End-to-end Internet packet dynamics
Published 1 October 1997Open access
Vern Paxson
Citations539
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
The prevalence of unusual network events such as out-of-order delivery and packet corruption are characterized and a robust receiver-based algorithm for estimating "bottleneck bandwidth" is discussed that addresses deficiencies discovered in techniques based on "packet pair".
Abstract
We discuss findings from a large-scale study of Internet packet dynamics conducted by tracing 20,000 TCP bulk transfers between 35 Internet sites. Because we traced each 100 Kbyte transfer at both the sender and the receiver, the measurements allow us to distinguish between the end-to-end behaviors due to the different directions of the Internet paths, which often exhibit asymmetries. We characterize the prevalence of unusual network events such as out-of-order delivery and packet corruption; discuss a robust receiver-based algorithm for estimating "bottleneck bandwidth" that addresses deficiencies discovered in techniques based on "packet pair"; investigate patterns of packet loss, finding that loss events are not well-modeled as independent and, furthermore, that the distribution of the duration of loss events exhibits infinite variance; and analyze variations in packet transit delays as indicators of congestion periods, finding that congestion periods also span a wide range of time scales.
Keywords
Computer Science
IEEE/ACM Transactions on NetworkingRandom early detection gateways for congestion avoidance
6,255 Citations1993Sally Floyd, Van Jacobson
Red gateways are designed to accompany a transport-layer congestion control protocol such as TCP and have no bias against bursty traffic and avoids the global synchronization of many connections decreasing their window at the same time.
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication ReviewCongestion avoidance and control
5,337 Citations1995Van Jacobson
The measurements and the reports of beta testers suggest that the final product is fairly good at dealing with congested conditions on the Internet, and an algorithm recently developed by Phil Karn of Bell Communications Research is described in a soon-to-be-published RFC.
Congestion avoidance and control
2,447 Citations1988Van Jacobson
In October of '86, the Internet had the first of what became a series of 'congestion collapses' during this period, the data throughput from LBL to UC Berkeley dropped from 32 Kbps to 40 bps.
IEEE/ACM Transactions on NetworkingSelf-similarity through high-variability: statistical analysis of Ethernet LAN traffic at the source level
1,645 Citations1997Walter Willinger, Murad S. Taqqu +2 more
The superposition of many ON/OFF sources with strictly alternating ON- and OFF-periods and whose ON-periods or OFF-periods exhibit the Noah effect produces aggregate network traffic that exhibits the Joseph effect.
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication ReviewSimulation-based comparisons of Tahoe, Reno and SACK TCP
1,147 Citations1996Kevin Fall, Sally Floyd
The congestion control algorithms in the simulated implementation of SACK TCP are described and it is shown that while selective acknowledgments are not required to solve Reno TCP's performance problems when multiple packets are dropped, the absence of selective acknowledgements does impose limits to TCP's ultimate performance.
IEEE NetworkWide-area Internet traffic patterns and characteristics
1,074 Citations1997Kevin Thompson, G.J. Miller +1 more
Observations on the patterns and characteristics of wide-area Internet traffic, as recorded by MCI's OC-3 traffic monitors are presented, revealing the characteristics of the traffic in terms of packet sizes, flow duration, volume, and percentage composition by protocol and application.
A control-theoretic approach to flow control
752 Citations1991Srinivasan Keshav
A control-theoretic approach to reactive flow control in networks that do not reserve bandwidth is presented, and a technique to extract and use additional information from the system to develop a continuous-time system model is presented.
End-to-end packet delay and loss behavior in the internet
727 Citations1993Jean-Chrysotome Bolot
The measured round trip delays of small UDP probe packets sent at regular time intervals are used to analyze the end-to-end packet delay and loss behavior in the Internet and find that the losses of probe packets are essentially random unless the probe traffic uses a large fraction of the available bandwidth.
IEEE/ACM Transactions on NetworkingEnd-to-end routing behavior in the Internet
697 Citations1997Vern Paxson
It is found that Internet paths are heavily dominated by a single prevalent route, but that the time periods over which routes persist show wide variation, ranging from seconds up to days.
TCP Vegas
683 Citations1994Lawrence S. Brakmo, Sean O’Malley +1 more
This paper motivates and describes the three key techniques employed by Vegas, and presents the results of a comprehensive experimental performance study—using both simulations and measurements on the Internet— of the Vegas and Reno implementations of TCP.
Measurements and analysis of end-to-end Internet dynamics
575 Citations1997Vern Paxson
This work describes the resulting characterizations of Internet packet loss and delay, including general assessments of queueing time scales and available bandwidth, using a distributed framework developed for conducting end-to-end measurements.
Performance EvaluationMeasuring bottleneck link speed in packet-switched networks
514 Citations1996Robert Carter
The design and implementation of the probe tools are discussed, specifically illustrating the techniques used to achieve accuracy and robustness, and validation studies for both tools are presented which demonstrate their reliability in the face of actual Internet conditions.
Improving the start-up behavior of a congestion control scheme for TCP
461 Citations1996Janey C. Hoe
Changes to the Fast Retransmit algorithm are proposed so that it can quickly recover from multiple packet losses without waiting unnecessarily for the timeout, showing significant performance improvements, especially for short TCP transfers.
Compressing TCP/IP Headers for Low-Speed Serial Links
422 Citations1990Van Jacobson
This RFC describes a method for compressing the headers of TCP/IP datagrams to improve performance over low speed serial links.
Observations on the dynamics of a congestion control algorithm
377 Citations1991Lixia Zhang, Scott Shenker +1 more
This paper uses simulation to study the dynamics of the congestion cent rol algorithm embedded in the BSD 4.3-Tahoe TCP implementation and finds that the one-way traffic clustering and loss-synchronization phenomena persist in this new situation, albeit in a slightly modified form.
Framework for IP Performance Metrics
331 Citations1998Vern Paxson, Guy T. Almes +2 more
The purpose of this memo is to define a general framework for particular metrics to be developed by the IETF's IP Performance Metrics effort.
On calibrating measurements of packet transit times
277 Citations1998Vern Paxson
By analyzing a large set of measurements of Internet TCP connections, it is found that both clock adjustments and relative skew are sufficiently common that failing to detect them can lead to potentially large errors when analyzing packet transit times.
Self-similarity through high-variability
262 Citations1995Walter Willinger, Murad S. Taqqu +2 more
This paper provides a plausible physical explanation for the occurrence of self-similarity in high-speed network traffic based on convergence results for processes that exhibit high variability (i.e., infinite variance) and is supported by detailed statistical analyses of real-time traffic measurements from Ethernet LAN's at the level of individual sources.
IEEE/ACM Transactions on NetworkingThe synchronization of periodic routing messages
245 Citations1994Sally Floyd, Van Jacobson
The authors study the synchronization of periodic routing messages, and offer guidelines on how to avoid inadvertent synchronization, and show that synchronization can be avoided by the addition of randomization to the traffic sources and quantify how much randomization is necessary.
ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania)On the Dynamics and Significance of Low Frequency Components of Internet Load
223 Citations1992Amarnath Mukherjee
This study attempts to characterize the dynamics of Internet workload from an end-point perspective and concludes that efficient congestion control is still a very difficult problem in large internetworks.
Observing TCP dynamics in real networks
223 Citations1992Jeffrey C. Mogul
By analyzing traces of a busy segment of the Internet, it is shown how it is possible to observe pheonomena of the TCP protocol in “real life” and measure both their frequency and their effects on performance.
End-to-end routing behavior in the Internet
200 Citations1996Vern Paxson
It is found that Internet paths are heavily dominated by a single prevalent route, but that the time periods over which routes persist show wide variation, ranging from seconds up to days.
Wireless NetworksTCP extensions for space communications
163 Citations1997R.C. Durst, G.J. Miller +1 more
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication ReviewEnd-to-end packet delay and loss behavior in the internet
135 Citations1993Jean-Chrysotome Bolot
TCP extensions for space communications
121 Citations1996R.C. Durst, G.J. Miller +1 more
The results of the performance tests indicate that the SCPS‐TP extensions yield significant improvements in throughput over unmodified TCP on error‐prone links and significantly improve performance over links with highly asymmetric data rates.
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication ReviewA control-theoretic approach to flow control
78 Citations1995Srinivasan Keshav
A control-theoretic approach to reactive flow control in networks that do not reserve bandwidth is presented, and a technique to extract and use additional information from the system to develop a continuous-time system model is presented.
Measurement considerations for assessing unidirectional latencies
75 Citations1993kc claffy, George C. Polyzos +1 more
It is demonstrated that round-trip latencies are an insuucient and sometimes misleading method to determine unidirectional delays, which has signiicant implications for high-speed, multi-application, wide area, traac aggregating networking environments which often require predictability of precise delay.