TESTING DYNAMICALLY ADDRESSED NETWORK DEVICES

1 . A method, comprising:

receiving, at a first network device, a message from a second network device;

determining whether the message is a test setup message, where the test setup message includes a network address associated with the second network device; and

initiating a test sequence with the second network device based on the network address when it is determined that the message is a test setup message.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the second network device is a dynamically addressable network device.

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the second network device obtains the network address from an address provisioning server.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the test setup message comprises a packet, where the packet includes a payload portion that includes at least an identifier associated with the second network device and the network address associated with the second network device.

5 . The method of claim 4 , where the payload portion of the test setup message includes an address lease time associated with the network address.

6 . The method of claim 1 , where determining whether the message is a test setup message further comprises:

determining whether the message was received on a port associated with test setup messages.

7 . The method of claim 1 , where the determining whether the message is a test setup message further comprises:

determining whether a flag field associated with the received message includes a value indicative of a test setup message.

8 . The method of claim 1 , where the first network device and the second network device are preconfigured to include test profile information regarding the initiated test sequence.

9 . A system, comprising:

a first network device having a statically assigned network address;

a second network device operatively connected to the first network device via a network; and

an address provisioning server operatively connected to the second network device via the network,

where the second network device is configured to:

receive a network address from the address provisioning server;

generate a test setup message including the network address; and

transmit the test setup message to the first network device using the statically assigned network address.

10 . The system of claim 9 , where the first network device is configured to:

receive the test setup message from the second network device; and

transmit an initial test sequence to the second network device using the network address included in the test setup message.

11 . The system of claim 10 , where the first network device is further configured to:

receive a message from the second network device;

determine whether the received message is the test setup message; and

transmit the initial test sequence to the second network device using the network address included in the test setup message when it is determined that the received message is the test setup message.

12 . A network management system, comprising:

logic to receive a first registration message from a first network device, where the registration message includes at least a first network device identifier and a first network address associated with the first network device;

logic to identify a test grouping including the first network device based on the first network device identifier; and

logic to transmit a test setup message to a second network device identified in the test grouping, where the test setup message includes at least the first network address.

13 . The network management system of claim 12 , where the registration message includes lease details relating to the network address.

14 . The network management system of claim 12 , where the logic to identify a test grouping including the first network device further includes:

logic to extract the first network device identifier from the registration message;

logic to identify a second network identifier associated with the second network device based on the first network device identifier; and

logic to identify a second network address associated with the second network device based on the second network identifier.

15 . The network management system of claim 14 , where the second network address comprises a statically assigned address and the first network address comprises a dynamically assigned address.

16 . The network management system of claim 12 , further comprising:

logic to receive a second registration message from the second network device, where the second registration message includes at least the second network device identifier and the second network address associated with the second network device, the second network address being a dynamically assigned address;

logic to identify the test grouping including the first network device and the second network device based on the first network device identifier and the second network device identifier; and

logic to identify the second network device as a test source device in the test group.

17 . A system, comprising:

means for receiving a dynamically assigned network address;

means for generating a test setup message including the dynamically assigned network address receiving and a network device identifier;

means for forwarding the test setup message to a test source network device via a network;

means for receiving a test sequence from the test source network device; and

means for performing active testing with the test source network device.

18 . The system of claim 17 , where the test setup message includes lease details associated with the dynamically assigned network address.

19 . A method, comprising:

receiving a first registration message from a first dynamically addressable network device, where the first registration message includes at least a first network identifier and a first network address associated with the first dynamically addressable network device;

receiving a second registration message from a second dynamically addressable network device, where the second registration message includes at least a second network identifier and a second network address associated with the second dynamically addressable network device;

identifying a test grouping including the first dynamically addressable network device and the second dynamically addressable network device based on the first registration message and the second registration message, where the first dynamically addressable network device is designated as a test source device and the second dynamically addressable network device is designated as the test destination device;

transmitting a test setup message to the first dynamically addressable network device, wherein the test setup message includes at least the second network identifier and the second network address associated with the second dynamically addressable network device; and

transmitting test configuration settings to the to the first dynamically addressable network device, where the test configuration settings include at least one of: a type of test, a duration of the test, a frequency of the test, or a number of packets to transmit during the test.

20 . The method of claim 19 , where the test configuration settings include at least one of: test type, test duration, test frequency, or test packet size.