Network loss tomography using striped unicast probes Academic Article uri icon

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. 2006 IEEE.

published proceedings

  • IEEE-ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING

author list (cited authors)

  • Duffield, N., Lo Presti, F., Paxson, V., & Towsley, D.

citation count

  • 51

complete list of authors

  • Duffield, Nick||Lo Presti, Francesco||Paxson, Vern||Towsley, Don

publication date

  • August 2006