A Block-Oriented Network Simulator (BONeS)™

Simulation plays an important role in computer-aided modeling, analysis and design of communication networks and related systems. A number of approaches based on Queueing models, Petri nets and Finite State Machines have been developed in recent years for simulating communication networks. This paper reviews the traditional approaches to modeling and simulating communication systems and presents a new approach based on a hierarchical, block-oriented modeling paradigm. The implementation of the block-oriented modeling paradigm in a graphical framework called BONeS (Block Oriented Network Simulator) is described and two examples are presented to show how BONeS can be used to model and simulate a broad range of communication networks and distributed systems.