Answers

What is WAN-in-Lab?
WAN-in-Lab is a wide area network in a single laboratory. It is an experimental networking testbed aimed at developing, testing and evaluating new communications protocols and technologies.

Unlike emulated testbeds based entirely on dummynet, netem or similar technologies, it uses real carrier-grade WAN equipment, and spools of fibre to produce delays. This seeks to reproduce a real production environment more closely.

What kind of hardware is in WAN-in-Lab?

• Four Cisco 7609 routers, each with one, two or three OC48 (2.5Gbps) packet-over-SONET line cards, and two with 10Gbps connections.
• Many CISCO 15454 ONSs
• 72-port Calient switch to allow reconfiguration of fibre interconnects
• 28-port 1Gbps Ethernet switch
• 24 spools of 100km of optical fibre
• Many Linux servers to generate and receive data, or act as software routers for AQM protocols.
• Two FreeBSD servers configured as Dummynets
• Connection to the UltraLight testbed

WAN-in-Lab can also be used to investigate the impact of different scheduling algorithms, or passive or active network measurement algorithms.

Where is WAN-in-Lab located?
WAN-in-Lab is housed at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

What is the difference between WAN-in-Lab and a real network?
WAN-in-Lab works in a totally controlled environment, allowing researchers to know exactly what routing and traffic is on the network. By being geographically localised, it also simplifies measurement of aspects of network performance.

How can I get access to WAN-in-Lab?
WAN-in-Lab can be used in either of two ways. Those who simply want to test their own TCP stacks on WAN-in-Lab, you can register for a benchmarking account. This will let them upload your kernel, book time, and evaluate TCP protocols by running standard tests.

For more detailed experiments users can obtain login accounts, configure the network themselves anddesign their own tests. Access is primarly via ssh to wil-ns.cs.caltech.edu, although some access is available via remote desktops.

For more information, send mail to

How can I book time on WAN-in-Lab?
Bookings should be made in advance using the WAN-in-Lab booking page (also linked to from the left navigation bar), so that others can organise their schedules around your booking. When your time is booked, you can ssh to wil-ns.cs.caltech.edu to use the facilities.

I am from a for-profit organization. Can I WAN-in-Lab?
Yes. Refer to the Guidelines for Commercial Use.

Who else has used WAN-in-Lab?
WAN-in-Lab has so far been used by researchers in NetLab, and other researchers in the Computer Science department of Caltech.

How does WAN-in-Lab achieve long delays with limited fiber?
WAN-in-Lab can provide a delays between routers, up to a total of over 120ms delay at 2.5Gbps, equivalent to trans-Atlantic distances. There are also servers configured as DummyNets to provide longer delays, equivalent to Trans-Pacific or satellite delays. WAN-in-Lab achieves long delays by using loopbacks to cause the signal to pass over each fibre up to 16 times.

I have used WAN-in-Lab for my paper. How should I acknowledge it?
Please add the following acknowledgement: " We acknowledge the use of Caltech's WAN in Lab facility funded by NSF (through grant EIA-0303620), Cisco ARTI, ARO (through grant W911NF-04-1-0095), and Corning."