Measuring accuracy and performance of network emulators

Network emulators are often used tools for different kinds of experiments, for example testing network protocols and studying application behavior under certain network conditions. It is crucial for network emulators to work according to their specifications in order to ensure reliability and reproducibility of the performed experiments. This paper therefore evaluates the accuracy and performance of current well-established network emulators, including hardware and software solutions. The results show that no emulator reproduces all effects perfectly. Although the accuracy is acceptable in general, we finally analyzed strengths and weaknesses of the different solutions. Other researchers can use our measurement results to choose the right emulator for their experiments.