Using Modified Floyd-Warshall Algorithm to Implement SPB IEEE 802.1aq Protocol Simulator on NS-3

Abstract

Ethernet has evolved to support various network topologies while maintaining its backward compatibility and simplicity. Virtualization of the provider’s Ethernet network enables support for finegrained services for different users. Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) meets these properties but, still could benefit from improvements on utilization and convergence time. Shortest Path Bridging (SPB, IEEE 802.1aq) has been developed to overcome the shortcomings of STP. This paper presents the design and implementation of an SPB simulator for NS-3. The modified version of Floyd-Warshall algorithm is used to compute routes. Multicast and unicast communications are simulated in SPBM (SPB Mac-in-Mac) mode to show the simulator’s capability. The results prove that the communication maintains the crucial property of SPB; congruency between multicast and unicast, and symmetry between forward and backward paths. The traffic route selected among candidate paths with the same cost is in accordance with the SPB standard. The contribution of this work is a powerful simulator that can be used to conduct experiments without the usual cost attached to the physical implementation.