Survey of Various Open Source Network Simulators

Computer networks can be defined as networks of computers and checking the performance of the network like throughput of network, delay, channel utilization, packet loss etc is very difficult in real time. A single test bed network consists of many routers, switches, computers, servers and other networking devices hence implementing any new routing algorithm or protocol and testing it in this test bed network requires lot of time as well as cost. The simulator helps the network developer to check whether his routing algorithm designed for the network is able to work in real world. Network simulator is useful for the network designer to implement and test his own protocol or new routing algorithm in controlled and reproductive manner thus saving lot of cost and time. There are many sophisticated and powerful simulating tools available, but selecting the proper simulator that gives proper and appropriate result needs the knowledge of various simulating tools available along with their strength and weakness. It is very important to verify the results generated by these simulating tools are valid, accurate and truthful. The objective of this paper is to survey classify and compare different network simulator so that the network researcher can select appropriate simulating tools which will help him to carry out his research. In this paper we have discussed different open source simulators its features, its strength and weakness. We hope this paper will provide the researcher guidelines to select appropriate open-source network simulator to carry out their research.