User Interface in Network Simulator

User interface in network simulator can be divided into two: 

1. Graphical User Interface 
2. Language based Interface 

Example of  network simulator utilising GUI are OPNET and OMNET++ 

Example language based interface are NS2 and NS3 

Graphical user interface is easy to be used if it is well designed, however building GUI is not an easy tasks. 

Language Interface is not easy for beginner, but it is very flexible. 

Giving the language and user interface , which are my choice? I rather choose for both. I want to have flexibility and I want to have an easy to use simulator. But which simulator support both? 

NS2 is lack of support tools

NS2, is lack of support tool! This is my commnet about NS2. Yeah. It is popular, but without support tool it wont be easy for beginners to learn NS2.

To use NS2, we need to create a simulation script - which is in Tcl which is not taught in universities syllabus. 

To run ns2, we need to run the ns interpreter, through console.

To analyze ns2 result, we need to create our own program or use third party tools developed by others.

NAM Graphical Editor for NS2

Heard NAM? If you are familiar with ns2, you should know what is NAM. NAM stands for Network AniMator. The purpose is for animation at packet level.

But do you realize that NAM has another function which can be used to draw network topology, and create simulation script from it?

I tested it out but it seems that there are segmentation faults when dragging the components.

NS-3 Tutorial ?

I have been looking for NS-3 tutorials on the net. After some searching I found out these two tutorial are quite good. 

1. http://www.nsnam.org/docs/tutorial/tutorial.html
2. http://eugen.dedu.free.fr/ns3-tutorial.html

If you have any suggestion for other tutorial feel free to drop the link in comment sections.

OPNET Modeler Popular Comercial Network Simulator

OPNET Modeler is one of famous simulation tools provided by OPNET Technologies.
OPNET is a commercial software unlike Network Simulator 2 (NS-2) & Network Simulator 3 (NS-3)

As far as I know, NS2 is based on descrete event-driven model , while OPNET engine is based on Finite State Machine combined with analytical model.

I have no particular experience about OPNET, but I'm searching for papers comparing NS-2 with OPNET. Sure both has their own disadvantages and advantages. And what about NS-3?

Hrm by the way, I need to find info about
1) Descrete event-driven model
2) Analytical Model
3) Finite State Machine Model

what does it really means?

Network simulation and network simulator area are very wide area. It is normal since network system (eg. Internet) is the biggest system ever created by human.

back to OPNET, , OPNET have more features than NS-2 but NS-2 is moreattractive due to its open source nature.

NSBM - Network Simulation By Mouse

NSBM is another effort to ease NS2 usage.

" NSBM ("Network Simulation By Mouse") is a GUI that allows you to graphically develop simulation scenarios and then generate a tcl script. It requires java (1.4 recommended, it doesn't properly work with 1.5; here's a BETA version that should work with Java 1.5). The source code is also available - feel free to change it!"

I read the paper regarding NSBM. It is a very good effort actually to have this kind of GUI to help user develops network simulations. The GUI get good feedback from the target audience (Student). If you are new to NS2 I suggest that you use NSBM.

JNS JAVA Network SImulator

NS2 is claimed to be difficult to use. So thats why JNS is developed.

What is JNS?

This is the detail given by the oficail website of JNS.

http://jns.sourceforge.net/

"The Java Network Simulator is a Java implementation of the ns-2 simulator originally from Berkeley. It is by no means as complete as ns-2, but it is a lot more accessible to programmers not familiar with Object Tcl.

JNS allows developers of networking protocols to simulate their protocols in a controlled environment. The simulator then produces a trace file (same format as NAM trace files) which can be viewed in a network animator such as Javis. Below is a screen shot of a simulation run from JNS being animated in Javis."

I personally never used JNS since I have no problem with NS2. Is it really good?
Can the JNS catch up with NS-2 development?