17-03-2014, 06:50 PM
Abstract
In order to solve the realistic problems in the
teaching and experiment of computer network courses,
a NS2-based demonstration and experiment system for
computer network courses has been constructed. This
system is made up of two parts, one of which is the
demonstration system for teachers to demonstrate in
class, and the other is the experiment system for
students to do experiment in the laboratory or after
school. This system has achieved some beneficial effect
in the education practice. The future work is focused
on the improvement of the experiment database.
1. Introduction
In the education of computer network courses large
numbers of network protocols will be involved, which
have the characteristics of abstraction, asynchronism,
concurrency and multitasking. At present teachers
usually teach the network protocols through oral
explanation or recurring to some legends or animations
in class, and let students to implement some simple
protocol mechanisms through programming in the
laboratory. The traditional education methods have the
ubiquitous disadvantage of that teachers are very
toilsome to explain the protocols and student are also
very hard to understand them. Therefore some new
education methods should be designed for teaching
network protocols in computer network courses to let
students intuitively observe the complex behavior in
the protocol run process and accordingly
comprehensively understand the protocol mechanisms
and control strategies of network protocols.
On the other hand, there exist some outstanding
network simulation tools in the computer network
research area, such as NS2 and OPNET, which provide
very powerful simulation functions for network
protocols, and through which it is very convenient to
This work is supported by Chinese national 863 project
(2007AA01Z203), excellent course construction and undergraduate
innovative test program of Beijing Jiaotong University
create the running environment for various protocols
and it is very easy to display the protocol behavior
visually. Nevertheless these simulation tools are very
hard to install and utilize. At present they are used by
computer network researchers to study, extend and
develop new protocols. For beginners, it is not realistic
to let them learn and use these simulation tools
directly.
In order to solve above contradiction, we
constructed a NS2-based demonstration and
experiment system for computer network courses,
which builds a bridge between network the simulation
software NS2 and the students who want to learn
computer network courses. Through this system, the
students not only can leave out the difficulty to learn
the network simulation software NS2, but also can
make use of its powerful simulation functions to carry
out network simulation experiments, and consequently
understand the complex behavior of network protocols
more comprehensively. This demonstration and
experiment system can be applied to the education of
computer network related courses.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows.
The network simulation software NS2 is introduced
briefly in the next section, followed by the system
components which are described in detail. Conclusions
are drawn in the last section.
In order to solve the realistic problems in the
teaching and experiment of computer network courses,
a NS2-based demonstration and experiment system for
computer network courses has been constructed. This
system is made up of two parts, one of which is the
demonstration system for teachers to demonstrate in
class, and the other is the experiment system for
students to do experiment in the laboratory or after
school. This system has achieved some beneficial effect
in the education practice. The future work is focused
on the improvement of the experiment database.
1. Introduction
In the education of computer network courses large
numbers of network protocols will be involved, which
have the characteristics of abstraction, asynchronism,
concurrency and multitasking. At present teachers
usually teach the network protocols through oral
explanation or recurring to some legends or animations
in class, and let students to implement some simple
protocol mechanisms through programming in the
laboratory. The traditional education methods have the
ubiquitous disadvantage of that teachers are very
toilsome to explain the protocols and student are also
very hard to understand them. Therefore some new
education methods should be designed for teaching
network protocols in computer network courses to let
students intuitively observe the complex behavior in
the protocol run process and accordingly
comprehensively understand the protocol mechanisms
and control strategies of network protocols.
On the other hand, there exist some outstanding
network simulation tools in the computer network
research area, such as NS2 and OPNET, which provide
very powerful simulation functions for network
protocols, and through which it is very convenient to
This work is supported by Chinese national 863 project
(2007AA01Z203), excellent course construction and undergraduate
innovative test program of Beijing Jiaotong University
create the running environment for various protocols
and it is very easy to display the protocol behavior
visually. Nevertheless these simulation tools are very
hard to install and utilize. At present they are used by
computer network researchers to study, extend and
develop new protocols. For beginners, it is not realistic
to let them learn and use these simulation tools
directly.
In order to solve above contradiction, we
constructed a NS2-based demonstration and
experiment system for computer network courses,
which builds a bridge between network the simulation
software NS2 and the students who want to learn
computer network courses. Through this system, the
students not only can leave out the difficulty to learn
the network simulation software NS2, but also can
make use of its powerful simulation functions to carry
out network simulation experiments, and consequently
understand the complex behavior of network protocols
more comprehensively. This demonstration and
experiment system can be applied to the education of
computer network related courses.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows.
The network simulation software NS2 is introduced
briefly in the next section, followed by the system
components which are described in detail. Conclusions
are drawn in the last section.