Performance measurement tool for packet forwarding devices

Abstract

A tool built from primarily public domain software components is presented to evaluate the performance of packet forwarding devices used in modern TCP/IP based computer networks. The tool makes it possible to specify complex traffic patterns based on a high level definition, then to execute the designed measurements and collect data, to process the results of measurements, and finally to generate high quality figures and tables for presentation. The component based, distributed architecture of the tool assures flexibility and scalability. After customization, the tool allows the performance evaluation of Linux based routers as demonstrated in the example.