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Troubleshooting distributed network emulation

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Abstract

Distributed network emulators allow users to perform network evaluation by running large-scale virtual networks over a cluster of fewer machines. While they offer accessible testing environments for researchers to evaluate their contributions and for the community to reproduce its results, their use of limited physical network and compute resources can silently and negatively impact the emulation results. In this paper, we present a methodology that uses linear optimization to extract information about the physical infrastructure from emulation-level packet delay measurements, in order to pinpoint the root causes of emulation inaccuracy with minimal hypotheses. We evaluate the precision of our methodology using numerical simulations and then show how its implementation performs in a real network scenario.

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Notes

  1. The source code of the algorithm’s implementation and instructions to reproduce all the results in this paper are available at https://github.com/distrinet-hifi/tshoot.

  2. An emulated network can be congested due to a surge in emulated traffic. The delay of its packets d(P) remains normal as long as the physical infrastructure does not interfere with the emulation.

  3. Without loss of generality, virtual links that cross the same path of infrastructure links can be aggregated into a single virtual link. The measurements from these virtual links are combined into one homogeneous set.

  4. The precision of the measurement tool depends on its design and implementation. In this paper, we use the tool from [4] which was proven to achieve a precision of a few hundred nanoseconds.

  5. We know from queuing theory that in practice, an overloaded link with a finite buffer size will result in a high loss rate, which translates to infinite delay. Thus, the actual value of such threshold should not be of large concern.

  6. Detailed information about its topology and the hardware specifications of its nodes can be found at https://www.grid5000.fr/w/Rennes:Network.

  7. HifiNet is a distributed network emulator powered with a fidelity monitoring plug-in that passively collects delay measurement on the emulated packets to detect emulation failures [5]. Its code can be found at https://github.com/distrinet-hifi/hifinet

  8. Full description of the hardware can be found at https://www.grid5000.fr/w/Rennes:Hardware.

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Funding

This work was carried out with the support of the SLICES-SC project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (grant 101008468). This work has received partial funding from the Fed4FIRE+ project under grant agreement No. 732638 from the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.

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  1. Inria, Université Côte d’Azur, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Houssam ElBouanani, Chadi Barakat, Walid Dabbous & Thierry Turletti

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  1. Houssam ElBouanani
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  2. Chadi Barakat
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  3. Walid Dabbous
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  4. Thierry Turletti
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Correspondence to Houssam ElBouanani.

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ElBouanani, H., Barakat, C., Dabbous, W. et al. Troubleshooting distributed network emulation. Ann. Telecommun. 79, 227–239 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-024-01010-y

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