Hybrid testbeds for QoS management in opaque MANETS

ABSTRACT

The design of QoS mechanisms for wireless networks in general, and mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) in particular, is a challenging task. The challenges are further compounded when the characteristics of the intermediate network segments are not observable from the originating segment, and as a consequence these segments have to be treated as opaque networks. End-to-end QoS assurance for such opaque networks, consisting of admission control and quality adjustment, can be based on techniques for dynamically measuring throughput representing the state of these networks. Testing these QoS mechanisms poses a special technical challenge due to the difficulty of conducting experiments in a MANET environment at a scale larger than a dozen nodes or so. In this paper, we describe a distributed and hybrid testbed that has been deployed for running large-scale experiments to demonstrate the efficacy of a measurement-based QoS solution. The infrastructure for the testbed provides an integrated platform consisting of real nodes running the actual software under test, augmented with a simulated network environment. We define a set of metrics and run experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of the QoS solution as well the performance of the deployed testbed. We propose an alternate architecture that employs a Xen-based virtualization of the real nodes from the deployed testbed. We compare the performances of the virtualized architecture with the non-virtualized one vis-à-vis latency and resource utilization. Our goal is to establish benchmarks for running large-scale experiments on performance and QoS measurements in virtualized environments.

REFERENCES

• 1: Valaee, S., Li, B.: Distributed Call Admission Control for Ad Hoc Networks. Proceedings of the IEEE Vehicular Tech. Conf. (VTC), Vancouver, Canada (2002)
• 2: Matthias Grossglauser , David N. C. Tse, A framework for robust measurement-based admission control, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), v.7 n.3, p.293-309, June 1999 [doi>10.1109/90.779194]
• 3: Zhu, Corson. S.: QoS routing for mobile ad hoc networks. In Proceedings of Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies, New York (2002)
• 4: Sugih Jamin , Peter B. Danzig , Scott J. Shenker , Lixia Zhang, A measurement-based admission control algorithm for integrated service packet networks, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), v.5 n.1, p.56-70, Feb. 1997 [doi>10.1109/90.554722]
• 5: Poylisher, A., Anjum, F., Kant, L., Chadha, R.: QoS Mechanisms for Opaque MANETS. Proceedings of IEEE MILCOM, pp. 1--7, Washington DC (2006)
• 6: S. Blake , D. Black , M. Carlson , E. Davies , Z. Wang , W. Weiss, An Architecture for Differentiated Service, RFC Editor, 1998
• 7: K. Nichols , V. Jacobson , L. Zhang, A Two-bit Differentiated Services Architecture for the Internet, RFC Editor, 1999
• 8: K. Nichols , S. Blake , F. Baker , D. Black, Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers, RFC Editor, 1998
• 9: Seawright, L., MacKinnon, R.: VM/370 - a study of multiplicity and usefulness. IBM Systems Journal, pp. 4--17 (1979)
• 10: Devine, S., Bugnion, E., Rosenblum, M.: Virtualization system including a virtual machine monitor for a computer with a segmented architecture. US Patent, 6397242, (1998)
• 11: T. L. Borden , J. P. Hennessy , J. W. Rymarczyk, Multiple operating systems on one processor complex, IBM Systems Journal, v.28 n.1, p.104-123, 1989
• 12: Whitaker, A., Shaw, M., and Gribble, S. D.: Denali: Lightweight Virtual Machines for Distributed and Networked Applications. TR 02-02-01, University of Washington (2002)
• 13: Paul Barham , Boris Dragovic , Keir Fraser , Steven Hand , Tim Harris , Alex Ho , Rolf Neugebauer , Ian Pratt , Andrew Warfield, Xen and the art of virtualization, Proceedings of the nineteenth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles, October 19-22, 2003, Bolton Landing, NY, USA
• 14: Brian White , Jay Lepreau , Leigh Stoller , Robert Ricci , Shashi Guruprasad , Mac Newbold , Mike Hibler , Chad Barb , Abhijeet Joglekar, An integrated experimental environment for distributed systems and networks, Proceedings of the 5th symposium on Operating systems design and implementation

  Due to copyright restrictions we are not able to make the PDFs for this conference available for downloading

  , December 09-11, 2002, Boston, Massachusetts [doi>10.1145/1060289.1060313]
• 15: Shashi Guruprasad , Robert Ricci , Jay Lepreau, Integrated Network Experimentation using Simulation and Emulation, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the DEvelopment of NeTworks and COMmunities, p.204-212, February 23-25, 2005 [doi>10.1109/TRIDNT.2005.21]
• 16: Mike Hibler , Robert Ricci , Leigh Stoller , Jonathon Duerig , Shashi Guruprasad , Tim Stack , Kirk Webb , Jay Lepreau, Large-scale virtualization in the Emulab network testbed, USENIX 2008 Annual Technical Conference on Annual Technical Conference, p.113-128, June 22-27, 2008, Boston, Massachusetts
• 17: Portoles-Comeras, M., Requena-Esteso, M., Mangues-Bafalluy, J., Cardenete-Suriol, M.: EXTREME: Combining the Ease of Management of Multi-user Experimental Facilities and the Flexibility of Proof of Concept Testbeds. Proceedings of the First International IEEE/Create-Net Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (TRIDENTCOM '06), Barcelona, Spain (2006)
• 18: Pei Zheng , Lionel M. Ni, EMWIN:: emulating a mobile wireless network using a wired network, Proceedings of the 5th ACM international workshop on Wireless mobile multimedia, September 28-28, 2002, Atlanta, Georgia, USA [doi>10.1145/570790.570802]
• 19: Zheng, P., Ni, L. M.: EMPOWER: A Network Emulator for Wireline and Wireless Networks. Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (INFOCOM 2003), Vol. 3, pp. (2003)
• 20: Raychaudhuri, D., Seskar, I., Ott, M., Ganu, S., Ramachandran, K., Kremo, H., Siracusa, R., Liu, H., Singh, M.: Overview of the ORBIT Radio Grid Testbed for Evaluation of Next-generation Wireless Network Protocols. Proceedings of IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, pp. 1664--1669, (2005)
• 21: Junlan Zhou , Zhengrong Ji , Maneesh Varshney , Zhiguo Xu , Yi Yang , Mahesh Marina , Rajive Bagrodia, WHYNET: a hybrid testbed for large-scale, heterogeneous and adaptive wireless networks, Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on Wireless network testbeds, experimental evaluation & characterization, September 29-29, 2006, Los Angeles, CA, USA [doi>10.1145/1160987.1161016]
• 22: Biswas, P. K., Phoha, S.: A Hybrid Infrastructure for Surveillance-based Sensor Network Experiments. Proceedings of the Second International IEEE/Create-Net Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (TRIDENTCOM '06), pp. 68--73, Barcelona, Spain (2006)
• 23: Chiang, C. J. et al.: Performance Analysis of DRAMA: A Distributed Policy-Based System for MANET Management. Proceedings of IEEE MILCOM, Washington DC (2006)
• 24: The OPNET Simulator, http://www.opnet.com/
• 25: The QualNet Simulator, http://www.scalable-networks.com/
• 26: The Network Simulator -- ns-2, http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Reliability, availability, and serviceability

General Terms:
Design, Reliability

Keywords:
admission control functionality (ACF), dynamic throughput graph (DTG), end-to-end (e2e), measurement-based admission control (MBAC), mobile ad hoc network (MANET), multi-level security (MLS), quality adjustment functionality (QAF), quality of service (QoS), software-in-the-loop (SITL), virtualization