PingPair: A Lightweight Tool for Measurement Noise Free Path Capacity Estimation

The paper presents PingPair, a novel tool for end-to-end path capacity estimation. The tool is based on the classical packet dispersion technique, enhanced by a novel algorithm for the selection of the best measurement samples based on queueing delay estimation. In addition, PingPair takes into account the measurement noise that afflicts the interarrival times registered by a user level application; we experimentally observe the Gaussian nature of such a noise. Since PingPair relies on one- point measurements only, it can be deployed in almost all network scenarios, thus providing maximum flexibility. The performance of the tool has been assessed through both NS2 simulations and extensive experimental campaigns, including Internet as well as field trial measurements. The results are compared to those achieved by Capprobe, which is one of the most effective out of the many available one-point measurement-based capacity estimation tools. Despite the very low amount of probing traffic generated, PingPair outperforms Capprobe in most scenarios, yielding more precise capacity estimates; therefore, it proves to be a very fast and unintrusive way to measure the capacity of a network path.