Subject: common performance measures

From: Kimberly King <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 09:34:15 -0400

Hello,

I agree we need to find a common basis for measuring protocol performance.  

However, if one represents this common basis in terms of physical movement of nodes, then the actual network context is highly dependent upon physical and link-layer assumptions.  By physical movement of nodes I mean specifying node A is at (x,y) at time t0.  By network context I mean
# of nodes
average number of neighbors
average link lifetime
# of times the network becomes partitioned
average length of network partitions.

If comparisons are based on abstract network characteristics, then one avoids the issues of dependencies upon the physical and link-layers.  As a mathematician, I believe better representations for mobility exist than using simulated physical movement on an (x,y) plane. 

It is also important to determine the stability of performance results.  If only a few fixed models using the physical movement notion is adopted then it is difficult to assess how that particular topology influences performance.  Whatever representation is adopted, it is helpful to be able to see if the same results are obtained given the same network context.

In addition to mobility representation, I think we need to separate representation of data traffic.  Clearly, the same network context with different traffic characteristics affects routing performance.

Sincerely,

Kimberly S. King
SAIC