evalBox: A Cross-Platform Evaluation Framework for Network Systems

The number of network systems and network applications is rapidly increasing with the wide deployment of broadband network access. Network protocols and algorithms, as key components of network systems, are usually developed and evaluated in a simulated network, an emulated network and/or a real network. In this paper, we propose evalBox, a cross-platform evaluation framework that provides support to deploy network systems in various evaluation platforms. The framework supports network simulation, network emulation, and real deployment. Hence, a network system once implemented can then be directly deployed in any platform supported by evalBox for evaluation. The design of evalBox effective mitigates the effort involved in the learning/training phase of these platforms and eliminates the redundant tasks involved in porting a network system across different platforms for evaluation.