Section: Scientific Foundations

Experimental approach to Networking

Based on a practical view, the Planète approach to address the above research topics is to design new communication protocols or mechanisms, to implement and to evaluate them either by simulation or by experimentation on real network platforms (such as PlanetLab and OneLab). Our work includes a substantial technological component since we implement our mechanisms in pre-operational systems and we also develop applications that integrate the designed mechanisms as experimentation and demonstration tools. We also work on the design and development of networking experimentation tools such as the ns-3 network simulator and experimental platforms. We work in close collaboration with research and development industrial teams.

In addition to our experimentation and deployment specificities, we closely work with researchers from various domains to broaden the range of techniques we can apply to networks. In particular, we apply techniques of the information and queuing theories to evaluate the performance of protocols and systems. The collaboration with physicists and mathematicians is, from our point of view, a promising approach to find solutions that will build the future of the Internet.

In order to carry out our approach as well as possible, it is important to attend and contribute to IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and other standardization bodies meetings on a regular basis, in order to propose and discuss our ideas in the working groups related to our topics of interests.