Experience Report on Implementing and Simulating a Routing Protocol in NS-2 and NS-3

Among specialized tools for simulation of network protocols, the network simulator 2 (ns-2) has been a first choice for over a decade. Its intended successor, ns-3, has been under active development since 2006 and was first made publicly available in 2008. However, ns-3 is not a new version of ns-2, but a completely new tool, and today ns-2 and ns-3 co-exist. In this paper, we report our practical experience in implementing and simulating the same routing protocol in both tools and, based on this experience, compare ns-2 and ns-3. In particular, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the increased realism of ns-3.