Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Enabling Heterogeneous 5G Simulations with SDN Adapters

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communications (TridentCom 2019)

Included in the following conference series:

  • 572 Accesses

Abstract

5G networks are expected to consist of multiple radio access technologies with a Software-defined networking (SDN) core, and so simulating these networks will require connecting multiple subnetworks with different technologies. Despite the availability of simulators for various technologies, there is currently no tool that can simulate a complete heterogeneous 5G network. In this work, we develop a novel SDN adapter to enable seamless inter-working between different simulation/emulation tools, such as NS-3, Mininet-WiFi, Omnet++, and OpenAirInterface5G. Using the adapter, we have built a large scale 5G simulator with multiple networking technologies by connecting existing simulators. We show that our adapter solution is easy-to-use, scalable, and can be used to connect arbitrary simulation tools. Using our solution, we show that Mininet-WiFi exhibits unreliable behaviour when connected to other networks. We compare our solution against other alternatives and show that our solution is superior both in terms of performance and cost. Finally, and for the first time, we simulate a large heterogeneous 5G network with all of the latest technologies using only a standard commodity personal computer.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. GitHub - cisco/open-nFAPI: An open source implementation of the Small Cell Forum’s Network Functional API (nFAPI). https://github.com/cisco/open-nFAPI

  2. Linkerd. https://linkerd.io

  3. Ryu SDN Framework. https://osrg.github.io/ryu/

  4. Small Cell Forum Releases. http://scf.io/en/documents/082_-_nFAPI_and_FAPI_specifications.php

  5. What is 5G? https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/what-is-5g.html

  6. IEEE Standard for Distributed Interactive Simulation-Application Protocols. IEEE STD 1278.1-2012 (Revision of IEEE STD 1278.1-1995), pp. 1–747, December 2012. https://doi.org/10.1109/IEEESTD.2012.6387564

  7. Alaya, M.B., Banouar, Y., Monteil, T., Chassot, C., Drira, K.: OM2M: extensible ETSI-compliant M2M service platform with self-configuration capability. Procedia Comput. Sci. 32, 1079–1086 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2014.05.536. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050914007364

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Banjar, A., Pupatwibul, P., Braun, R., Moulton, B.: Analysing the performance of the OpenFlow standard for software-defined networking using the OMNeT++; network simulator. In: 2014 Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer Aided System Engineering (APCASE), pp. 31–37, February 2014

    Google Scholar 

  9. Chaves, L.J., Garcia, I.C., Madeira, E.R.M.: OFSwitch13: enhancing Ns-3 with OpenFlow 1.3 support. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Ns-3, WNS3 2016, pp. 33–40. ACM, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Emmerich, P., Gallenmüller, S., Raumer, D., Wohlfart, F., Carle, G.: MoonGen: a scriptable high-speed packet generator. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Internet Measurement Conference - IMC 2015, pp. 275–287 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1145/2815675.2815692. arXiv:1410.3322

  11. Emmerich, P., Raumer, D., Gallenmüller, S., Wohlfart, F., Carle, G.: Throughput and latency of virtual switching with open vSwitch: a quantitative analysis. J. Netw. Syst. Manag. 26(2), 314–338 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-017-9417-0

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Fontes, R.R., Afzal, S., Brito, S.H.B., Santos, M.A.S., Rothenberg, C.E.: Mininet-WiFi: emulating software-defined wireless networks. In: 2015 11th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM), pp. 384–389, November 2015

    Google Scholar 

  13. Fontes, R.D.R., Rothenberg, C.E.: Mininet-WiFi: a platform for hybrid physical-virtual software-defined wireless networking research. In: Proceedings of the 2016 Conference on ACM SIGCOMM 2016 Conference, SIGCOMM 2016, pp. 607–608. ACM, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Gomez-Miguelez, I., Garcia-Saavedra, A., Sutton, P.D., Serrano, P., Cano, C., Leith, D.J.: srsLTE: an open-source platform for LTE evolution and experimentation. arXiv:1602.04629 [cs], February 2016

  15. Gupta, R.: Real-Time LTE Testbed using ns-3 and LabVIEW for SDN in CROWD. Span (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gupta, R., et al.: LabVIEW based Platform for prototyping dense LTE Networks (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Halba, K., Mahmoudi, C.: In-vehicle software defined networking: an enabler for data interoperability. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information System and Data Mining, Lakeland, FL, USA, ICISDM 2018, pp. 93–97. ACM, New York (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3206098.3206105

  18. Imran, M., Said, A.M., Hasbullah, H.: A survey of simulators, emulators and testbeds for wireless sensor networks. In: 2010 International Symposium on Information Technology, vol. 2, pp. 897–902. IEEE, June 2010

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kaltenberger, F., Knopp, R., Nikaein, N., Nussbaum, D., Gauthier, L., Bonnet, C.: OpenAirInterface: open-source software radio solution for 5G. In: European Conference on Networks and Communications (EUCNC), Paris, France (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Khana, A.U.R., Bilalb, S.M., Othmana, M.: A Performance Comparison of Network Simulators for Wireless Networks. arXiv:1307.4129 [cs], July 2013. arXiv:1307.4129

  21. Klein, D., Jarschel, M.: An OpenFlow extension for the OMNeT++ INET framework. In: Proceedings of the 6th International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, SimuTools 2013, Cannes, France, pp. 322–329. ICST (Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering), ICST, Brussels, Belgium (2013). http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2512734.2512780

  22. Kotstein, S., Decker, C.: Reinforcement learning for IoT interoperability. In: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Software Architecture Companion (ICSA-C), pp. 11–18, March 2019. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSA-C.2019.00010

  23. Kumar, A., Kaushik, S.K., Sharma, R., Raj, P.: Simulators for wireless networks: a comparative study. In: 2012 International Conference on Computing Sciences, pp. 338–342, September 2012

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lin, B.S.P., Lin, F.J., Tung, L.P.: The roles of 5G mobile broadband in the development of IoT, big data, cloud and SDN. Commun. Netw. 8(1), 9–21 (2016). https://doi.org/10.4236/cn.2016.81002. http://www.scirp.org/Journal/Paperabs.aspx?paperid=63807

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Maksymyuk, T., Dumych, S., Brych, M., Satria, D., Jo, M.: An IoT based monitoring framework for software defined 5G mobile networks. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication, IMCOM 2017, Beppu, Japan, pp. 105:1–105:4. ACM, New York (2017). https://doi.org/10.1145/3022227.3022331

  26. Pham, T.: pthien92/sdn-adapter-designer-react-typescript, November 2019. https://github.com/pthien92/sdn-adapter-designer-react-typescript. Original-date: 2019-11-01T11:36:03Z

  27. Pham, T.: pthien92/simulations-scripts, November 2019. https://github.com/pthien92/simulations-scripts. Original-date: 2019-11-01T12:15:51Z

  28. Riley, G.F., Henderson, T.R.: The ns-3 network simulator. In: Wehrle, K., Güneş, M., Gross, J. (eds.) Modeling and Tools for Network Simulation, pp. 15–34. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12331-3_2

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Salih, M.A., Cosmas, J., Zhang, Y.: OpenFlow 1.3 extension for OMNeT++. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology; Ubiquitous Computing and Communications; Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing; Pervasive Intelligence and Computing, pp. 1632–1637, October 2015. https://doi.org/10.1109/CIT/IUCC/DASC/PICOM.2015.246

  30. Varga, A.: INET Framework for the OMNeT++ Discrete Event Simulator (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Varga, A., et al.: The OMNeT++ discrete event simulation system. In: Proceedings of the European Simulation Multiconference (ESM 2001), vol. 9, p. 65 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Virdis, A., Stea, G., Nardini, G.: Simulating LTE/LTE-advanced networks with SimuLTE. In: Obaidat, M.S., Ören, T., Kacprzyk, J., Filipe, J. (eds.) Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications. AISC, vol. 402, pp. 83–105. Springer, Cham (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26470-7_5

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Teletraffic Research Centre, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia

    Thien Pham, Jeremy McMahon & Hung Nguyen

Authors
  1. Thien Pham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jeremy McMahon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Hung Nguyen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thien Pham .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Honghao Gao

  2. School of Software, Central South University, Changsha, China

    Kuang Li

  3. Shanghai Polytechnic University, Shanghai, China

    Xiaoxian Yang

  4. Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou Shi, Zhejiang, China

    Yuyu Yin

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Pham, T., McMahon, J., Nguyen, H. (2020). Enabling Heterogeneous 5G Simulations with SDN Adapters. In: Gao, H., Li, K., Yang, X., Yin, Y. (eds) Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communications. TridentCom 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 309. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43215-7_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43215-7_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43214-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43215-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation