Definition

Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP) Light is a light version of TWAMP. TWAMP Light measures the round-trip performance of an IP network by using simplified control protocol to establish test sessions.

Purpose

Traditional IPRAN networks lack an effective, simple, and universal OAM performance measurement tool. Most vendors use proprietary features, such as Network Quality Analysis (NQA), to measure performance of IP networks. However, NQA is not a public protocol. The devices running NQA from different vendors cannot interwork with each other, and NQA is difficult to deploy. The IETF IP performance monitoring (IPPM) team proposed a series of protocols to address the issues in IP network performance measurement. TWAMP is one of the IP network performance measurement tools applied to IP networks.

TWAMP defines a standard method for across-network performance measurement. It includes two structures: standard structure and light structure (TWAMP Light). TWAMP Light allows a router to send detection packets to itself and the control modules in the TWAMP Light structure can be deployed in a centralized manner. This reduces requirements on the reflector and facilitates reflector deployment.

Benefits

TWAMP Light is an IP link detection technology. It can monitor network quality, including delay, jitter, and packet loss, and is easy to deploy and use.