Modeling and Simulating Communications Networks: A Hands-on Approach Using OPNET

Students of network communications learn about many different network protocols and configurations, but seldom have the opportunity to actively use them and learn first-hand the performance trade-offs involved in designing a network. Network modeling and simulating overcomes this limitation. This book presents six labs that allow students to examine various protocols and the factors that affect their performance. These studies include: effect of packet arrival rate and size on a queue; behavior of various automatic request (ARQ) protocols; performance characteristics of several multiaccess protocols, such as ALOHA, CSMA-CD, and Token Ring; throughput and end-to-end delay in a wide area network using Frame Relay; and link utilization and other metrics in a Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) network. This book can be used alone or in conjunction with a text on network communications.