A Survey of Network Simulation Tools: CurrentStatus and Future DevelopmentsJianli Pan, [email protected] (A project report written under theguidance of Prof. Raj Jain)DownloadAbstractIn the network research area, it is very costly to deploy a complete test bed containing multiple networkedcomputers, routers and data links to validate and verify a certain network protocol or a specific networkalgorithm. The network simulators in these circumstances save a lot of money and time in accomplishing thistask. Network simulators are also particularly useful in allowing the network designers to test new networkingprotocols or to change the existing protocols in a controlled and reproducible manner. In this paper, wepresent a comprehensive survey on current network simulators. We introduce their main features, considertheir advantages and disadvantages, and discuss the current and future developments. We hope this survey tobe a good reference source for those who feel difficult to find the appropriate network simulators for theirresearch or practical requirements.Keywords: Network Simulation, Network Simulator, OPNET, NS2, NS3, OMNeT++Table of Contents1. Introduction2. Basic concepts in network simulation2.1 Network simulation and simulator2.2 Simulation and emulation2.3 Type of network simulators3. Overview of current developments4. OPNET4.1 Overview4.2 Main features4.3 Recent developments and its future5. Network Simulator 2 (NS2)5.1 Overview5.2 Main features5.3 Recent developments and its future6. Network Simulator 3 (NS3)6.1 Overview6.2 Main features6.3 Recent developments and its future7. OMNeT++7.1 Overview7.2 Main features7.3 Recent developments and its futureA Survey of Network Simulation Tools: Current Status and Future Development1 of 138. Summary9. References10. List of Acronyms1. IntroductionSimulation is a very important modern technology. It can be applied to different science, engineering, or otherapplication fields for different purposes. Computer assisted simulation can model hypothetical and real-lifeobjects or activities on a computer so that it can be studied to see how the system function. Differentvariables can be used to predict the behavior of the system. Computer simulation can be used to assist themodeling and analysis in many natural systems. Typical application areas include physics, chemistry, biology,and human-involved systems in economics, finance or even social science. Other important applications are inthe engineering such as civil engineering, structural engineering, mechanical engineering, and computerengineering. Application of simulation technology into networking area such as network traffic simulation,however, is relatively new.For network simulation, more specifically, it means that the computer assisted simulation technologies arebeing applied in the simulation of networking algorithms or systems by using software engineering. Theapplication field is narrower than general simulation and it is natural that more specific requirements will beplaced on network simulations. For example, the network simulations may put more emphasis on theperformance or validity of a distributed protocol or algorithm rather than the visual or real-time visibilityfeatures of the simulations. Moreover, since network technologies is keeping developing very fast and somany different organizations participate in the whole process and they have different technologies or productsrunning on different software on the Internet. That is why the network simulations always require openplatforms which should be scalable enough to include different efforts and different packages in thesimulations of the whole network. Internet has also a characteristic that it is structured with a uniformednetwork stack (TCP/IP) that all the different layers technologies can be implemented differently but with auniformed interface with their neighbored layers. Thus the network simulation tools have to be able toincorporate this feature and allow different future new packages to be included and run transparently withoutharming existing components or packages. Thus the negative impact of some packages will have no or littleimpact to the other modules or packages.Network simulators are used by people from different areas such as academic researchers, industrialdevelopers, and Quality Assurance (QA) to design, simulate, verify, and analyze the performance of differentnetworks protocols. They can also be used to evaluate the effect of the different parameters on the protocolsbeing studied. Generally a network simulator will comprise of a wide range of networking technologies andprotocols and help users to build complex networks from basic building blocks like clusters of nodes andlinks. With their help, one can design different network topologies using various types of nodes such asend-hosts, hubs, network bridges, routers, optical link-layer devices, and mobile units.The following sections of the paper are organized as follows. In section 2, we introduce some basic conceptsabout the network simulations and network simulators. After that, we briefly give an overview of currentdevelopments in section 3. From section 4 to 7, we discuss four typical network simulators respectively. Asummary is given in section 8.2. Basic concepts in network simulationIn this section, we will introduce some basic concepts in the area of network simulation. We also try toA Survey of Network Simulation Tools: Current Status and Future Development2 of 13differentiate and clarify those that easy to cause confusion among readers. We generally introduce the basicidea of the network simulation and simulator and then discuss the difference between simulation andemulation.2.1. Network simulation and simulatorGenerally speaking, network simulators try to model the real world networks. The principal idea is that if asystem can be modeled, then features of the model can be changed and the corresponding results can beanalyzed. As the process of model modification is relatively cheap than the complete real implementation, awide variety of scenarios can be analyzed at low cost (relative to making changes to a real network). Networksimulator always contain theHowever, network simulators are not perfect. They can not perfectly model all the details of the networks.However, if well modeled, they will be close enough so as to give the researcher a meaningful insight into thenetwork under test, and how changes will affect its
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