A wired-wireless testbed architecture for network layer experimentation based on ORBIT and VINI

Abstract

Renewed interest has emerged in novel internet architectures that among other aspects can better address the specific requirements of wireless networks, such as increased host mobility, router mobility, or flow control over fast-changing links. Most existing testbeds, however, focus either on wired or wireless networks and provide inadequate support for experimentation with novel network architectures spanning the wired and wireless domain. This paper presents an initial design of a global-scale wired-wireless testbed and its prototyping based on the existing ORBIT and VINI testbeds. It allows researchers to define custom network topologies comprising both wired and wireless nodes and experimenting with new network and transport layer protocols in these networks. The testbed relies on virtualization on wired nodes, trading a slight performance penalty for the ability to allow simultaneous usage for multiple long-running experiments. Copyright 2007 ACM.