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ip-label.newtest up to ISO 9001-2008 standards: quality at the service of quality |
For the third year in a row, Bureau Veritas has certified ip-label.newtest ISO 9001 compliant. This stands as proof of ip-label.newtest’s consistent drive to offer its customers high-quality service.
Much more than a simple formality, the renewal of this international standard version 2008 encompasses the entire range of processes, from design to sales for the entire catalogue of ip-label.newtest products.
Over and above the pride we take in being the sole QoE measurement company in the world to be awarded ISO 9001-2008 certification, the renewal of this official recognition translates our ongoing goal of providing our customers with efficient, high-quality service in line with the following principles:
- continuous improvement and management by process
- attentiveness to the needs and satisfaction of our customers
- conformity of delivered products
As the foremost European player in the measurement of the perceived quality of digital services, ip-label.newtest strives also to be the leader in the quality of service delivered to its customers.
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The 01netPro / ip-label.newtest 2009 web host ratings |
by Alain Petit – Head of Benchmarks for the Press
 Since 2004, ip-label.newtest has been comparing the performances of French web hosting offers. The result of these studies is published on the site 01net, the leading French computer industry publication on line.
To determine the host’s performance, probes simulate internet users’ behavior on HTTP connections to five of the host’s client websites that fulfill certain eligibility criteria (read the detailed methodology to learn more about the criteria), from several network operators encompassing the great majority of internet exchanges in France, every 5 minutes 24/7.
For the whole of the year 2009, each host was assessed on the basis of 2.6 million unit tests, yielding some 18 million measurements that were stored and analyzed. This means a total of 59.8 million unit tests were carried out and 414 million measurements collected from which the ratings were formulated.
Gilbert Kallenborn, in an article published on the 01netPro site, takes a look at the overall performances measured in 2009. You can read it (in French) at this address.
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Read the latest analyses of the web in Asia published on the Atelier BNP Paribas
by Christophe Depeux, ip-label.newtest Senior Manager - Asia Pacific,
with Alain Petit, Head of Benchmarks for the Press
The Atelier BNP Paribas, in cooperation with ip-label.newtest, the performance measurement specialist, provides its readers with analyses of the web in Asia on a regular basis. Among the latest studies published, the Atelier BNP Paribas and ip-label.newtest took a look at the performances of computer sales sites in China and the sites of Asian mobile phone manufacturers and resellers.
Find these two studies and many more on the Atelier BNP Paribas website:
e-Commerce:
analysis of online PC sales in China
Analysis: mobile telephone sales on the Chinese web (in French)
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ip-label.newtest: a trusted third party in the digital universe?
Often cited but rarely defined, what exactly does the formula “trusted third party” mean? Does it come under a specific legal framework, or is it an expression of technological know-how?
The concept appears to imply a form of externalization, whether it is a service performed externally or a technological device like a black box, installed internally, but to which the user does not have access.
From this understanding, one might deduce that a trusted third party is a player in the field of new technologies which brings a guarantee to an exchange between two parties that are not mutually bound by a relationship of trust.
This said, can a company that is self-designated as a trustworthy third party legitimately be accepted as such?
For nearly ten years, ip-label.newtest has been active in this market. At present :
To fulfill the obligations set forth by the ARCEP* in its decision no. 2008-1362 of 4 December 2008, the six telecom operators in France which provide fixed-line telephony service (PSTN, ISDN or cable) and therefore come under this decision have jointly selected ip-label.newtest to provide metrics of the quality of their telephone calls. This service is being implemented under the aegis of the ARCEP.
* French national electronic communications and postal regulation authority
Here we have a case where the trusted third party is what it is quite simply because all parties concerned have designated it as such.
And thus, at present, a new definition is in order: a trusted third party is one that has won a unanimous vote of confidence.
Eric Varszegi
CEO
Download the press release.
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Are you ready for the cloud?
IT specialists have proclaimed 2010 the Year of the Cloud, and it would seem that this phenomenon, ever more omnipresent, is here to stay. As companies are considering the hardware savings, sustainability and performance of cloud computing, we feel it is important to provide some perspective and information to those who are getting ready to offer SaaS services to their users.
Selecting a cloud provider
Your first priority in your role as a SaaS provider is to seek out a cloud system where you can test and run your software. Your main concern is to make sure that the stability and steady performance of your service provider’s platform are able to deliver the services you are planning. Your chief objective is to ensure proper dimensioning and appropriate scope with respect to reliability, security, flexibility and cost structure.
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In terms of reliability:
The cloud is an evolving model. As you develop and test applications in a cloud context, you should make sure that your cloud infrastructure is sufficiently robust. Can you provide support for an infrastructure that may break down time and again, even lengthy downtime as experienced by certain major systems in 2009? You must have a system that you can count on, as well as an operational service continuity plan for the applications and sites that are called on to ensure continuous service.
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In terms of security :
Security in cloud computing is still a real source of concern. Some experts have already predicted that in 2010, Web 2.0 social networks (a major consumer of cloud resources) would become hackers’ targets of predilection. At a minimum you must ensure that your provider offers the basic security functions such as compliance with the service continuity plan or the business recovery plan. Will the segregation of virtual machines from each other on cloud infrastructures be guaranteed by providers? Recall also that as a SaaS provider, the final responsibility as regards security remains yours, and that you are obligated to keep critical data in house.
With companies turning more and more to outside providers whose products and services are supposed to integrate with your product or service, you have to ensure that your provider can ensure communication between your partners. Cloud computing is still in a fledgling state, and communication snags are always possible. Ensure that all exchanges between APIs of different systems that make up the service operate well in cloud contexts.
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In terms of security:
Security in cloud computing is still a real source of concern. Some experts have already predicted that in 2010, Web 2.0 social networks (a major consumer of cloud resources) would become hackers’ targets of predilection. At a minimum you must ensure that your provider offers the basic security functions such as compliance with the service continuity plan or the business recovery plan. Will the segregation of virtual machines from each other on cloud infrastructures be guaranteed by providers? Recall also that as a SaaS provider, the final responsibility as regards security remains yours, and that you are obligated to keep critical data in house.
With companies turning more and more to outside providers whose products and services are supposed to integrate with your product or service, you have to ensure that your provider can ensure communication between your partners. Cloud computing is still in a fledgling state, and communication snags are always possible. Ensure that all exchanges between APIs of different systems that make up the service operate well in cloud contexts.
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In terms of cost
When your information system develops beyond a certain point, the price of access to cloud services can become a major problem. You will have to think hard and plan the acceptable cost structure by taking into account the current needs of your company and its projected growth over the coming years. View it like the cost of a taxi ride, as a constant charge per kilometer whatever the use. Nevertheless, depending on the specificities of your enterprise, you might want to choose a model more like mobile telephony, with scaled rates for intensive usage or occasional usage of value added services.
Read more
by Alain Gouret Senior Manager, Product Development
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This study investigates the current state of the art of mobile web navigation. There is a wealth of statistics on market shares regarding sales of mobile terminals, but very little information is available about how these devices are used and, in particular, how they access web content. The data below is a synthesis of 200,000 samples collected from web users who accessed a high-traffic website via their mobile phone. The visitors to this site are profiled as IT savvy technophiles. The analysis was conducted on data collected in February 2010.
by William Rang - CTO
Download this study |
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L’Ordinateur Individuel and ip-label.newtest:
how do high-speed ISPs rank in 2010?
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 In one of its most widely circulated issues of the year, no. 255 of March 2010, l’Ordinateur Individuel presented a ranking of internet service providers.
For the third year in a row, this undisputed leader in the IT press for the French-speaking general readership, in partnership with ip-label.newtest, published a full spread setting forth the various criteria of interest to the subscriber, such as reliability, performance, services, set-top boxes, upgrades, prices, etc.
To detail the technical performance and reliability of the various offers, l’Ordinateur Individuel based its findings mainly on the 8,421 million unit tests carried out by ip-label.newtest over the whole of the year 2009, supplying some 701 million collected and analyzed measurements.
In the space of 12 pages, l’Ordinateur Individuel presented a clear, detailed study with simple, yet complete commentaries and visual aids to make the report’s content readily comprehensible.
Read the article
By Alain Petit – Head of Benchmarks for the Press |
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Newtest
Coming soon: Newtest Enterprise Portal release 2.1.1 includes support for Active Directory and Single Sign-On to make using a Newtest-specific user database optional and to integrate NEP more closely into the information system, a Nagios plug-in with the Newtest Operation Portal option, optimized data insertion and consolidation in the data warehouse, and more…
NEP 2.2 forecast for Q3 2010: SQL 2008 technical platform, standardization of NMC and Reporting interfaces, improved ergonomics, standardization and optimization of communications between robots and NMC, and more…
Slated for the same delivery date, Newtest Robot and NTBR 7.4.2 will offer major improvements in scripting tools and user-friendliness of the NTBR interface and wizards.
These versions are being developed with a view to transitioning toward the major upgrade expected for Newtest V3.
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HTTP Live Streaming for iPhone
With high-speed networks (fixed-line and mobile) becoming increasingly common in tandem with the integration of rich media components in browsers and the rise of online video (YouTube, Dailymotion), it is not surprising that the use of streaming technologies has found its way into the daily lives of internet surfers (live TV, catch-up TV, VOD, live events, etc.).
For years, ip-label.newtest has developed its tools apace with the progression of market-standard technologies. Thus, in 2009, flash streaming technology, based on RTMP, was added to the Datametrie Streaming product line to meet new demand. At the start of this year, the success of 3G iPhone has prompted us to revisit our offer, as 3G connections were now providing for high-quality video broadcasting and the size of the iPhone screen was comfortable enough for mobile. We are therefore adding to our catalogue HTTP Live Streaming, a protocol developed by Apple to transmit video streams over iPhones or on its Quicktime X player. Combining the flexibility of HTTP with transmission of dynamic content (the quality of the stream depending on available bandwidth), this type of streaming technology is part of a new category of “adaptive” streaming technologies. Among these feature Smooth Streaming by Microsoft Silverlight and the latest version of Adobe Flash Player (already supported by Datametrie tools).
For further information, please contact your sales or pre-sales representative.
Datametrie operation display (image wall)
The standard supervision console supplied to users of Datametrie services fulfills a basic need: to view the latest errors registered for the measurements underway.
To improve the console’s readability and to better meet the expectations of operations teams, ip-label.newtest offers an alternative operation display in the form of an image wall.
By associating each monitor with a functional “brick” in the image wall, the user can detect the occurrence of an incident immediately and act quickly in response.
The brick changes color in line with the monitor’s status: green if no alert is detected, orange if performance is deteriorating, and red for unavailability. Furthermore, the duration of the alert in progress (updated practically in real time) allows the user to determine at a glance the severity of the incident and assess the need to solve the problem rapidly.
Lastly, the operation display in tabular form allows users to align monitors by functional groups.
For further information, please contact your sales or pre-sales representative. |
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EuroClear: high availability for ip-label.newtest QoE tools
 Unavailability of sensitive or critical applications can cause a loss of profitability for the company or, worse, bring some of its business to a halt.
The ability to forestall downtime of applications or hardware is therefore becoming a vital issue for enterprises.
In the same way as monitoring applications or sensitive business applications, the QoE tools involved in the supervision process need to be integrated into business recovery plans and be secured within high-availability architecture.
ip-label.newtest software is no exception to the rule. In response to availability issues, customers like EuroClear have opted for the ip-label.newtest clustered solution. This architecture, based on a Cluster 3.0 technical platform for Windows (single quorum type cluster), makes it possible to guarantee a very high rate of availability for Newtest server and Newtest data warehouse applications by relying on Windows-compatible SAN architectures already in place within the customer’s infrastructure. This configuration increased not only the availability rate of the data-collection server, but also the availability of Newtest management and supervision interfaces (NMC) along with availability of web services (potential link for integration into a supervision operation display or Nagios integration).
Newtest cluster-mode architecture can support up to 8 nodes (8 NMC servers). A primary server is active, while the other servers (nodes) are in passive mode. In the event of a failure of the primary server, one of the secondary servers takes up where the primary server left off.
This type of architecture is applicable for NMC as well as for the data warehouse module.
The supervision chain as a whole, a cornerstone of any BRP or high-availability infrastructure in a corporate setting, is thus secured. The ability to supply service of quality for critical applications even when damage or malfunctions occur actually means being able to guarantee the ability to measure this availability at all times and under every circumstance.
The ip-label.newtest cluster architecture solution offers high availability for measuring and monitoring the availability and performance of all your corporate applications
By Eric Mansa - Deputy Chief Technical Officer
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