Optimization Aspects in Network Simulation

Abstract

A primary goal of AOSD in the context of systems software has been to permit improved modularity without significantly degrading performance. Optimizations represent important crosscutting concerns in this context but also a significant challenge due to their fine-grained nature. This paper investigates how well the current state-of-the-art in AOSD can support such optimization aspects, via a case study involving an optimized network simulator, IP-TN. Duplication of optimizations achieved via low-level modifications to IP-TN in C++ have been attempted via aspectization of those optimizations in AspectC++. While comparable run-time performance is achieved with AspectC++ and (un)pluggability is clearly simpler, the effects on comprehensibility are less clear.