Performance analysis and evaluation of delay-tolerant network bundling protocol on a scalable virtual network test platform

Abstract

The use of Internet protocol suite of TCP/UDP in environments characterized by high delay and high link error rates result in significant degradation of the Protocol performance. The DTN bundle protocol can be used in such scenarios. Performance evaluation of delay-tolerant network bundle protocol in a live network is difficult due to the absence of networks characterized by extreme environs. Control on specific performance metrics like link delay, bandwidth, connectivity, traffic flow and queue sizes are thus rendered impossible without the incorporation of a control system either in software implementation or network hardware. The control over specific environments in real- world deployments and the analysis of the protocol deployment in the above provides an understanding into the performance of the bundling protocol in harsh networking environments. This paper presents the analysis and evaluation of performance of a delay-tolerant network in a virtual test platform setup.