For over 25 years, Computaris has successfully delivered more than 1000 projects to over 100 mobile operators worldwide. Based on this extensive experience in the area of telco applications, Computaris experts have built and developed TOP Testing Suite – a software solution for end-to-end testing, evaluation, and validation of telecom services. Since its launch in 2007, the solution has been used extensively in all stages of telecom product development and deployment by both Computaris own engineers and the quality assurance teams of customer mobile operators.
Manage comprehensive test scenarios in complex telco and IT environments
Computaris TOP Testing Suite is a modular, multiprotocol and multiplatform tool that helps telecom engineers to define and manage a broad range of test plans. It can be used to perform advanced functional, load, performance, regression and stress testing in complex telco and IT environments. It can also execute automatically various test types in different phases of system deployment and installation, and can dynamically test various protocol servers using the black-box approach.
Support Diameter and other major IT and telecom protocols
TOP Testing Suite is Java-based tool built around the JMeter platform with open-source elements and Computaris plug-ins. The tool supports all major industry-wide IT and telecom protocols including Diameter Client and Server (with Diameter interfaces including: Ro/Gy, Rf, Gx, Sy, S6a/S6d/S6c, Sh, Cx/Dx, etc.), RADIUS Client and RADIUS Server plugin enhancement, SIP, LDAP, Telnet/SSH, JDBC, SOAP/Web Services, JMS, CORBA, SMPP and SMPP Server plugin enhancement, HTTP Server, CORBA and more.
The Diameter plugin supports the Diameter-Base standard (RFC 3588), as well as specific Diameter applications (defined in configuration). It also allows:
- the specification of the server(s) addresses and parameters for CER and DPR
- the easy creation of any Diameter commands by GUI
- the validation of response messages (AVP inspection, header inspection)
- the displaying of aggregate results (latency, throughput – min, max, average, deviation)
- the displaying of request/responses one by one
- standalone samplers for performance/load tests
Other protocols can also be added as required to suit any specific testing scenarios. For each protocol, the suite comes with a list of predefined messages and data types, such as AVPs in Diameter messages.
The modification or addition of any new data types and messages, in either standard or vendor-specific formats, is simple and easy due to the intuitive GUI. All messages are encoded and decoded based on the scheme as described in the applicable protocol.
Test VoLTE deployments
The recent rise of VoLTE implementations by operators has determined the need for increased signaling plane performance (SIP, Diameter) and solution stability. On a quality assurance level, this requires extensive system, interoperability and integration testing.
Computaris TOP Testing Suite is well suited to support VoLTE testing as it can simulate both Diameter and SIP signaling used in VoLTE session management. The Diameter interfaces supported on top of the base protocol include: Cx, Dh, Dx, Gy, Gx, Rf, Ro, Rx, S6a, Sh, S9, Sy. The SIP plugin provides connectivity to VoLTE x-CSCF elements allowing for sending SIP messages used in registration, IMS session initiation, charging and release.For VoLTE implementation the tool currently covers testing scenarios in the area of offline and online charging (via Rf,
For VoLTE implementation the tool currently covers testing scenarios in the area of offline and online charging (via Rf, Ga and Ro Diameter interfaces), home subscriber server (over Sh, Cx and S6a interfaces), policy and charging control testing (using Rx, Gx, S9 Diameter interfaces).
In the context of IMS, the solution can support load and stress, performance, functionality interoperability and conformance testing. Test engineers can create the sets of test cases based on IMS specifications and vendor documentation. The testing method can be supported using single or many TOP Testing Suite instances in master-slave configuration when more throughput is required.
Test the full features with a free trial version
Computaris TOP Testing Suite is designed to be both horizontally and vertically scalable to simulate massive data throughputs on commodity hardware for load and stress testing.
By featuring multithreading, it is able to simultaneously run multiple tasks to scale up with the hardware installed base of any telecom system under test.
Its versatility makes it an effective software solution for predicting system behavior and network performance.
A smartly designed GUI helps set up and execute test plans, and interpret and analyze test results, all from one central testing platform. Building test plans is as easy as it gets with a wide choice of predefined and preconfigured test elements, whereas test scenarios can be easily created with graphically composed messages and validation rules.
Scalability, multithreading, flexibility and the intuitive GUI are only a few of the features available with the TOP Testing Suite. To test its full capabilities, the solution is available for a free 30-day trial version, upon request at contact@computaris.com.
Computaris licensing model and testing services
Computaris TOP Testing Suite is available in a perpetual licensing model with optional training, maintenance and support services.
TOP Testing Suite assists software developers, system integrators and network operators to create, orchestrate and execute comprehensive test scenarios. Based on the same tool, Computaris also provides a wide range of services including network integration, factory acceptance, customer acceptance, integration and system testing.
Edited from press release by Cecilia Rehn.
