A WAN-in-Lab for Protocol Development

It has recently become apparant that very high speed wide area networks (WANs) are pushing the limits of existing protocols, such as the transmission control protocol (TCP). This has led to many proposed replacements for TCP [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], which must be evaluated, optimized and eventually developed into the next generation of TCP. Although initial design and testing can be performed using mathematical modeling and software simulation, there is ultimately a need to implement the selected algorithms in real networks. This paper describes a test facility called WAN-in-Lab, consisting of a complete WAN in a laboratory environment, which is available for use by the global networking research community. After a description of the motivation for this approach, the specific hardware will be described, followed by examples of protocols that have already been tested on the facility. Finally, the future direction of the WAN-in-Lab will be outlined.