FLEO: A flow-level network simulator for traffic engineering analysis

Packet-level simulators are unsuitable for the investigation of large networks over sustained periods. In this paper, we present FLEO, a flow-level network simulator. It is written as an extension to OMNeT++, a packet-level discrete-event simulator. FLEO can model best-effort transfers, as well as constant bitrate flows. These flows can also be prioritised, thus modelling quality-of-service (QoS). We have also developed a shortest-available-path selection heuristic. These characteristics make it suitable for the simulation of streaming media, which comprises the majority of data usage today, as well as the investigation of traffic engineering within a network, for example using software-defined networking.