Loading [MathJax]/extensions/TeX/mhchem.js
Push the Barrier: Discrete Event Protocol Emulation | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

Push the Barrier: Discrete Event Protocol Emulation


Abstract:

The protocol evaluation is an integral part of network protocol design. From the perspective of experimental design, discrete event simulations constitute a middle ground...Show More

Abstract:

The protocol evaluation is an integral part of network protocol design. From the perspective of experimental design, discrete event simulations constitute a middle ground between analytical protocol evaluation and testbeds. They allow precise control of otherwise external influences while supporting more detailed protocol models than analytical evaluations. Compared to testbeds, a major restriction is that existing protocols require a separate implementation in the discrete event model. Creating this implementation model may cause differences between the protocol's simulator-based model and the native implementation, invalidating simulation results. We propose a novel architecture to evaluate unmodified, binary protocol implementations in the state-of-the-art discrete event simulators by utilizing the operating system's system call barrier. Notably, our approach does not affect discrete simulation properties, such as repeatability, and it does not require the native protocol implementation's source code. The evaluation results using existing network protocols show the feasibility of our approach in combination with the ns-3 simulator core. We show that our approach more closely resembles realistic protocol performance when compared to simulator-based protocol models. Moreover, our approach performs better than existing solutions for more realistic protocol simulations.
Published in: IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking ( Volume: 27, Issue: 2, April 2019)
Page(s): 635 - 648
Date of Publication: 22 February 2019

ISSN Information:

Funding Agency:


I. Introduction

Evaluation is an integral part of network protocol design and protocol improvement. Since protocol properties become more complex to understand intuitively, it is more important than ever to systematically assess protocols. Complementing analytical and testbed-based evaluation methods, simulative approaches have proved to be a powerful tool for evaluating network protocols. The most common [1] network simulator class, discrete event simulation, combines several beneficial properties. By giving full control over otherwise external influences on simulation results, discrete event simulations allow to reproduce results easier than, e.g., using testbeds. Moreover, the decoupling of simulated time and real time allows to run single simulations faster. Finally, discrete event simulators support perfect repeatability, which means that repeating simulations with the same parameters results in exactly the same results. Thereby, discrete event simulators allow to scrutinize protocol behavior caused by rare network constellations, such as a certain sequence of packet losses.

References

References is not available for this document.