Keysight Technologies, Inc. announced two new 1.6T Ethernet test platforms, Switch and Edge Router Tester (SERT) 1600GE and AresONE Plus 1600GE, designed to help customers validate next-generation AI data center and hyperscale networking infrastructure. AresONE Plus 1600GE sets a new benchmark by delivering eight 1.6T Ethernet ports in a single 2U appliance while providing stateful, realistic AI workload generation with mix-of-experts emulation.
SERT 1600GE targets data center switch fabric and edge router validation, while AresONE Plus 1600GE adds AI workload emulation and high-density switch fabric testing. The combined platforms provide a consistent test foundation for device qualification, routing, and AI fabric validation. They also enable performance, interoperability, and control-plane evaluation as networks scale.
Key capabilities include:
- AresONE Plus 1600GE for testing high-density switching: Packs eight OSFP1600 ports into a single 2U chassis, delivering 12.8T of line-rate traffic at 64 bytes. It supports 1600GE PAM4 signaling over 224G SerDes with backward compatibility to 112G, plus flexible port breakout of 1x1600GE, 2x800GE, 4x400GE, or 8x200GE.
- SERT 1600GE for switch and edge router validation: Available in eight-port 2U configuration for switch fabric scale testing. In common with the AresONE Plus 1600GE platform, it is capable of being time synchronized using Precision Time Protocol (PTP), for larger topologies, offering flexibility to scale test environments as network configurations grow.
- Protocol and control-plane validation: Both platforms support Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP), Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), and SONiC validation across routing, bridging, and access use cases. AresONE Plus 1600GE also provides core routing scale for control-plane testing.
- AI workload emulation: AresONE Plus 1600GE integrates with Keysight AI Data Center Builder software for mix-of-experts emulation, RoCEv2, Priority Flow Control (PFC), Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), and Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) support. These capabilities let customers exercise both network protocols and AI traffic behavior in the same validation environment to identify performance and congestion issues before deployment.
- Optics and test flexibility: Both platforms support DAC, ACC, AEC, AOC, and coherent optics in both IHS and RHS form factors. AresONE Plus 1600GE can dynamically switch between an eight-port mode for data center switch qualification and a four-port mode for AI benchmarking on the same chassis, helping teams use one appliance across multiple test scenarios and gain more value from their test infrastructure.
NVIDIA Spectrum-6 Ethernet Switch is setting the foundation for next-generation AI Ethernet fabrics with unprecedented bandwidth, scale, and AI-optimized networking. Through collaboration with NVIDIA, Keysight AresONE Plus 1600GE provides the high-performance validation platform needed to stress these capabilities with 1.6T/800GE traffic throughput, 224G SerDes, routing-scale validation, and realistic AI workload emulation, enabling rigorous performance and congestion testing before deployment.
For more information, visit keysight.com.
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