Testers (TPTs) at the bottom level. The main subject of this dissertation is the Multi-Port Concurrent Testing Coordination & Management Protocol (MPCT-CMP) ,which provides coordination and management service for test control entities in MPCT and those in TPTs.It is important to have an MPCT-CMP since MPCT and TPTs are located in different physical devices and interconnected through LAN techniques. Without MPCT-CMP, the Multi-Port Concurrent Transverse Test Method will recede to independent parallel testing with the transverse test method.The author' s work presented in the thesis includes: analysis of requirements of MPCT-CMP, the possition of MPCT-CMP in existing network layer structure, its operation model, specification of its Protocol Data Units, and definition of its state transition tables. In order to demonstrate that it is operable and meets the design goal, a prototype of MPCT-CMP is implemented, which has passed necessary tests. Although futher refinement to author' s work is needed, but it does provide a foundation for cooperation and synchronization between the MPCT and TPTs in the Distributed Multi-port Concurrent Test System for routers.