Title: A virtual ad hoc network testbed

Authors: Alex Poylisher, Constantin Serban, John Lee, Tai-Chuan Lu, Ritu Chadha, Cho-Yu Jason Chiang, Robert Orlando, Kimberly Jakubowski

Addresses: Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies Inc., One Telcordia Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. ' Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies Inc., One Telcordia Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. ' Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies Inc., One Telcordia Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. ' Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies Inc., One Telcordia Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. ' Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies Inc., One Telcordia Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. ' Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies Inc., One Telcordia Drive, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.' US Army CERDEC, Fort Monmouth, NJ 07703, USA. ' US Army CERDEC, Fort Monmouth, NJ 07703, USA

Abstract: Testing of applications for ad hoc networks poses a special technical challenge due to the difficulty of conducting experiments in an ad hoc network environment at a scale larger than a few nodes. One approach is to conduct experiments in a testbed that can imitate an ad hoc network. This requires the development of technologies that enable multiple instances of unmodified application software on a set of hosts to communicate via a simulated network that behaves like a real ad hoc network. In this paper, we describe the testbed developed under the virtual ad hoc network (VAN) testbed project for testing applications over ad hoc networks, with a special focus on network management applications. The testbed employs Xen-based virtualisation to achieve resource scalability. The infrastructure for the testbed provides an integrated platform consisting of virtual nodes running the actual software under test, augmented with a simulated network environment. Our goal is to enable software testing over large-scale (500-1000 nodes) ad hoc networks using the VAN testbed.

Keywords: mobile ad hoc networks; MANETs; virtual ad hoc networks; VAN; emulation; software-in-the-loop; SITL; simulation; hybrid testbed; virtualisation; virtual machines; simulation; shadow nodes; mobile networks; virtual networks; network management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCNDS.2010.033965

International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems, 2010 Vol.5 No.1/2, pp.5 - 24

Published online: 05 Jul 2010 *

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