Generic AON (GAON) Simulation Framework

The AOM multicast mechanism proposed in previous chapters is realized with an AON approach, where network routers are enhanced with application-oriented intelligence. In fact, AON is also one of the mainstream ideas to design the next-generation Internet. However, there is no systematic study on what intelligence should be incorporated into the router and what the fundamental benefit of the AON approach could bring. Resorting to simulation tools is an important way to fully understand and address these issues. The network simulator ns-2 is the most accepted simulation tool in the networking community, but instructions on how to modify the ns-2-wired node structure to implement developer-defined processing are still limited. This chapter presents a generic application-oriented networking (GAON) simulation framework compatible with ns-2 to facilitate the AON research. The practical ns-2 simulation techniques introduced in this chapter could also be useful for general ns-2 developers. The user case diagram and the extended ns-2 node structure are presented in Sect. 6.1. In Sect. 6.2, key OTCL and C++ interfaces of GAON framework are described, which also reveals the fundamental principles of ns-2. In Sect. 6.3, we present the implementation of AOM under the GAON framework to demonstrate the GAON development process. The chapter is concluded in Sect. 6.4.