Learning to use ns-3 better, using ns-3 for IoT simulation with MQTT and academic presence of ns-3

[Fatih]

Hello Everyone

I have read the documentation and examined the example source codes but I still have a very hard time to understand and use ns-3 efficiently. Should I continue grinding with documentation and examples and hope that I will get it at some point or do you have any other suggestions for people like me? I have searched for alternative sources of learning for ns-3 like books or video series however, they are very few resources like these and those that are available are insufficient.

I am currently trying to do an IoT simulation with MQTT and I have found some tutorials regarding installing external libraries, however I was unable to successfully make it work. Would you advice me to use a different network simulation that supports this out of box or specialized in this subject? Or would you advice me to stick with it because installing external libraries like MQTT is relatively easy and doable?

Lastly, related to the first point, I did not see too many academic articles published using or referencing ns-3 for simulation and data analysis. Is the cause of this, the lack of user friendliness or some other factor? I have seen some company advertisement videos on Youtube about creating a project in ns-3 for doctorate thesis and such in exchange for money. I assume this proves that some researchers are having problems with ns-3 as well :). Do you have any advice about finding related academic literature for ns-3? Other than searching related keywords in Google Scholar?

I would be very happy if you can help me on my questions to enable me to use this software better and to create better projects.

[Mahdi Faghih Imani]

On Jun 18, 2018, at 17:42, Fatih <fatih...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Everyone

I have read the documentation and examined the example source codes but I still have a very hard time to understand and use ns-3 efficiently. Should I continue grinding with documentation and examples and hope that I will get it at some point or do you have any other suggestions for people like me? I have searched for alternative sources of learning for ns-3 like books or video series however, they are very few resources like these and those that are available are insufficient.

Hi, 

There are lots of very useful and perfect documents, videos and annual trainings in origin www.nsnam.org. The follwing links from ns-3 site can help you:

https://www.nsnam.org/documentation/

https://www.nsnam.org/consortium/activities/training/

https://www.nsnam.org/wiki/AnnualTraining2018

I am currently trying to do an IoT simulation with MQTT and I have found some tutorials regarding installing external libraries, however I was unable to successfully make it work. Would you advice me to use a different network simulation that supports this out of box or specialized in this subject? Or would you advice me to stick with it because installing external libraries like MQTT is relatively easy and doable?

You can do simulation of IoT scenarios like MQTT in ns-3. You should study the lr-wpan and sixlowpan modules and related documents and examples to undestanding how can you do your simulation.

Lastly, related to the first point, I did not see too many academic articles published using or referencing ns-3 for simulation and data analysis. Is the cause of this, the lack of user friendliness or some other factor? I have seen some company advertisement videos on Youtube about creating a project in ns-3 for doctorate thesis and such in exchange for money. I assume this proves that some researchers are having problems with ns-3 as well :). Do you have any advice about finding related academic literature for ns-3? Other than searching related keywords in Google Scholar?

By the way, today most articles use ns-3 simulator for accurate evaluation of their ideas. You can find the statistics about the number of publications involving ns-3 in the following link:

https://www.nsnam.org/overview/statistics/

I would be very happy if you can help me on my questions to enable me to use this software better and to create better projects.

I hope that the subjects I have said, would be useful for you.

Regards.

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[Tom Henderson]

On 06/18/2018 06:12 AM, Fatih wrote:
> Hello Everyone
>
> I have read the documentation and examined the example source codes
> but I still have a very hard time to understand and use ns-3
> efficiently. Should I continue grinding with documentation and
> examples and hope that I will get it at some point or do you have any
> other suggestions for people like me? I have searched for alternative
> sources of learning for ns-3 like books or video series however, they
> are very few resources like these and those that are available are
> insufficient.

Can you be more specific about the difficulties that you have?

It is hard to answer your broad question "is ns-3 right for me?" on a
list like this but we can take advice and feedback from users and answer
specific things that you do not understand.

ns-3 requires working at the Linux or MacOS command line, with
understanding of C++ and optionally Python.  If you are not comfortable
with this background, then ns-3 may be difficult to learn and use.

The other person who replied to your post also pointed to some other
resources to consult.

>
> I am currently trying to do an IoT simulation with MQTT and I have
> found some tutorials regarding installing external libraries, however
> I was unable to successfully make it work. Would you advice me to use
> a different network simulation that supports this out of box or
> specialized in this subject? Or would you advice me to stick with it
> because installing external libraries like MQTT is relatively easy and
> doable?

MQTT is not a built-in supported library of ns-3, but there are third
party contributions for MQTT in ns-3.  I suggest to search 'mqtt ns-3'
on a search engine and you will find some links. However, I do not know
the status and compatibility of such external libraries.

In general, some external libraries are 'easy and doable' because they
are supported and documented, such as GNU Scientific Library and Click
modular router.  For others (MQTT is likely in this category), you may
need to follow some existing library examples and figure out how to include.

>
> Lastly, related to the first point, I did not see too many academic
> articles published using or referencing ns-3 for simulation and data
> analysis. Is the cause of this, the lack of user friendliness or some
> other factor? I have seen some company advertisement videos on Youtube
> about creating a project in ns-3 for doctorate thesis and such in
> exchange for money. I assume this proves that some researchers are
> having problems with ns-3 as well :). Do you have any advice about
> finding related academic literature for ns-3? Other than searching
> related keywords in Google Scholar?

Google Scholar is a great resource for this.  We have a bibliography
list on our site (link here:
https://www.nsnam.org/overview/publications/) but it has been hard to
maintain because the digital libraries do not provide good APIs for
returning bibtex based on search terms, so it has to be manually done,
and we don't have anyone actively doing it.  However, many people are
publishing using ns-3, as you can see by searching the ACM and IEEE
digital libraries and by using Google Scholar.

We just concluded our ns-3 annual meeting at NITK Surathkal and
usability and education were leading discussion topics, so we are going
to try to make this a focus of activity over the coming year.

- Tom