PoissonProb: A new rate-based available bandwidth measurement algorithm.

Accurate available bandwidth measurement is important for network protocols and distributed programs design, traffic optimization, capacity planning, and service verification. Research on measuring available bandwidth falls into two basic classes: the network traffic modeling algorithms and the self-induced algorithms. The self-induced algorithms are based on packet dispersion techniques. The currently available bandwidth measurement algorithms face the problems of distortion of measurement on multi-hop paths, system resource limitations, probe traffic intrusiveness and measurement accuracy. We have developed a new rate-based self-induced algorithm---PoissonProb. The intervals between probe packets of this algorithm are in Poisson distribution format and the algorithm infers the available bandwidth according to the average of probe packets rate. The algorithm has been implemented as the PoissonProb Available Bandwidth (PAB) measurement tool. The PAB tool can be operated in either sender-based or receiver-based mode. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .X56. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1418. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

Packet level measurement over wireless access

PhDPerformance Measurement of the IP packet networks mainly comprise of monitoring the network performance in terms of packet losses and delays. If used appropriately, these network parameters (i.e. delay, loss and bandwidth etc) can indicate the performance status of the network and they can be used in fault and performance monitoring, network provisioning, and traffic engineering. Globally, there is a growing need for accurate network measurement to support the commercial use of IP networks. In wireless networks, transmission losses and communication delays strongly affect the performance of the network. Compared to wired networks, wireless networks experience higher levels of data dropouts, and corruption due to issues of channel fading, noise, interference and mobility. Performance monitoring is a vital element in the commercial future of broadband packet networking and the ability to guarantee quality of service in such networks is implicit in Service Level Agreements. Active measurements are performed by injecting probes, and this is widely used to determine the end to end performance. End to end delay in wired networks has been extensively investigated, and in this thesis we report on the accuracy achieved by probing for end to end delay over a wireless scenario. We have compared two probing techniques i.e. Periodic and Poisson probing, and estimated the absolute error for both. The simulations have been performed for single hop and multi- hop wireless networks. In addition to end to end latency, Active measurements have also been performed for packet loss rate. The simulation based analysis has been tried under different traffic scenarios using Poisson Traffic Models. We have sampled the user traffic using Periodic probing at different rates for single hop and multiple hop wireless scenarios. 5 Active probing becomes critical at higher values of load forcing the network to saturation much earlier. We have evaluated the impact of monitoring overheads on the user traffic, and show that even small amount of probing overhead in a wireless medium can cause large degradation in network performance. Although probing at high rate provides a good estimation of delay distribution of user traffic with large variance yet there is a critical tradeoff between the accuracy of measurement and the packet probing overhead. Our results suggest that active probing is highly affected by probe size, rate, pattern, traffic load, and nature of shared medium, available bandwidth and the burstiness of the traffic

Ten fallacies and pitfalls on end-to-end available bandwidth estimation

The area of available bandwidth (avail-bw) estimation has attracted significant interest recently, with several estimation techniques and tools developed during the last 2-3 years. Unfortunately, some key issues regarding the avail-bw definition, estimation, and validation remain vague or misinterpreted. In this note, we first review the previous work in the area and classify the existing techniques in two classes: direct probing and iterative probing. We then identify ten misconceptions, in the form of fallacies or pitfalls, that we consider as most important. Some misconceptions relate to basic statistics, such as the impact of the population variance on the sample mean, the variability of the avail-bw in different time scales, and the effect of the probing duration. Other misconceptions relate to the queueing model underlying these estimation techniques. For instance, ignoring that traffic burstiness or the presence of multiple bottlenecks can cause significant underestimation errors. Our objective is not to debunk previous work or to claim that some estimation techniques are better than others, but to clarify a number of important issues that cover the entire area of avail-bw estimation so that this important metric can be better understood and put in practical use

On the reduction of the available bandwidth estimation error through clustering with K-means

There are different tools to estimate the end to end available bandwidth (AB). These tools use techniques which send pairs of packets to the network and observe changes in dispersion or propagation delays to infer the value of the AB. Given the fractal nature of Internet traffic, these observations are prompt to errors affecting the accuracy of the estimation. This article presents the application of a clustering technique to reduce the estimation error due to wrong observations of the available bandwidth in the network. The clustering technique used is K-means which is applied to a tool called Traceband that is originally based on a Hidden Markov Model to perform the estimation. It is shown that using K-means in Traceband can improve its accuracy in 67.45 % when the cross traffic is about 70% of the end-to-end capacity