Patent ID: 8654654

Claim:
A process for generating simulated network test traffic from a stored test traffic definition, wherein the test traffic definition is for generating packets between one or more endpoint pairs, the process comprising: encoding the values in the test traffic definition, wherein the test traffic definition includes for each packet plural fields of data values to be included in the packet and plural fields of metadata values about the packet, wherein the data fields include source endpoint address, destination endpoint address and traffic protocol; grouping the test traffic into flows according to a user selection of at least one field for grouping the test traffic into flows, the grouping achieved independent of the endpoint address fields; automatically modifying the test traffic definition so that the test traffic is logically grouped into flows in accordance with the user selection and configured as streams, wherein the automatically modifying the test traffic definition includes: slicing the test traffic definition according to the selected fields, including packaging occurrences of each value of the selected fields into a set of indices and decoding some of the encoded values to unwind links between fields with encoded dependencies on other field values; sorting the slices according to the selected fields; extracting the sorted test traffic definition; re-encoding for compactness and efficient generation of the test traffic; and signaling to network test equipment to transmit the test traffic as the configured streams.