This focus of this project is to design and develop a flexible and efficient backplane system to enable the debugging, testing and analysis of realistic distributed applications on large-scale, detailed emulated network configurations. This work is envisioned to emulate significantly larger and more detailed network configurations than possible today. Direct execution technique is used to execute shrink-wrapped network applications in a controlled manner for testing and analysis. The enhanced fidelity of models, and the increased size of emulated network configurations together enable realistic defense applications to be tested with greater accuracy. Network planning and design operations can also greatly benefit from the new capabilities with respect to scale and level of detail.
Repeatable execution enables faster debugging and testing of protocols and applications.
In the first year of the project, the design of the backplane interface will be defined and an initial software prototype will be developed. Time managed communication support will be added to the Linux operating system. Initial test application scenarios will be developed and tested on the time managed operating system communicating via the backplane to the emulated network using parallel simulation of detailed models.