Towards Improved Overlay Simulation Using Realistic Topologies

Simulation of distributed applications and overlay networks is challenging. Often the results generated in simulation do not match experimental results. Distributed testbeds like Planet-Lab help to bridge the gap, but they do not offer enough nodes to do an Internet scale evaluation. In this paper we use a tool called TopDNS for generating realistic topologies for simulations, using the Planet-Lab to collect measurement data. We show, that simulation results may differ significantly from earlier results using synthesized topologies. We provide a data analysis to explain the observed results and to provide a better understanding of latency between hosts in certain DNS name spaces.