About Network Test
Thanks for your interest in Network Test, an independent benchmarking and network design consultancy.
We offer test and measurement services for networking equipment and live networks. Our clients include equipment manufacturers, large enterprises, service providers, industry consortia, and trade publications. (See “A New Direction”)
Our services include private and public assessments of device conformance, interoperability, performance, and scalability. Here's what we provide in private and public tests:
Private Testing
For equipment makers and resellers:
Network Test offers QA outsourcing services for manufacturers and resellers of networking equipment. Our tests don't merely validate the claims on the data sheets. We also design rigorous system test methodologies to ensure products work the way customers will actually use them. All tests are conducted under strict NDA.
For enterprises and service providers:
Whenever a large purchase order for network equipment or services is on the line, testing is often a key component of decision support. The only problem is, network benchmarking is a specialized field and not a core competency for even large enterprises and some service providers. That's where Network Test can help: We bring independent testing expertise to help clients compare like with like, and sort out useful results from marketing claims. Network Test has conducted numerous projects, all under strict NDA, where we've helped enterprises and service providers choose the top performers from among a short list of candidates.
Public Testing
For equipment makers:
Sophisticated consumers of network equipment rarely, if ever, “take the vendor's word for it” that a product or network will function as claimed. Network Test can help with independent, unbiased validation testing.
Note that we do not conduct competitive public tests for equipment makers. There's a simple reason for this: No vendor ever lost a competitive test that it paid for. Further, such projects have a well-deserved reputation for biased test design.
Network Test does not accept commissions for public competitive reviews. Even in single-product public tests, we rely only industry-standard benchmarks. Based on years of representing the interests of the end-user community, we feel strongly that marketing claims should reflect testing, not the other way around.
Our advice for vendors seeking competitive testing: Conduct the tests yourself and save the expense of commissioning a third party. Given the questionable auspices of the “independent” party in such cases, there is little benefit in additional mindshare among prospective customers.
For industry consortia:
The arrival of a new technology brings with it the need for public education and awareness. Network Test has worked with industry groups such as the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance and the Network Processor Forum to design and conduct tests that give customers a clear and compelling view of new technologies.
For trade publications:
Network Test president David Newman is a member of Network World's Global Test Alliance, a confederation of independent test labs. Network Test has conducted numerous assessments of network device infrastructure (such as switches and routers) and security devices (such as intrusion detection and prevention, virtual private network gateways, and firewalls).