A new router testbed was installed at the Institute of Telematics at the beginning of this year. It consists of 25 workstations that are each equipped with Intel Xeon X3430 2,4GHz Quadcore-CPUs, 4GB RAM, 500GB SATA hard drive, 2 on-board 1000TX Ethernet NICs, and one more Intel 82580 Controller that is equipped with four more 1000TX Ethernet
NICs. Besides the multicore CPU capability and dedicated CPU virtualization support, the 82580 ethernet controllers were of particular importance as they provide support for the Intel Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDQ) and I/O Acceleration Technology (I/OAT).
Administration of all workstations can be realized by means of a dedicated KVM switch and a corresponding IP console. 97 of the possible 150 network interfaces are currently interconnected via a Cisco Catalyst 6500 switch which allows for the configuration of arbitrary virtual topologies via VLANs.
The testbed is currently used for the evaluation of implementations in the field of signaling and network virtualization.