Integration of a GIST implementation into OMNeT++

The General Internet Signaling Transport (GIST) protocol was specified by the IETF in order to provide a generic transport protocol for signaling messages. A group at the Institute of Telematics implemented the GIST protocol and evaluated it already in smaller testbed setups. An evaluation of GIST in large-scale scenarios can, however, only be accomplished by using a simulation framework. In this paper we describe how the existing Linux-based and multi-threaded NSIS-ka implementation was ported to the OMNeT++ simulation framework. First we provide an analysis of the different design principles used and then describe related challenges. Then we describe a methodology for integrating an existing real protocol implementation into OMNeT++. The feasibility of the chosen approach is finally demonstrated by a set of evaluations.