The "common" sheet contains the controls that are required for each simulation, like start and stop buttons etc, but are completely independent of the traffic types and queue parameters. These controls are all placed on the last page.
There are 6 different controls on the common sheet. These are, from top bottom and from left to right:
Each of them is explained below.
This is the speed in bytes per second at which packets will leave both queues. It is not possible to compare two buffers at different speeds. Remember that this should be as least as high as the total of the average rates of all traffic types defined. When it is lower, packets will certainly be lost.
When a simulation is repeated several times, the same results are expected each time. But because of the stochastic nature of the simulation, variation occurs, By repeating the same simulation a number of times; we can determine the average and use the variation to determine a confidence interval. Making more replications produces a smaller confidence interval, but making to much short replications can also induce a larger confidence interval.
Simply how many seconds of artificial traffic should be used. The longer the better. Remember that the simulation starts with an empty queue. If the simulation is to short for the queue to fill up, no packet will be dropped because of this advantage. Therefor, take a simulation time always at least 20 time the time your traffic needs to fill the entire queue
Pressing this button starts the simulation. All previous results are destroyed.
This button is intended to add another series of replications. That means that the last series of simulations is remembered, and a new series is calculated. After that, the results for all measurements combined is shown.
Note that changes you have made to the settings are not used, the parameters used are the same as the ones used in the first run.
Abort the currently running simulation and destroy all results.