Introduction to Network Emulation

Emulation is a hybrid experimentation technique intended to bridge the gap between simulation and real-world testing. The key idea of emulation is to reproduce in real time and in a controlled manner the essential functionality of a system, so that it can interact with other real systems that can thus be evaluated. This book describes the technique of network emulation and compares it with the other experimental approaches: the scholarly analytical modeling, the popular network simulation, and the demanding real-world testing. To emphasize the practical aspects related to emulation, this book presents a large number of examples of network emulators on the market, as well as provides an in-depth analysis of a case study, the wireless network emulation testbed called QOMB.

Razvan Beuran is researcher with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Hokuriku Research Center, Ishikawa, Japan. He received the joint Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from "Politehnica" University, Bucharest, Romania, and "Jean Monnet" University, Saint Etienne, France, in 2004. In 2006, he was post-doc research fellow with the Japan Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, Japan, where he is currently project researcher. From 2001 to 2005, he was with CERN, Geneva, Switzerland as researcher, and then as a project associate. From 1999 to 2005 he was also with "Politehnica" University, Bucharest, Romania, as research assistant, and then as teaching assistant. His research interests include quality testing and measurement in wired and wireless networks, network emulation, and network reliability and dependability in connection with disaster situations.