The Design of A Software Bridge between Real and Simulated Computer Networks

摘要

This paper describes the design of a software bridge that permits a level of interoperability between real and simulated computer networks. The software is built based on network simulation tools OPNET from MIL3 Co. The architecture includes a set of programs running together to achieve communications between the real life network and the virtual network in the OPNET simulation. This Software Bridge is particularly useful for simulating interactions between networks when it is generally impossible to achieve this with standalone simulation, or can lead to inaccurate results whenever pure virtual nodes or pure real nodes only are used. The developed solution is based on Windows NT~(~R) and is called the "OPNET-NT Simulation Bridge". The OPNET-NT Simulation Bridge also enables management of the virtual network in OPNET by legacy network management platforms.