POSE: Phase I: Open-Sourcing the Network Simulation Bridge for Networked Applications Development

This Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) project helps a wide range of computer users develop and test the next generation of distributed applications in realistic settings. As the world becomes increasingly connected and digital technologies expand across various industries, commerce, research, education, and everyday life, it becomes ever more challenging to design computer systems that perform well under real-world conditions. This project, the Network Simulation Bridge (NSB), provides developers, practitioners, students, and researchers with a means to seamlessly connect distributed applications and services running on actual devices or in simulated environments to network simulation platforms. This collaboration will enable better understanding and insight into how these applications are impacted by the communications networks they depend on. To keep pace with evolving technology, the project will expand NSB’s current user base and establish an open-source ecosystem (OSE) that supports long-term use and ongoing improvement. By supporting a wide range of users and application domains, NSB can help shape more reliable and adaptable technologies in ways that benefit society broadly. This POSE project develops an open-source ecosystem (OSE) around the Network Simulation Bridge (NSB) - a co-simulation framework that enables application developers, researchers, academics, and students to connect their distributed applications to network simulation backends. The NSB-OSE will allow for better modeling and observation of the interplay between the underlying communication network and target applications and systems. Compared to hardware testbeds, network simulation platforms offer important advantages, including the ability to run reproducible experiments under a wide range of scenarios. In addition, the network simulation platforms are often used for initial experimental steps, since they are more widely accessible, easier to deploy and scale, and offer superior experimental diversity and reproducibility. NSB-OSE will contribute to the domain of networked application development by providing a framework for seamlessly bridging applications to network simulators. This bridge can facilitate testing, validating, and evaluating distributed applications under closer-to-real-world scenarios. Some advantages offered by NSB are its lightweight, portable, and distributed implementation that is agnostic of the users’ applications, and its simple and extensible design that makes it easy to add new co-simulation features. This project creates a pathway for an NSB-OSE to: 1) identify and grow user and contributor communities; 2) develop an OSE infrastructure based on guidance from experts; and 3) provide a productive space within NSB for continued contributions from its communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.