Tmix: a tool for generating realistic TCP application workloads in ns-2

In order to perform realistic network simulations, one needs a traffic generator that is capable of generating realistic synthetic traffic in a closed-loop fashion that "looks like" traffic found on an actual network. We describe such a traffic generation system for the widely used ns-2 simulator. The system takes as input a packet header trace taken from a network link of interest. The trace is "reverse compiled" into a source-level characterization of each TCP connection present in the trace. The characterization, called a connection vector, is then used as input to an ns module called tmix that emulates the socket-level behavior of the source application that created the corresponding connection in the trace. This emulation faithfully reproduces the essential pattern of socket reads and writes that the original application performed without knowledge of what the original application actually was. When combined with a network path emulation component we have cons...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: CCR
• Authors: Michele C. Weigle, Prashanth Adurthi, Félix Hernández-Campos, Kevin Jeffay, F. Donelson Smith
• Keywords: CCR 2006, Realistic Synthetic Traffic, Synthetic Traffic, Traffic Generation