16-08-2012, 03:19 PM
VIRTUAL ROUTING NETWORK EMULATION FRAMEWORK
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INTRODUCTION
This Chapter outlines the aims of the project and motivation behind its implementation.
Project Overview
Networks can be built using a number of different technologies and based on various protocols. Main problem with this being that lots of people have built networks with various technologies and they all want to be able to communicate with each other, not just with the other users of a single network. This introduces the problem of interconnecting different networks based on differing protocols. Thus signifying that studying numerous varied technologies and protocols for students is sometimes difficult. The main aim of this project is to develop a framework, which allows Routing algorithms and protocols to be modified, tested and developed as part of a learning process with focus on offering a laboratory environment.
Issues to be addressed
This section looks in more depth of the problem introduced above.
Heterogeneity and Scale
There are two important problems that must be addressed when connecting networks: heterogeneity and scale. Simply stated, the problem of heterogeneity is that users on one type of network want to able to communicate with users on other types of networks. To further complicate matters, establishing connectivity between hosts on two different networks may require traversing several other networks in between, each of which may be of yet another type. These different networks may be Ethernets, token rings, point-to-point links, or switched networks of various kinds, and each of them is likely to have its own addressing scheme, media access protocols, service model and so on. The challenge of heterogeneity is to provide a useful and fairly predictable host-to-host service over this hodgepodge of different networks. To understand the problem of scaling, it is worth considering the growth of the Internet, which has roughly doubled in size each year for 20 years. This sort of growth forces us to face a number of challenges. One of these is routing. How can you find an efficient path through a network with millions, or perhaps billions, of nodes? A central aspect of building large heterogeneous internetworks is the problem of finding efficient, loop-free paths through the constituent networks. This introduces the important principles of routing and the scaling issues associated with routing protocols.
Motivation for Project
In context to the issues discussed thus far, the deliverable (framework and virtual routers) of this project will aid in making routing algorithms and protocols easier to study and understand as they can be broken down and studied in high level languages such as Java and C#. This will be possible as the framework allows student generated routing algorithms and protocols to be run, examined and tested. Additionally, the proposed framework will offer a cheap laboratory environment to carry out routing investigations, as no real hardware is required at all due to all the components written in high-level languages in user space. With high-level code running in user space, a virtually created laboratory environment can be very dynamic through router components. This is due to virtual routers being easily modified without prior knowledge of the intricacies of the operating system running these components. This allows students to concentrate on the routing/networking concepts they are studying rather than being concerned with the hardware intricacies. Additionally, the framework will allow students to create their own network topologies to assist in their learning process and aid future related research. A major benefit of such a framework would be cost as there would be no need for real devices such as Hardware Routes.
Project Objectives
The major objectives of this project are as follows:
Production of a framework allowing students to generate, modify and test and emulate real networks. In addition, the development of this framework will allow users to study the different Routing algorithms and protocols.
The framework will be platform independent and easily transportable to other networks.
The framework will be proficient enough so that when provided with a topology specification from the user, the framework can act upon that specification and create the desired topology.
The topology generation will be aided with virtual routers.