Subject: [Ans-research] Network Scalability

From: "Foo Yee Loo" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 23:28:11 +0900

Dear all,

Greetings. I am new in the field of ad hoc network, so please pardon me for
asking a naive question: what is the importance of finding out the
scalability of ad hoc network?
Arpacioglu et al. in [1] have pointed out the importance of knowing the
scalability of the methods in use in an ad hoc network, as allowing us to
see which method is more scalable. But scalability of a method is not the
scalability of a network. Santivanez et al. in [2] have mentioned that we
can know which type of network (purely ad hoc, hybrid, etc.) scales better
than the other. However, isn't the choice of network type should depend on
the usage scenario instead of scalability? Various usage scenarios have been
summarized by Yang et al. in [3].
Santivanez et al. also mentioned about the possible desire of knowing
whether a network is scalable in [2]. However, according to [1], absolute
scalability of a method may not be possible in many situations. If any
method is unlikely to be absolutely scalable, is it likely that a network is
absolutely scalable? If the answer is not, then what is the importance of
knowing the scalability of ad hoc network?

[1] Arpacioglu, Small, and Haas, "Notes on scalability of wireless ad hoc
networks", Internet draft, work in progress, 2003.
[2] Santivanez, McDonald, Stavrakakis, and Ramanathan, "On the scalability
of ad hoc routing protocols", IEEE INFOCOM'02, New York, June 2002.
[3] Yang, Conner, Guo, Hazra, and Zhu, "Common wireless ad hoc network usage
scenarios", Internet draft, work in progress, 2003.

Thank you for reading.

Regards,
Foo Yee Loo
Info. & Comm. Eng. Dept.
Grad. Sch. of Info. Sci. & Tech.
Univ. of Tokyo

_______________________________________________
Ans-research mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ans-research

---

From: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 09:19:49 -0500 (EST)

Hi Foo Yee,

Here is my take on your question. 

The importance of being able to determine the scalability of a method is
in the fact that different methods may scale differently; ; i.e., RELATIVE 
SCALABILITY. Although a network using a method may not be ABSOLUTELY
SCALABLE, one method may be *more* scalable than another.

You are right in saying that the scalability of a method depends on the
network - this has been "captured" in the ENVIROMENTAL PARAMETERS in [1].
For any comparison to be meaningful, one has to be clearly specify the
ENVIROMENTAL PARAMETERS and the comparison has to be made with the 
parameters being substantially equal.

Zygmunt.
==-=-==-==
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Prof. Zygmunt J. Haas                    http://people.ece.cornell.edu/haas 
Wireless Networks Laboratory		 http://wnl.ece.cornell.edu
School of Electrical Engineering         
Cornell University			 tel: +1-607-255-3454
323 Frank Rhodes Hall			 fax: +1-607-255-9072
Ithaca, NY 14853			 e-mail: [email-masked]
U.S.A                             
	WNL web page: http://wnl.ece.cornell.edu
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-