On stochastic fault-injection for IP-packet loss emulation

Abstract

Injection of IP packet loss is a versatile method for emulating real-world network conditions in performance studies. In order to reproduce realistic packet-loss patterns, stochastic fault-models are used. While fault-models can be derived from measurements, inappropriate implementation may introduce artifacts in the experiment process that might invalidate results. In this paper we study the effects of different fault-models in different experiment setups. We illustrate that care should be taken to select an appropriate fault-injection method for the scenario under study. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.