Network Loss Tomography Using Striped Unicast Probes

TitleNetwork Loss Tomography Using Striped Unicast Probes
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2006
AuthorsDuffield, N., Presti F. Lo, Paxson V., & Towsley D.
Published inIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
Page(s)697-710
Other Numbers2112
Abstract

In this paper we explore the use of end-to-end unicast traffic as measurement probes to infer link-level loss rates. We leverage off of earlier work that produced efficient estimates for link-level loss rates based on end-to-end multicast traffic measurements. We design experiments based on the notion of transmitting stripes of packets (with no delay between transmission of successive packets within a stripe) to two or more receivers. The purpose of these stripes is to ensure that the correlation in receiver observations matches as closely as possible what would have been observed if a multicast probe followed the same path to the receivers. Measurements provide good evidence that a packet pair to distinct receivers introduces considerable correlation which can be further increased by simply considering longer stripes. Using an M/M/1/K model for a link, we theoretically confirm this benefit for stripes. We also use simulation to explore how well these stripes translate into accurate link-level loss estimates. We observe good accuracy with packet pairs, with a typical error of about 1%, which significantly decreases as stripe length is increased.

URLhttp://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/networking/DLPT06-uinc.pdf
Bibliographic Notes

IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 14 Issue 4, pp. 697-710

Abbreviated Authors

N. Duffield, F. Lo Presti, V. Paxson, and D. Towsley

ICSI Research Group

Networking and Security

ICSI Publication Type

Article in journal or magazine