[Ns-developers] Google SoC 2009 - Modeling routers

[Lorenzo De Carli]

Hi developers,

I am a master student in computer sciences and I am preparing my 
application for GSoC 2009. I went through the ideas list on the ns-3 
GSoC page and I would be particularly interested in working on the new 
router model.

Since this is the first time I approach ns-3, I went through the 
tutorial and skimmed the source code to get a basic idea of how the 
simulator works. Then, I read the paper ("A device-independet router 
model") cited in the project description.

 From what I understand now, a router should consist of a Node with a 
proper NetDevice implementing the routing logic (much as a bridge is 
implemented as a Node with a BridgeNetDevice attached). Therefore, the 
core part of the work will be to derive a new class from the base 
NetDevice and implementing the router model inside. Is this the correct 
way to look at the problem?

If this is correct, I would like to know if there is any code and/or 
documentation I should read to gather more detailed information. Also, I 
have noticed that the model described in the paper has some inaccuracies 
(it does not consider interferences from control traffic, it does not 
accurately model losses from backplane contention, etc.). I expect that 
one of the requirements will be to "tweak" the model during the 
implementation to improve some of its weaknesses. Are there already some 
ideas about possible improvements or alternative models?

Thanks in advance,
Lorenzo