Research Article
Performance of Distributed ns-3 Network Simulator
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/icst.simutools.2013.251729, author={Sergei Nikolaev and Peter Barnes and James Brase and Thomas Canales and David Jefferson and Steve Smith and Ron Soltz and Peter Scheibel}, title={Performance of Distributed ns-3 Network Simulator}, proceedings={Sixth International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques}, publisher={ICST}, proceedings_a={SIMUTOOLS}, year={2013}, month={7}, keywords={high performance computing mpi network simulation ns-3 parallel architecture performance}, doi={10.4108/icst.simutools.2013.251729} }- Sergei Nikolaev
Peter Barnes
James Brase
Thomas Canales
David Jefferson
Steve Smith
Ron Soltz
Peter Scheibel
Year: 2013
Performance of Distributed ns-3 Network Simulator
SIMUTOOLS
ACM
DOI: 10.4108/icst.simutools.2013.251729
Abstract
This paper presents the results of parallel simulations of mixed networks using the ns-3 simulator. The simulated networks consist of equal number of simple (leaf) nodes and router nodes, which form a small-world network. The active channels in the simulations link pairs of nodes with symmetric source and sink applications. All network traffic is restricted to a single-hop communications. The network partitioning among MPI ranks is accomplished using METIS library.
The performance and scalability of the ns-3 network simulator is examined using a variety of metrics, e.g. memory footprint, packet transmission rate, and runtime statistics. Empirical relations are derived for the memory scaling. Further avenues are identified for improvement of the parallel ns-3 simulator.