LAS VEGAS, May 20 /PRNewswire/ --

- Enhancement Allows for Assessment of Virtually Any Negative Traffic, Application Network Layer Testing from Single Unit

As network equipment manufacturers, service providers and enterprises seek ways to build, deliver and run more cost-effective networks, Spirent Communications plc (http://www.spirent.com/) (LSE: SPT), a leader in network, services and device testing, now offers vulnerability assessment testing capabilities on Spirent Avalanche(TM) (http://www.spirent.com/go/avalanche). This capability, also supported on Spirent TestCenter(TM), creates a unique product which tests the impact of almost any type of negative and attack traffic on networks and devices and simultaneously conducts comprehensive line rate layer 2-7 performance testing. By incorporating the strengths of the industry leading Spirent ThreatEx Attack generation solution into Spirent Avalanche, test engineers can now add vulnerability assessment to their testing methodologies.

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Instead of purchasing multiple pieces of hardware and associated licenses, test engineers can invest in a single platform that addresses several critical issues related to network security and vulnerabilities. Spirent Avalanche is available in both appliance-based solutions and as part of Spirent TestCenter's layer 2-7 testing platform.

With Spirent Avalanche, test engineers supporting the efforts of equipment manufacturers, service provider and enterprise organization can:

- Launch realistic cyber attacks directly into new and existing test plans by quickly and easily creating stateful attacks, transactional attacks or stateless flooding attacks intermixed with any other traffic - Determine quickly the effectiveness of deep packet inspection and security devices by creating a combination of normalized and malicious traffic - Prepare networks for unforeseen security breeches by creating and modifying attacks to test additional scenarios and custom attack variations with the Spirent Avalanche Attack Designer - Mitigate and even prevent future attacks on the network by identifying potential weak spots and failure points in devices by producing real attack traffic and signatures

The vulnerability assessment testing feature includes a database which is regularly updated with the latest worms, Trojans, viruses, and other attacks to ensure that users have a current understanding of all potential threats and how such traffic can influence normal network activity.

Adding the capability to conduct vulnerability assessment testing on our well-respected Spirent Avalanche platform makes an already powerful tool even stronger, said Ahmed Murad, General Manager, Multimedia Applications Solution Group at Spirent Communications. With its 1/10 GigE capability, it is possible to launch hundreds of thousands of attacks per second providing the realism needed to conduct accurate and comprehensive network security testing.

Spirent Avalanche allows network engineers and system designers to generate line rate stateful traffic at up to 10 Gbps allowing trunk ports to be directly tested or to determine the impact of multiple GigE ports being aggregated over 10 Gbps. This tool is the industry's most comprehensive layer 4-7 applications testing solution and supports all major protocols, including HTTP 1.0/1.1, HTTPS, FTP, streaming media, IPv6, voice (SIP), mail (SMTP/POP3), DNS, SSL, Telnet, 802.1Q VLAN tagging, IPSec, 802.1x, and PPPoE, CIFS, RTMP, custom protocols, and a number of enterprise applications via the capture/replay function.

Spirent Avalanche will be showcased during Interop 2009 at Spirent Booth #1051. The solution can also be viewed at Spirent Proof of Concept (SPoC) Labs and Collaboration Centers (http://www.spirent.com/go/spoc) in Beijing, London and Sunnyvale.

For more information please visit www.spirent.com/go/avalanche or follow Spirent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/spirentcomm

About Spirent Communications plc

For more information visit http://www.spirent.com/news/about_spirent.cfm

Sailaja Tennati of Spirent Communications, +1-770-432-3225, sailaja.tennati@spirent.com ; Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090220/SPIRENTLOGO