Computer Network Simulation with ns-3: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Complexity of current computer networks, including e.g., local networks, large structured networks, wireless sensor networks, datacenter backbones, requires a thorough study to perform analysis and support design. Simulation is a tool of paramount importance to encompass all the different aspects that contribute to design quality and network performance (including as well energy issues, security management overheads, dependability), due to the fact that such complexity produces several interactions at all network layers that is not easily modellable with analytic approaches. In this systematic literature review we aim to analyze, basing our investigation on available literature, the adoption of a popular network simulator, namely ns-3, and its use in the scientific community. More in detail, we are interested in understanding what are the impacted application domains in which authors prefer ns-3 to other similar tools and how extensible it is in practice according to the experience of authors. The results of our analysis, which has been conducted by especially focusing on 128 papers published between 2009 to 2019, reveals that 10% of the evaluated papers were discarded because they represented informal literature; most of the studies presented comparisons among different network simulators, beyond ns-3 and conceptual studies related to performance assessment and validation and routing protocols. Only about 30% of considered studies present extensions of ns-3 in terms of new modules and only about 10% present effective case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of employing network simulator in real application, except conceptual and modeling studies.

An Uneven Node Self-Deployment Optimization Algorithm for Maximized Coverage and Energy Balance in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

“…As mentioned above, in recent years, research on UWSNs mainly involves topics like node deployment [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ], node localization [ 11 ], network protocol design [ 3 , 12 ], simulation [ 13 , 14 , 15 ], etc. Specially, the issue of node deployment has attracted attention from lots of scholars and engineers.…”

“…In recent years, acoustic-based UWSNs have been applied in lots of fields such as environment monitoring, military surveillance, data collection, etc [4][5][6]. Research on UWSNs mainly involves node deployment [7][8][9][10], node localization [11], network protocol design [3,12], simulation [13][14][15], etc. Deployment of sensor nodes in 3D UWSNs is a crucial issue, which directly affects the performance of networks.…”

What network simulator questions do users ask? a large-scale study of stack overflow posts

“…There are several studies on NS. Prior works compared NS tools to subjugate barrier to select the suitable one that support users objective [10] and the usage on wireless networks [26][27][28][29]. In another paper, Campanile et al conducted a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of network simulator in real applications, and modeling studies [27].…”

“…Prior works compared NS tools to subjugate barrier to select the suitable one that support users objective [10] and the usage on wireless networks [26][27][28][29]. In another paper, Campanile et al conducted a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of network simulator in real applications, and modeling studies [27]. Comparative studies on wireless network simulators were also conducted by Lessman et al [30] and Korkalainen et al [31] to help other users to quickly identify which simulator is most suitable for their needs.…”

On the Fidelity of NS-3 Simulations of Wireless Multipath TCP Connections

“…The ns-3 simulator has been gaining popularity among researchers since its advent. Currently, it is widely adopted, as documented in [ 12 ]. A significant number of MPTCP research works depend on the ns-3 simulator.…”