Many organizations implement their critical business applications over satellite networks. These satellite networks are used to support everything from retail locations and remote offices to TV news vans and mobile combat systems.
Satellite networks introduce challenging conditions for data and voice applications. They are often characterized by high latency (because of the extreme physical distance between the satellite and the ground) and dropped packets, which can dramatically impact application performance and functionality. Network bandwidth and QoS may also vary greatly between places where the signal is strong and places where the signal is weak or the channel is congested – a factor that can be especially problematic for mobile users who experience different conditions as they move across coverage areas. The combination of high throughput and high latency that characterizes many newer satellite networks can be particularly problematic for applications that are not properly designed to cope with these conditions.
To make matters worse, it’s often difficult or impossible to make significant modifications to the network once a satellite has been launched. So many of the techniques used to improve application performance on terrestrial networks simply can’t be applied. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to validate and analyze the viability of applications under specific satellite network infrastructure conditions before production roll-outs – or before the satellite is launched.
Simulate Challenging Satellite Network Conditions
With Shunra VE, you can easily create a virtual satellite network in a lab
environment including conditions such as very high delay, high throughput, packet loss, mobility-related variability and signal loss.
Using this virtual satellite network environment, you can quickly discover which applications will perform well over the satellite network and which will fail. You can re-test applications after you modify them to see if those modifications improve performance. You can also create worst-case scenarios – such as the loss of line-of-sight due to end-user mobility and/or heavy channel congestion and noise – to see how applications will perform under these challenging conditions.
These capabilities make Shunra VE ideal for testing a wide range of applications or projects, including:
- FCS and JNN-T simulate true battlefield network conditions
- Internet in the Sky - simulate any satellite network
- FSO - simulate any high-bandwidth long-distance link
- Defense Shield\National Missile Defense - simulate the network backbone of missile defense systems
- Satellite to Satellite Communications - validate satellite performance before launch
- Satellite to Ground Communications - “see” and “hear” what the ground unit will experience
- Satellite Applications for Retail - simulate network connectivity to stores
Shunra VE provides a far superior alternative to testing applications and services over live satellite networks, because:
- Testing on the production satellite environment is risky and can compromise the performance of live applications already running.
- The production environment is not accessible for extended tests like overnight tests or long stress tests.
- The testing schedule is limited to off-hours and weekends, resulting in overtime costs and resulting in a failure to test the application under realistic business-hour conditions – thereby producing inaccurate results.
- Security may be breached by exposing the application to the production environment before it is fully production-ready.
- The production environment is not repeatable. Even if the tester finds a problem in the application, it is hard to reproduce the application’s “break-points.”
All of these factors necessitate the use of a controllable, repeatable virtual network environment to ensure end-to-end application performance and functionality over satellite-enabled communications infrastructure.
For more information about how Shunra VE can help you ensure the success of your satellite application deployments, please complete the QuickContact form below.