evalBox: A Cross-Platform Evaluation Framework for Network Systems

Abstract

The number of network systems and network applications is rapidly increasing with the wide deployment of broadband network access. Network protocols and algorithms, as key components of network systems, are usually developed and evaluated in a simulated network, an emulated network and/or a real network. In this thesis, we propose evalBox, a cross-platform evaluation framework that provides support to evaluate network systems on various evaluation platforms. The framework supports network simulation, network emulation, and real deployment. Hence, a network system once implemented can then be directly deployed in evalBox for evaluation using any platform integrated in it. The goal of this project is to mitigate the effort involved in the learning/training phase of these platforms and to eliminate the redundant tasks involved in porting a network system across different platforms for evaluation.