Simulating large-scale networks with analytical models

Discrete-event simulation of computer networks has significant scalability issues, which makes simulating large-scale networks problematic. We propose a high-level abstraction modeling network domains, inter-domain links and traffic with highly scalable analytical models, which is much more efficient but slightly less accurate than node-by-node models. Thus, simulation scenarios containing several ISP networks become feasible. We also propose a way to combine this modeling approach with traditional packet-based simulators and present some preliminary evaluation results of the concept.