Generating large network topologies for GENI experiments

The Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) is a virtual laboratory which provides the infrastructure and resources for setting up network experiments. At present, GENI experimenters need to draw the topology in detail with a tool such as Flack, describing every node and every link in the experiment. This is not a problem for small-scale experiments. However, if an experiment needs a large-scale network topology, it is difficult for experimenters to accomplish the task. To deal with the problem, this paper develops a web application that can create large-scale network topologies in the GENI environment automatically. It makes use of existing network topology generators, such as GT-ITM and INET, and adapts them to be used in the GENI environment. The system can interface with GENI seamlessly. With the tool, the task of setting up large-scale experiments by GENI experimenters is made as easy as simply specifying high-level parameters of the topology.