Faster Control Plane Experimentation with Horse

Abstract

Simulation and emulation are popular approaches for experimentation in Computer Networks. However, due to their respective inherent drawbacks, existing solutions cannot perform both fast and realistic control plane experiments. To close this gap, we introduce Horse. Horse is a hybrid solution with an emulated control plane, for realism, and simulated data plane, for speed. Our decoupling of the control and data plane allows us to speed up the experiments without sacrificing control plane realism.