Test Agent capabilities

Capabilities of Test Agents

The table below gives an overview of the capabilities of Test Agents.

Some features require additional hardware; this is indicated in footnotes.

The measurement features themselves are covered here (Speedtest, packet capture) and here (all other features in the table).

Note that certain features recur in multiple tasks; for example, TCP is also used in the Multisession TCP, RFC 6349, and QoS policy profiling tasks.

Feature	TA Appliance	TA Application	No. of TA interfaces needed
TCP	Yes	Yes	2
UDP	Yes	Yes	2
IPTV MPEG	Yes	Yes	1
OTT video (HLS)	Yes	Yes	1
Netflix Speedtest	Yes	Yes	1
HTTP	Yes	Yes	1
DNS	Yes	Yes	1
SIP	Yes	No	2
Wi-Fi network testing	Yes 3	No	1
Mobile network testing	Yes 4	No	1
Ethernet service activation	Yes	No	2
Transparency tests	Yes	No	2
Y.1731	Yes	No	1
TWAMP incl. HW timestamping	Yes	Yes	1
TWAMP reflector	Yes	Yes	1
Junos TWAMP	No	Yes	1
Ping	Yes	Yes	1
BWPing	Yes	No	1
Path trace	Yes	Yes	1
UDP loopback	Yes	No	1
Security tests 1	Yes	No	1 or 2 depending on test
Speedtest 2	Yes	No	1
Packet capture	Yes	No	1

1

These also include IGMP join/leave and Multicast group limit (found in the IPTV category in the GUI).

2

TCP throughput testing initiated from a web browser.

3

Requires Wi-Fi network card; details here.

4

Requires mobile network modem; details here.

Test Agents on Juniper equipment

• The Test Agent Appliance running on the NFX150 supports the normal range of features as laid out in the table above (“TA Appliance” column).

• The Test Agent Application running on ACX7000 Family routers supports the following features:

  • UDP

  • TCP

  • HTTP

  • DNS

  • Ping

  • Path trace

  • IPTV

  • OTT video

Configuring Test Agents

There are two ways to configure Test Agent Appliances in Paragon Active Assurance:

• From the Paragon Active Assurance GUI. This is covered here.

• From the Test Agent local console, accessed from the command line. The local console is described here.

These interfaces are partly overlapping with respect to their functionality. Registration of Test Agents, however, must be done from the local console.

Test Agent Applications have no configurable settings other than registration credentials.

Using Test Agent Applications for 5G core network testing

Test Agent Applications are capable of connecting to a 5G core network and running tests and monitors to measure the performance of that network. See this page for further information.

This feature is currently not available on Test Agent Appliances.