Ruckus Intros Open Source Wireless Performance Testing Tool Zap

Sunnyvale, Calif.- based wireless LAN provider Ruckus Wireless has reportedly unveiled its open source wireless performance testing program 'Zap.' The program can be used for further development of advanced tools for testing actual wireless network performance. Zap was originally developed to characterize wireless behavior of real-time IP-based video streaming applications. It is now used for determining wireless network signal performance accurately over time, space and frequency.

 Network planners use Zap to test sustained throughput of an existing wireless network and determine the true, sustained and worst-case performance that it is capable of delivering 99.5 percent of the time. Through Zap it is possible to calculate the real-life performance of a system before deployment.

'With wireless you need to understand the statistical throughput distribution in order to really characterize performance. Zap gives you that. Other performance testing tools only tell you average throughput, which is often irrelevant to demanding applications,' said Bill Kish, chief technology officer and co-founder of Ruckus Wireless (News - Alert). 'As good as Zap is, by releasing the code as open source, we believe the software community can make it even better, perhaps even incorporate it into new commercial testing tools. Wi-Fi is becoming a critical network access infrastructure and anything that shines a brighter light onto Wi-Fi performance is a good thing for the industry.'

Overcoming the challenges of traditional wireless testing, Zap provides a statistical analysis that assesses the performance of a wireless network by predicting the percent of time and the locations at which performance will be above or below a certain limit.

 Ruckus Wireless is a key player in the carrier and enterprise wireless LAN markets. In November, Ruckus Wireless introduced a complete, end-to-end managed, wireless broadband access solution, according to a TMCnet report.