Protocol emulation platform based on microservice architecture for underwater acoustic networks

Abstract

As use of underwater applications increases, simulation studies on underwater acoustic networks (UAN) have also increasingly appeared. At present, the commonly used network simulation platforms are NS2 and NS3, or are extended from them. These simualation platforms require users to have rich experience in C++ programming because they integrate many complicated APIs, and the configuration process is cumbersome. Without further optimizing these existing emulation platforms from the software architecture, it is often impossible for the protocol researchers to completely focus on the logic implementation of the protocol without paying attention to the compilation and loading operation of the simulation software itself. In this paper, an UAN protocol emulation platform based on microservice architecture (MSA) is proposed. The microservices are independently developed and deployed to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional monolithic architecture for the development of software system. Using MSA, the protocols and functional modules are fully componentized, which is convenient for users to customize the UAN protocol stack, network behavior, and underlying physical devices. The proposed emulation platform can be deployed as a cloud-based server and provides users with services, such as simulation on demand, emulation in real time, monitoring and statistical analyzing, and other customizable extension functions. This operation mode is called emulation as a service (EaaS). A preliminary test has verified the feasibility of the whole framework and demonstrated that our implementation fulfills the main functions of this emulation platform.