Generating realistic and responsive traffic that reflects different network conditions is a challenging problem associated with performing valid experiments in network testbeds. In this work, we preset Caliper, a highly precise traffic generation tool, built on NetThreads, a flexible platform that we have created for developing packet processing applications on FPGA-based devices and the NetFPGA in particular. We will demonstrate the effect of ad-hoc inter-departure times on a commodity NIC compared to precisely timed inter-departures with Caliper. Both NetThreads and Caliper are available as free software to download.
['Monia Ghobadi', 'Martin Labrecque', 'Geoffrey Salmon', 'Kaveh Aasaraai', 'Soheil Hassas Yeganeh', 'Yashar Ganjali', 'J. Gregory Steffan']
Caliper: a tool to generate precise and closed-loop traffic