# Deploying Secure Distributed Systems: Comparative Analysis of GNS3 and SEED Internet Emulator
## 7 Conclusions and Future Research Directions  
In this study, we conducted a comparison between two emerging network emulation platforms: GNS3 and the SEED Internet Emulator. Our evaluation focused on performance criteria such as the bandwidth, throughput, latency, and jitter. While both platforms share a common concept, they differ significantly in terms of design, development, and execution. Through this research, Sections 2 and 6 are linked to the first research contribution, which highlights related literature studies around virtualization technologies, networking, and cybersecurity applications. Sections 5 and 6 are linked to the second research contribution, demonstrating the network performance comparison of the systems. Section 4 demonstrates the third research contribution, showcasing the network models under test. GNS3, being more heavyweight, offers greater integration flexibility and mimics a typical network environment. It facilitates easy connections of external nodes and services from multiple vendors. Conversely, the SEED Internet Emulator is more lightweight, flexible, and efficient in its development approach. By exploring the integration of network emulation platforms into the data center architecture and creating a hybrid emulation system, we utilized the SEED Internet Emulator and GNS3 to emulate networks using the host system's resources. Our results indicated that, while GNS3 possesses certain advantages as a platform, there are notable bottlenecks to consider when incorporating it into a company's infrastructure strategy. GNS3 encounters issues with low bandwidth and throughput speeds, even when the Internet Service Provider (ISP) allows for higher speeds. Additionally, due to the platform's nature and its method of achieving network emulation, one of its main drawbacks is the challenges associated with allocating a large number of CPU cores to the network appliances. Furthermore, our observations revealed that the high energy consumption of the host system poses a significant constraint to energy efficiency, which should be considered during the design phase. In fact, our study demonstrated that, for small networks, the energy consumption of the host system alone can outweigh the physical energy consumption. On the other hand, the SEED Internet Emulator provides a lightweight emulation platform that exhibits flexibility in development and performs impressively across all performance criteria. Conceptualization, L.G. and P.M.; methodology, L.G. and P.M.; software, L.G. and P.M.; validation, L.G., P.M. and V.C. ; formal analysis, L.G. and P.M.; investigation, L.G. and P.M.; resources, L.G., P.M. and V.C. ; data curation, L.G. and P.M.; writing--original draft preparation, L.G. and P.M.; writing--review and editing, L.G., P.M. and V.C. ; visualization, L.G. and P.M.; supervision, P.M. and V.C. ; project administration, L.G. and P.M.; funding acquisition, L.G., P.M. and V.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This work was partly supported by VC Research (VCR 0000203). No new data was created, apart from the one presented in this paper. This paper contributes to part of [PERSON]'s Ph.D. thesis. The authors declare no conflict of interest. The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript: \begin{tabular}{l l} CML & Cisco Modeling Labs \\ WAN & Wide Area Network \\ QoS & Quality of Service \\ GNS3 & Graphical Network Simulator-3 \\ SEED IE & SEED Internet Emulator \\ BGP & Border Gateway Protocol \\ iBGP & internal Border Gateway Protocol \\ eBGP & external Border Gateway Protocol \\ NAT & Network Address Translation \\ ICMP & Internet Control Message Protocol \\ SME & Small-Medium Enterprise \\ GUI & Graphical User Interface \\ OOP & Object-Oriented Programming \\ \end{tabular}