Test Agent types

Test Agents are measurement points in Paragon Active Assurance, deployed at arbitrary locations in your network. Test Agents consist of software capable of generating, receiving, and analyzing network traffic.

Test Agents come in the following main varieties: Test Agent Appliance and Test Agent Application.

  • A Test Agent Appliance is a full-fledged Test Agent equipped with all measurement capabilities described in this documentation. The Test Agent Appliance is integrated with an optimized Debian Linux OS. The appliance is delivered by Juniper Networks in the form of software which can be installed:

    • on the Juniper NFX150 Network Services Platform

    • on selected Juniper ACX routers

    • on customer-provided x86 hardware

    • as a virtual machine (Virtual Test Agent, vTA) on a hypervisor or public cloud provider.

    In the past, Netrounds also delivered Test Agent Appliances preinstalled on specific hardware. This is no longer offered, but existing devices are still supported.

  • A Test Agent Application is a Test Agent with functionality detailed below. It consists of software and can be packaged and delivered by Juniper Networks in two ways:

    • Regular Test Agent Application: Consists of software downloaded by the customer and is installed as an application on a Linux computer.

    • Test Agent Cloud-Native Network Function (TA CNF or cTA): The Test Agent Application can optionally run as a container in any environment that supports it, for example, in routers.

This documentation mostly uses the term “Test Agent”, with no suffix. This refers to any Test Agent, insofar as the statement being made is applicable to all Test Agent types. If this is not the case (for example, when discussing a measurement task type not supported by Test Agent Applications), “Test Agent” is simply short for “Test Agent Appliance”. Where necessary for the sake of clarity, the intended variety of Test Agent is spelled out.

Note on older naming: Test Agent Appliances were previously referred to as “Probes”.

Basics of Test Agent Appliances

How to install the Test Agent on an NFX150 is described on this page.

Installation on a PC hard disk, or on a USB memory for temporary use of the PC, is covered here.

Virtual Test Agents are installed in virtualized environments, such as OpenStack, VMware and VirtualBox. In this way a Test Agent can be used as a virtual network function (VNF) in ETSI NFV MANO (Network Function Virtualization Management & Orchestration). Virtual Test Agents can be configured using cloud-init, which means they can be automatically registered with Control Center. For further information, see this page.

A preinstalled Test Agent is simply plugged physically into your network and managed from Control Center. How to get started with a preinstalled Test Agent is covered on this page.

Basics of Test Agent Applications

Test Agent Applications are designed for installation on top of a Linux system. It can optionally run as a container in any environment that supports it, for example, in routers. The containerized application is in a position to approximate very closely the performance of other applications running on the same virtual machine. How to install a Test Agent Application is covered here.

The feature set of Test Agent Applications compared to Test Agent Appliances is laid out here.

In certain situations, you need to configure settings on the host OS to get full functionality out of Test Agent Applications. For specifics, see these pages:

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.