An Investigation into Performance Aspects of Network Simulators vs Hardware
Nathan Rebucha, Computing and Digital Forensics, Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Project Aims
●To investigate the performance between network simulator software and the corresponding network hardware
●To investigate which network simulator software would be best for users, testing different network topologies
Practical Aspects
●Created 4 different types of network topologies
Small Bus Topology Large Bus Topology
Ring Topology 2-site business topology replica
Background Research
●Researched different types of network simulator software
●Looked at their uses in schools, business, and in academic research
●Overview of some of the available network simulators
●Researched network performance measurements
●Researched computer performance measurements
●Researched external software to measure the performance of networks and computers
Results
Hardware testing
●iPerf3 testing
Topology 1a Topology 1b
Topology 2 Topology 3
Findings/Highlights
●GNS3 had a lot of stress on the CPU
●Cisco Packet Tracer didn’t stress the CPU as much
●Re-routing was the fastest on hardware, and GNS3 was the slowest
●GNS3 had a larger memory consumption
●Cisco Packet Tracer had a smaller memory consumption
●Latency on the hardware averaged 0.832ms
Conclusions/Future Work
Conclusions
●GNS3 should be used for smaller networks
●Cisco Packet Tracer should be used for larger networks
●Hardware if available is still the best option
●If hardware is not available Cisco Packet Tracer should be used
●Cisco produced more accurate results
●Created IP addressing schemes to use on the topologies Topology 1b and 1b Topology 2 and 3
CPU load and temperature testing
●GNS3 testing
Topology 1a Topology 1b
●Cisco Packet Tracer and GNS3 were unable to run some of the testing software
Future Work
●Use software for the timing to remove human-error
●Use RIPv2 and other re-routing protocols
Topology 2 Topology 3
●Other software could be used for testing that isn’t free
●Stick to the timescale that was created
●More advanced topologies could be used
●Chose the 2 most appropriate network simulators to use throughout the investigation, Cisco Packet Tracer and GNS3
●Determined what would be tested on both the hardware and the software
●Chose the appropriate external software to use throughout the investigation, iPerf3, NZXT CAM, Wireshark, etc
●Determined the repeatability of tests
●Cisco Packet Tracer
Topology 1a Topology 1b
Bibliography
iPerf (2022) Iperf - the ultimate speed test tool for TCP, UDP and SCTPTEST the limits of your network + internet neutrality test, iPerf.fr. Available at: https://iperf.fr/ (Accessed: December 12, 2022).
Topology 2 Topology 3
Gns3.com. Gns3. Available at: https://www.gns3.com/software (Accessed: October 28, 2022).
Cisco packet tracer (2022) Networking Academy. Available at: https://www.netacad.com/courses/packet-tracer (Accessed: October 28, 2022).