Assessment of IxLoad in an MPG Environment

Abstract: Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the latest mobile network technology published by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).  It might become a dominant technology for the next generation and it is attracting a great deal of attention from the top global corporations. IxLoad is a real-world traffic emulator, designed by the test solution provider giant Ixia. Mobile Packet Gateway (MPG) has been developed by Ericsson and is supporting the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), LTE traffic. In this thesis, MPG is utilized to assess the capacity and LTE functionality of IxLoad. Capacity estimation will verify the maximum simulated users that can be supported by IxLoad and will test the maximum throughput IxLoad can achieve with a particular number of simulated users, under conditions involving a particular application scenario such as browsing HTTP. In addition to Session Management some other features such as Track Area Update and Handover, Busy Hour Functionality, Deep Packet Inspection, Multiple Access Point Names (APNs) and Dynamic Quality of Service Enforcement are also covered in the functionality assessment. Moreover, this thesis gives a brief introduction to Evolved Packet System (EPS), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), and to the functionality of MPG in addition to the role of MPG in EPS. Meanwhile the newest features of IxLoad are also presented in this document. Finally, as the outcome of this thesis, several suggestions are proposed in relation to improvements for IxLoad and MPG.