On realistic network topologies for simulation

ABSTRACT

Simulations are an important tool in network research. As the selected topology often influences the outcome of the simulation, realistic topologies are needed to produce realistic simulation results. We first discuss the different types of topologies and present our collection of real-world topologies that can be used for simulation. We then define several similarity metrics to compare artificially generated topologies with real world topologies. We use them to find out what the input parameter range of the topology generators of BRITE, TIERS and GTITM are to create realistic topologies. These parameters can act as a valuable starting point for researchers that have to generate artificial topologies.

REFERENCES

• 1: Michalis Faloutsos , Petros Faloutsos , Christos Faloutsos, On power-law relationships of the Internet topology, Proceedings of the conference on Applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communication, p.251-262, August 30-September 03, 1999, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
• 2: Alberto Medina , Ibrahim Matta , John Byers, On the origin of power laws in Internet topologies, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, v.30 n.2, April 2000 [doi>10.1145/505680.505683]
• 3: Q. Chen, H, Chang, R. Govindan, S. Jamin, S. Shenker, and W. Willinger. The Origin of Power Laws in Internet Topologies Revisited. In IEEE Infocom 2002. IEEE, 2002.
• 4: H. Tangmunarunkit, R. Govindan, S. Jamin, S. Shenker, and W. Wollinger. Network Topologies, Power Laws, and Hierarchy. Technical Report Technical Report USC-CS-01-746, University of Michigan, USA, 6 2001.
• 5: T. Bu and D. Towsley. On Distinguishing between Internet Power Law Topology Generators. In INFOCOM '2002. IEEE, 2002.
• 6: W. Aiello, F. Chung, and L. Lu. A Random Graph Model for Power Law Graphs. Experimental Mathematics Volume 10, pages 53--66, 2001.
• 7: Ellen W. Zegura , Kenneth L. Calvert , Michael J. Donahoo, A quantitative comparison of graph-based models for Internet topology, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), v.5 n.6, p.770-783, Dec. 1997 [doi>10.1109/90.650138]
• 8: C. R. Palmer and J. G. Steffan. Generating network topologies that obey power laws. In GLOBECOM '2000, November 2000.
• 9: Neil Spring , Ratul Mahajan , David Wetherall, Measuring ISP topologies with rocketfuel, Proceedings of the 2002 conference on Applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communications, August 19-23, 2002, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• 10: BRITE. Boston University Representative Internet Topology Generator. http://www.cs.bu.edu/brite/.
• 11: TIERS. Tiers Topology Generator. http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/ns-topogen.html#tiers.
• 12: GT-ITM. Georgia Tech Internetwork Topology Models. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/projects/gtitm/.
• 13: Inet Topology Generator. http://topology.eecs.umich.edu/inet/.
• 14: A.-L. Barabasi and R. Albert. Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science, October 1999.
• 15: Robert Hooke , T. A. Jeeves, `` Direct Search'' Solution of Numerical and Statistical Problems, Journal of the ACM (JACM), v.8 n.2, p.212-229, April 1961 [doi>10.1145/321062.321069]
• 16: O. Heckmann, K. Pandit, J. Schmitt, M. Hoffmann, and M. Jobmann. LETSQoS Milestone 2. http://www.letsqos.de, June 2002.