OPNET

Network Simulation

OPNET is a company the develops network simulation and analysis software. They offer a free academic version of IT Guru. SIIT also has a single user license for the full version of Modeler.

• OPNET IT Guru Academic Edition: IT Guru provides pre-built models of protocols and devices. It allows you to create and simulation different network topologies. The set of protocols/devices is fixed - you cannot create new protocols nor modify the behaviour of existing ones (however, you can change common parameter values). For example, IT Guru includes a model of a wireless LAN device (a laptop using IEEE 802.11b). You can create a topology with multiple wireless LAN devices, set parameters such as RTS Threshold, packet arrival rate and Data Rate, and simulate to measure the network performance. You cannot change the behaviour of IEEE 802.11 DCF, nor can you simulate IEE 802.11g, n, or e. The Academic Edition of IT Guru is limited to simulating 50 million events (events are things like receiving a packet, timeout occurring). For example, a wireless LAN network with 10 devices all generated a high load will reach 50 million events in about 5 minutes of simulation time. The Academic Edition also limits the number of devices in particular topologies.
• OPNET Modeler: Modeler provides the same ability to create and simulate network topologies as IT Guru (without the limitations of Academic Edition), but also provides access to the models of protocols and devices. That is, you can edit the source code of the IEEE 802.11 DCF model to experiment with variations of the access scheme. And you can create your own models (of proposed or new protocols). Including the user contributed models, Modeler allows for analysis of the latest network protocols and algorithms in use, and being researched today.

Licensing

• OPNET IT Guru Academic Edition is free for academic use. You can obtain it from OPNET web site (requires registration) or directly from me on DVD.
• OPNET Modeler is commercial software. SIIT has a single-user license, meaning although multiple people may have the software installed, only one person may use it at a time. The license was purchased with funding from TRIDI/NTC. Talk to me if you want to try Modeler.

Documentation

• Getting Started with OPNET IT Guru Academic Edition
• Demo of creating model in IT Guru (used for ITS413)
• Using Wireless LAN Models in IT Guru

Downloads

• OPNET IT Guru Academic Edition and OPNET Modeler are available from me on DVD. You can also download IT Guru
• Demo wireless LAN model. ITS413_WLAN_Simple: zip | rar (used in ITS413 in 2008; may not be relevant for other years/courses)
• Demo Client Server model. ITS413_Demo: zip | rar

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