Software-Driven Definition of Virtual Testbeds to Validate Emergent Network Technologies

Abstract

Abstract:The lack of privileged access to emergent and operational deployments is one of the key matters during validation and testing of novel telecommunication systems and technologies. This matter jeopardizes the repeatability of experiments, which results in burdens for innovation and research in these areas. In this light, we present a method and architecture to make the software-driven definition of virtual testbeds easier. As distinguishing features, our proposal can mimic operational deployments by using high-dimensional activity patterns. These activity patterns shape the effect of a control module that triggers agents for the generation of network traffic. This solution exploits the capabilities of network emulation and virtualization systems, which nowadays can be easily deployed in commodity servers. With this, we accomplish a reproducible definition of realistic experimental conditions and the introduction of real agent implementations in a cost-effective fashion. We evaluate our solution in a case study that is comprised of the validation of a network-monitoring tool for Voice over IP (VoIP) deployments. Our experimental results support the viability of the method and illustrate how this formulation can improve the experimentation in emergent technologies.

High-Fidelity Router Emulation Technologies Based on Multi-Scale Virtualization

“…But limited by the number of physical devices, it is not realistic to use physical networks for large-scale cyberspace security technology verification and offensive-defensive drills [1,2]. Emulation technology based on virtualization has the advantages of high controllability and excellent scalability [3,4], so it has become a significant tool to reproduce complex or large-scale network topologies. At present, researchers design virtual routers by loading routing software into virtual machines (VM) [5,6], and using Linux Traffic Control (TC) to control the bandwidth on a VM's network interface card (NIC) to emulate the transmission bandwidth of the physical Ethernet (e.g., 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps) [7,8].…”