EmPath: Tool to Emulate Packet Transfer Characteristics in IP Network

The paper describes the EmPath tool that was designed to emulate packet transfer characteristics as delays and losses in IP network. The main innovation of this tool is its ability to emulate packet stream transfer while maintaining packet integrity, packet delay and loss distribution and correlation. In this method, we decide about the fate of new packet (delay and loss) by using the conditional probability distributions depending on the transmission characteristics of the last packet. For this purpose, we build a Markov model with transition probabilities calculated on the basis of the measured packet traces. The EmPath tool was implemented as a module of the Linux kernel and its capabilities were examined in the testbed environment. In the paper, we show some results illustrating the effectiveness of EmPath tool.