Integrating real world applications into OMNeT++

The discrete event simulator OMNeT++ is nowadays used for network simulations in the majority of cases. Unfortunately, it is not possible to easily integrate real world networking applications into simulation models. This, however, would enable less complex and more efficient development and evaluation of real applications, especially of those that work in a distributed manner, in comparison to an evaluation in real world networks. We therefore present in this paper approaches to overcome the shortcoming of real world application simulation in OMNeT++ and discuss problems and solutions that arise in this context. Our preferred approach for integrating real applications into simulation models is based on an encapsulation of real applications as shared libraries that can be dynamically loaded by OMNeT++ at runtime.