P2P Research Group V.K.G. Gurbani
Internet-Draft Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent
Intended status: Informational March 07, 2011
Expires: September 08, 2011

Peer-to-peer simulation frameworks: a survey
DOCNAME

Abstract

Peer-to-peer (p2p) protocols, like all distributed protocols, are complex, and therefore harder to debug and study in the wild. This is more true of existing p2p protocols, where changing the behaviour of the protocol --- however minor the change may be --- may result in unknown manifestations on the dynamics of the swarm using that protocol. In lieu of the unintended consequences of perturbing a live swarm, researchers have resorted to simulation frameworks. However, simulation results obtained from one simulator are often hard to reproduce when using another simulation framework. This document surveys existing simulator frameworks prevalent in simulating p2p protocols today in order to quantify any assumptions and characteristics inherent in the simulator. This, we hope, will aid future researchers in choosing the right simulation framework for their abstraction.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 08, 2011.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Peer-to-peer (p2p) protocols, like all distributed protocols, are complex, and therefore harder to debug and study in the wild. This is more true of existing p2p protocols, where changing the behaviour of the protocol --- however minor the change may be --- may result in unknown manifestations on the dynamics of the swarm using that protocol.

Researchers contemplating on changing the behavior of an existing p2p protocol have to be careful still, least they inadvertently do more harm than good by introducing their changes. Furthermore, any changes to an existing p2p protocol or a newly developed p2p protocol must be tested and evaluated for validity and reproducibility by the research community. While analytical and mathematical modeling (fluid models, optimization and linear programming) is easily validated, it is harder to validate empirical experiments due to the dynamic nature of the networks, hosts, and interconnections between them. Simulation frameworks are attractive since they provide a controlled environment under which new behavior of p2p protocols can be studied and quantified.

The good news is that there is a plethora of simulation frameworks for p2p protocols available today, some of them are surveyed in Naicken et al. [naicken]. However, that survey is dated and does not include simulation frameworks like ns-3 [ns-3] and ProtoPeer [protopeer] that have become available since the survey was published.

The aim of this document is to update the state-of-art with respect to p2p simulation frameworks available today. We will survey simulator frameworks prevalent --- and actively used --- in simulating p2p protocols today in order to quantify any assumptions and characteristics inherent in the simulator. This, we hope, will aid future researchers in choosing the right simulation framework for their abstraction.

2. Terminology

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

3. Criteria for evaluating simulation frameworks

This is a non-exhaustive list of all criteria that we should evaluate when surveying a simulation framework.

4. List of simulation frameworks

A list of simulation frameworks that we can survey appears below (original list is in Naicken et al. [naicken], I have added a couple more simulators). This is a rather exhaustive list, however, going forward, we should focus on those frameworks that are: newer, actively in use today, and those frameworks that are actively used today and have been surveyed before, but could stand to be looked at again in light of hardware and software advances in the last few years (multi-cores, parallel programming, etc.):

5. Security Considerations

This document does not introduce any new security considerations in p2p protocols.

6. IANA Considerations

This document does not require any IANA considerations.

7. References

7.1. Normative References

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

7.2. Informative References

, ", "
[naicken] Naicken, S., Basu, A., Livingston, B. and S. Rodhetbhai, "A Survey of Peer-to-Peer Network Simulators", Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Postgraduate Symposium, Liverpool, UK, 2006.
[protopeer] Galuba, W., Aberer, K., Despotovic, Z. and W. Kellerer, "ProtoPeer: A p2p toolkit bridging the gap between simulation and live deployment", Proceedings of SIMUTools, Rome, Italy, 2009.
[ns-3] The ns-3 network simulator", http://www.nsnam.org, .
[gtnets] The Georgia Tech Network Simulator (GTNetS)", http://www.ece.gatech.edu/research/labs/MANIACS/GTNetS/, .

Appendix A. Acknowledgments

Author's Address

Vijay K. Gurbani Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent 1960 Lucent Lane, Rm 9C-533 Naperville, IL 60563 USA EMail: vkg@bell-labs.com