Ns (simulator)

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ns or the network simulator (also popularly called ns-2, in reference to its current generation) is a discrete event network simulator. It is popular in academia for its extensibility (due to its open source model) and plentiful online documentation. ns is popularly used in the simulation of routing and multicast protocols, among others, and is heavily used in ad-hoc research. ns supports an array of popular network protocols, offering simulation results for wired and wireless networks alike. It can be also used as limited-functionality network emulator. ns is licensed for use under version 2 of the GNU General Public License.

Design

Showing NS split objects model. Object created on OTcl has a corresponding object in C++

ns was built in C++ and provides a simulation interface through OTcl, an object-oriented dialect of Tcl. The user describes a network topology by writing OTcl scripts, and then the main ns program simulates that topology with specified parameters.

History

ns began development in 1989 as a variant of the REAL network simulator. By 1995, ns had gained support from DARPA, the VINT project at LBL, Xerox PARC, UCB, and USC/ISI.^[1] ns is now developed in collaboration between a number of different researchers and institutions, including SAMAN (supported by DARPA), CONSER (through the NSF), and ICIR (formerly ACIRI). Long-running contributions have also come from Sun Microsystems and the UCB Daedelus and Carnegie Mellon Monarch projects, cited by the ns homepage for wireless code additions. The latest version of ns-2 is 2.31. For documentation on recent changes, see the version 2 change log. Generation 3 of ns has begun development as of July 1 2006 and is projected to take four years.^[2]

External links

• The Network Simulator - ns-2
• The official Nsnam Wiki
• ns-3 project

References