3rd International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques

Research Article

Limitations of network emulation with single-machine and distributed ns-3

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2010.8630,
        author={Alberto  Alvarez and Rafael Orea and Sergio  Cabrero and Xabiel G.  Pa\`{o}eda and Roberto  Garc\^{\i}a and David  Melendi},
        title={Limitations of network emulation with single-machine and distributed ns-3},
        proceedings={3rd International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques},
        publisher={ICST},
        proceedings_a={SIMUTOOLS},
        year={2010},
        month={5},
        keywords={Emulation distributed network-simulator ns-3.},
        doi={10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2010.8630}
    }
    
  • Alberto Alvarez
    Rafael Orea
    Sergio Cabrero
    Xabiel G. Pañeda
    Roberto García
    David Melendi
    Year: 2010
    Limitations of network emulation with single-machine and distributed ns-3
    SIMUTOOLS
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/ICST.SIMUTOOLS2010.8630
Alberto Alvarez1,*, Rafael Orea1,*, Sergio Cabrero1,*, Xabiel G. Pañeda1,*, Roberto García1,*, David Melendi1,*
  • 1: Informatics department, University of Oviedo, Campus de Viesques, Gijón, Spain.
*Contact email: alvarezgalberto@uniovi.es, orearafael@uniovi.es, cabrerosergio@uniovi.es, xabiel@uniovi.es, garciaroberto@uniovi.es, melendi@uniovi.es

Abstract

Research on large-scale internet services requires an extensive evaluation prior to deployment. A good analysis must include tests over large networks, using real devices and a considerable number of users. However, how to test in these scenarios with many users is an open question. Network emulation can be a good alternative before real deployments, which are complex and expensive. In this paper, we examine the new ns-3 network simulator/emulator in order to determine its capacity in the evaluation of large scale services. For that purpose, a real client/server video service is deployed over an emulated network. The service is progressively scaled up by increasing the number of clients on a single machine. In addition, we have extended ns-3 to support a distributed architecture for network nodes, thus, we repeat the experiments with a distributed set-up. Advantages, disadvantages, possibilities and limitations of both approaches are thoroughly discussed.