In the 25+ years the TCP/IP protocol family has been deployed on the internet, it has often faced

new problems and challenges. Even today, new extensions such as ECN and TCPs user timeout

option, are being added to the core protocols.

Newer network protocols, such as DCCP, are being tuned to better adapt to real world behaviour

(e.g. reaction to packet loss). New physical networks, such as wireless meshes, are deployed.

But how are new protocols, extensions to existing protocols, or even the performance of protocols tested? How can we validate that some change works as expected?

This talk aims to cover a wide range of approaches to ease the design and validation of networking protocols before wide spread deployment.