Enhancing the control of IP tactical networks via measurements

Measurements in an IP communication system should serve network planning, allow the follow-up of Service Level Agreements and contribute in protecting the security of the network by detecting denial of service attacks as well as threats to the exterior routing protocol. In a black network, they will be best realised using active methods which rely on specific test flows. In a tactical system, they can be performed by software probes which will preserve the compactness of network nodes. All the components of a comprehensive measurement architecture are available off the shelf today, but some precautions must be taken to avoid a number of pitfalls which could lead to erroneous measurement results or make measurement overhead unacceptable. These precautions include an appropriate use of statistical laws and steps to compensate for some errors inherent in sampling methods. The conclusions of this paper are valid for deployable tactical networks, but not necessarily for highly mobile ones. Measurements in a MANET would require more theoretical and experimental work.