A Measurement Study of Correlation of Internet Flow Characteristics

Lan, Kun-chan and Heidemann, John
USC/Information Sciences Institute

citation

Kun-chan Lan and John Heidemann 2006. A Measurement Study of Correlation of Internet Flow Characteristics. Computer Networks. 50, 1 (Jan. 2006), 46–62. [PDF]

abstract

Previous studies of Internet traffic have shown that a very small percentage of flows consume most of the network bandwidth. It is important to understand the characteristics of such flows for traffic monitoring and modelling purposes. Several prior researchers have characterized such flows using different classification schemes: by size as elephant and mice; by duration as tortoise and dragonfly; and by burstiness as alpha and beta traffic. However, it is not clear how these different definitions of flows are related to each other. In our work, we study these “heavy-hitter” flows in four orthogonal dimensions, namely size, duration, rate and burstiness, and examine how they are correlated. This paper makes three contributions: First, we systematically characterize prior definitions for the properties of such heavy-hitter traffic. Second, we show that there are strong correlations between some combinations of size, rate and burstiness. Finally, we show that these correlations can be explained by transport and application-level protocol mechanisms.

reference

@article{Lan06a,
  author = {Lan, Kun-chan and Heidemann, John},
  title = {A Measurement Study of Correlation of {Internet} Flow Characteristics},
  jlocation = {johnh: pafile},
  keywords = {Internet traffic, elephant, tortise, cheetah,
                           porcupine},
  xnote = {updated 20-Feb-05 wrt journal changes; orginal ref [Lan03c]},
  url = {https://ant.isi.edu/%7ejohnh/PAPERS/Lan06a.html},
  pdfurl = {https://ant.isi.edu/%7ejohnh/PAPERS/Lan06a.pdf},
  journal = {Computer Networks},
  year = {2006},
  sortdate = {2006-01-01},
  project = {ant, nocredit, saman},
  jsubject = {traffic_modeling},
  volume = {50},
  number = {1},
  month = jan,
  pages = {46--62},
  myorganization = {USC/Information Sciences Institute},
  copyrightholder = {Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.},
  copyrightterms = {Single photocopies of single articles
  	may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright
  	laws. Permission of the Publisher and payment of a fee is required for
  	all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying,
  	copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms
  	of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational
  	institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit educational
  	classroom use. Permissions may be sought directly from:  Elsevier
  	Global Rights Department / P.O. Box 800 / Oxford OX5 1DX, UK /
  	phone: (+44) 1865 843830 /
  	fax: (+44) 1865 853333 /
  	e-mail: permissions@elsevier.co.uk
  },
  otherurl = {http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/%7eklan/paper/flow.pdf}
}

copyright

Single photocopies of single articles may be made for personal use as allowed by national copyright laws. Permission of the Publisher and payment of a fee is required for all other photocopying, including multiple or systematic copying, copying for advertising or promotional purposes, resale, and all forms of document delivery. Special rates are available for educational institutions that wish to make photocopies for non-profit educational classroom use. Permissions may be sought directly from: Elsevier Global Rights Department / P.O. Box 800 / Oxford OX5 1DX, UK / phone: (+44) 1865 843830 / fax: (+44) 1865 853333 / e-mail: permissions@elsevier.co.uk