Our Nash Protocol Tester is a simulator for telecommunication systems. It supports control and user plane traffic of UMTS/W-CDMA and LTE wireless technologies. Both, fully automated as well as interactive testing is supported by NPT® using Perl. NPT® includes graphical user interfaces for managing message libraries and for visualizing message flows between NPT® and the system under test. An abstract and thus fully flexible test framework in NPT® allows to simulate any network elements including their communication protocol based interactions.
Technology
Applications
- UMTS NodeB functional & performance testing
- FemtoCell L1 testing
- TS25.141 conformance testing
- ISO/IEEE 11073 Smart Sensor Testing
- Resilience / robustness testing
- Automated regression testing
- Reproduction of field issues by deliberate stimulation of rare co-incidents
- UMTS and LTE core simulation
- SMS-CBC simulation
- UE Chipset testing
The heart of the NPT® is the Perl Environment for Testing, which allows the execution of user-supplied Perl scripts and provides the infrastructure for building up the test cases and test suites.
To simplify protocol and message handling, the NPT® offers a variety of unique features. First, a Protocol Module is generated from the original protocol specification, which can be for example ASN.1, C-headers or almost any other structured format. Messages from such Protocol Modules can be used directly in Perl, where each element in a message can be accessed, or a pre-defined set of messages can be stored in a Message Template Library to simplify test-case creation where the full flexibility of modifying each message element is not required. Such messages can be pre-coded using the Message Wizard.
Actual testing is performed at Perl level. The flexibility of the script language allows you to implement almost any test case, using finite state machines and others. Tests can be run in an automated fashion, but you can also use NPT® fully interactively, which allows you complete control over your test environment.
All messages to and from the system being tested are logged and can be analyzed in detail with an elaborate logfile viewer. Of course you can add additional information to the log files from the test scripts, which allows you to capture any information you may deem beneficial for your testing purposes.
Finally, NPT® provides an Interface to allow external clients triggering test scripts and test cases. This allows employing the NPT® as a test client in an automated test environment.
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NPT® Example Applications
Wireless
Through its background in wireless test labs, NPT® has a strong foundation in telecom applications and offers comprehensive test suites. While NPT® is a generic test environment, here are some sample test scenarios where NPT® has been successfully employed.
- UMTS NodeB functional testing
- UMTS NodeB regression testing
- SMS-CB server simulation
- Femto/small cell testing
- UMTS-in-a-box systems
Medical
Telemonitoring systems are becoming increasingly complex. Since they need to provide reliable service at all times and under any circumstances, testing them under controlled conditions is paramount. NPT® provides the means to address this challenge.
- NPT® for smart sensors (e.g. 11073)
NPT® is the main driver for numerous test activities within Nash Technologies and customer test labs. And it may well be the right tool for your test lab, too.
Günter Wolf
Product Manager