PlanetSim: A New Overlay Network Simulation Framework

Current research in peer to peer systems is lacking appropriate environments for simulation and experimentation of large scale overlay services. This has led to a plethora of custom made simulators that waste development resources and hinder fair comparisons between different approaches. In this paper we present a new simulation / experimentation framework for large scale overlay services with three main contributions: i) provide a unifying approach to simulation/ experimentation that eases the transition from simulation to network testbeds, ii) it clearly distinguish between the design of overlay algorithms (key based routing), and the applications and services built on top of them, iii) offer a layered and modular architecture with clear hotspots, and pervasive use of design patterns. We have used PlanetSim to implement and evaluate overlay networks such as Chord and Symphony, and overlay services such as Scribe application level multicast, and keyword query systems over distributed hash tables.