WINPLEM: A Windows-Based Packet-Level Network Emulator

Network emulation plays an important role in conducting performance analysis of network protocols and studying various network-related issues, such as Quality of Service of multimedia applications and traffic control algorithms. In this paper, we design and implement a Windows-based network emulator, WINPLEM, using the Network Driver Interface Specification technology. The emulator is capable of emulating various network attributes in real-time, including link bandwidth, packet loss, transmission delay and out-of-order packets. We study the performance of the emulator in trace-driven scenarios as well as in a streaming media application scenario. The experimental results indicate that WINPLEM is an effective network emulation tool for the Windows platform.